“Religion” is the reason most people cite for their opposition to same-sex marriage. Big surprise: that was the most common reason we heard when talking to people on the phone banks with MN United.

But a pretty clear indication that most people still don’t understand that their religious beliefs cannot be imposed on others by law in this country. Your religion opposes same-sex marriage? Fine, then don’t get one, and no one will force your church to perform one either. That’s part of the definition of religious freedom.

But accept that you live in a country with religious plurality that happens to be a democracy, not a theocracy, and therefore you can’t impose your religious belief on others. There are plenty of people that belong to religions different from yours, for whom same-sex marriage is perfectly acceptable; in addition, plenty of people of no religion don’t feel a compelling need to adopt your religious opinion or the belief-based reasons behind it, and will resent you trying to force it on them.

And it happens to be unconstitutional too.

One more thing: a majority of Americans are now in favor of same-sex marriage, so your opinion is in the minority: now, I should stress that we don’t have a “majority rule” mentality on this, since protection of minorities against the majority is one of the major principles we like to defend. But it does point out the fact that your opinion on this is slowly disappearing into the fog of discriminatory history.

Fine, you won’t attend their weddings. I’m sure they’ll get over it.

Separation of Church and State: it’s not just a great idea, it’s the law. For your protection as well as ours.