On October 9, 2014, Kent Greenawalt of the Columbia Law School delivered a lecture at Colgate titled “Religious Exemptions for Laws Barring Discrimination against Same-Sex Couples and Requiring Insurance for Contraceptives: Should They Exist and Who Should Be Eligible?”
As same-sex marriage is made legal in more and more states across the country, and with a healthcare system in flux, it is not uncommon to find laws at odds with the religious beliefs of many citizens. As Professor Greenawalt observed, this raises vital questions of political philosophy regarding how the law should treat religious and other objectors.
Download the full transcript of Kent Greenawalt’s lecture.
The Constitution serves to protect and secure our inherent Right to Religious Liberty, it does not serve to provide free contraception coverage or to remove the necessary requirement for a marriage to be valid, which is the ability and desire to exist in relationship as husband and wife. So the question is, on what basis can anyone argue that we must violate our inherent Right to Religious Liberty for the sake of free contraception or for the sake of marriage equality. Regardless of Race/Ancestry, as the Law now stands, every man is free to choose a woman to be his wife, as long as that particular man and woman have the ability and desire to exist in relationship as husband and wife, and every woman is free to choose a man to be her husband, as long as that particular man and woman have the ability and desire to exist in relationship as husband and wife. How can there be gender discrimination in marriage, when marriage requires both a man and woman, united together as husband and wife? Marriage cannot be both existing in relationship as husband and wife and not existing in relationship as husband and wife, simultaneously. No judge has the authority to change the letter of the law, or The Letter of The Law.