Carmen Fowler LaBerge is a religious liberty activist who predicted the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states. The second part of the Washington Examiner’s interview with her focuses on the religious freedom implications of the ruling.
Examiner: Will pastors who object to same-sex marriage lose their license to perform the civil aspect of the marriage ceremony?
Fowler LaBerge: I don’t think on that question it will be pastors who are targeted; I think it will be churches who have assets to defend. Because what we’re seeing in all those cases is that all those couples are going for huge, punitive damages. But I do think churches are at risk. Let’s take mainline churches. Let’s say you are United Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and you are in a denomination that now affirms same sex-marriage. They all have within them these conscience clauses to protect pastors.
But here’s the challenge: You cannot, you cannot bar an openly LGBTQ person from membership, and most of their wedding policies are keyed to membership — they think that’s a protection. It’s not, because if we’re only going to do member weddings, and we cannot exclude from membership openly LGBTQ people and it’s now the law of the land, when those members come to be married and you refuse to do it, you have no ecclesiastical backstop. Your denomination no longer protects you; you can no longer say this is against your sincerely held religious belief because you’re not in a denomination where it’s a belief at all.
Examiner: Let’s discuss wedding vendors, such as a florist, and whether their conscientious religious objections should be honored.
Fowler LaBerge: If I were a vendor, I would have already thought far more creatively about my answer to the question. I would already be in a formal business relationship with another vendor who does the same thing I do and is willing to do it for same-sex couples.
Examiner: That’s a smart idea. But should vendors’ faith objections be honored under the law?
Fowler LaBerge: This is so complicated. Flowers put together, using my artistic talent for a religious ceremony? I’m not doing that. But there are now so many civil ceremonies that are not religious. [A same-sex couple] having a civil ceremony — then I’m good with that. That’s just flowers for the same kinds of things I was supplying flowers for, before.
Let me tell you, here’s where the defense of whether it’s a sincerely held religious belief comes into play: Did you supply cupcakes to the Bar Mitzvah? Are you a Baptist, who is a believer in only Baptist baptisms and you supplied a baptism cake for a Catholic baby, or for first communion in the Catholic Church. What I say to people when they call about this and they are actually in this position, here are the questions I ask them: Have you ever baked a cake for a Catholic first communicant? ‘Well, yes.’ Well, that’s a sacrament; marriage is not. So, why are you so strictly holding the line on the marriage issue when you did not hold the line on the communion issue?
This is the question that the Christian community needs to be intensely examining for itself. Why is this suddenly such a big issue for me when I did not ever have an issue with baptism or first communion.
Examiner: In Part I of our interview, you said that the party perceived as “discriminating” tends to lose the argument. In light of that, how do opponents of legalized same-sex marriage reclaim the moral and political high ground on this issue?
Fowler LaBerge: I’m not sure we do. I’m not sure in this generation, certainly not at this point in the conversation, I’m not sure we do. I do believe that the other side is going to overreach. I do believe there will be an attempt to compel someone to perform a marriage they don’t want to perform, or a local church sued for not hosting it, which we’re already seeing in England, although their system is completely different than ours. Those will be seen as an overreach in our culture. But it won’t mean that the tide turns immediately. Sadly, what we’re going to see is marriage become even less valued in our culture. Once you start stripping away the meaning of something, it becomes meaningless.
Examiner: What would you like to see from politicians who share your view on marriage and how would you like to see them exercise their power?
Fowler LaBerge: I would like to see religious liberty on this issue, but even more broadly, domestically or internationally, be a major concern in this election cycle, because I think that within it, there are so many valuable conversations for us to be having as a culture. No. 2, I would very much them appreciate being very honest and upfront about their personal position, no matter what it is. In terms of their personal convictions about it, they should be very upfront and honest. I don’t necessarily expect to stand as exactly the same place as the president stands on everything. But I do expect to know where the president stands and to be able to count on that.
