The boston.com news section is reporting a new TV ad being run in Maine that tries to make gay marriage look like a religious liberty issue—which it is, but not in the way the ad attempts to spin it.
In the ad, Jim O’Reilly of the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville says he and his wife paid $30,000 to settle the lawsuit and can no longer host any weddings simply because they don’t support gay marriage because of their religious beliefs. A voiceover on the 15-second ad then says, ‘‘Vote No on Question 1 to avoid this in Maine,’’ a reference to the Nov. 6 ballot question asking residents if they want to legalize same-sex marriage.
Gay marriage opponents say that the ad sends a message that legalizing same-sex marriage in Maine will have a chilling effect on free speech and that people no longer will feel free to follow their religious convictions.
Let’s have that same report again, with one slight edit.
In the ad, Jim O’Reilly of the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville says he and his wife paid $30,000 to settle the lawsuit and can no longer host any weddings simply because they don’t support mixed-race marriage because of their religious beliefs. A voiceover on the 15-second ad then says, ‘‘Vote No on Question 1 to avoid this in Maine,’’ a reference to the Nov. 6 ballot question asking residents if they want to legalize mixed-race marriage.
Mixed marriage opponents say that the ad sends a message that legalizing mixed-race marriage in Maine will have a chilling effect on free speech and that people no longer will feel free to follow their religious convictions.
Can you spot the difference? Me neither.
There are six more letters and one more hyphen in the second one.
(Do I get a prize?)
“I’m being oppressed because I can’t have my cake and eat it.”
They just plain can’t host weddings any more because their religion specifically says they can’t accept money from gay couples, somewhere!
It’s rather remincient of this speech by a pastor who does a lovely turn of the tables on gay marriage and segregation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=HeCLwtWbhEs
The old “Stop oppressing my boot with your face” defense.
This present exactly the same point Rev. Phil Snider made before the Springfield, MO city council. His presentation has been shown on several blogs, including Dispatches and other FtB blogs.
It starts out sounding as if he is ranting against same sex marriage…until he reaches the part where it begins to talk about the “evils” of integration. What he was reading was a presentation given in the ’50s or ’60s against civil rights.
And, yes, this is a religious freedom issue, but not in the sense that the fundamentalist want it to be. No one is trying to force them to participate in a gay marriage, or even to force them to perform gay marriage ceremonies. They, however, are trying to force their religious ideas on everyone.
In Maryland there’s a series of commercials narrated by a Worried White Woman, who intones very gravely that thousands of years of traditional marriage (no definition given but I’m betting she isn’t talking about rapists buying their victims or fathers selling their daughters to whoever has the ready cash) is being *attacked* and religious people are being persecuted by the very idea that perfect strangers be allowed to marry.