The senators who cried wolf on the Respect for Marriage Act | Opinion

Remember the little boy who cried wolf? He wore out his warnings. And when the wolf really did come, well … you know what happened.

Listening to U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty talk about the bipartisan Respect for Marriage Act reminds me of that little boy. The bill passed the Senate with the support of a dozen Republicans and the endorsement of both the largest association of evangelical Christians in America and the ultraconservative Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But Hagerty and Blackburn dissented. Claimed the bill failed to adequately protect the religious freedom of Tennesseans.

I’m a religious liberty lawyer. Spent 20 years practicing before the Supreme Court and lower state and federal courts. Taught the stuff at Georgetown Law School and represented some of the biggest evangelical and mainline Protestant churches in America. I’ve lectured at Pat Robertson’s Regent University and chaired the Coalition for the Free Exercise of Religion that drafted and provided the primary support for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act – the most significant religious freedom legislation of the last 50 years. So, yes, I know a little about religious freedom. But the wolf that Blackburn and Hagerty say is at the door simply doesn’t exist.

What the legislation really says and does

Here's what the bill actually says and does. First of all, it really does nothing unless the Supreme Court reverses its decision that the equal protection clause of our Constitution gives couples of the same sex an equal right to enter into a state marriage contract as do heterosexual couples. More than 70% of Americans support the court’s decision, so it’s unlikely the justices will backtrack on this one. But if they ever do, the RMA kicks in.

And what will it do? Two things. First, require every state to give “full faith and credit” to any marriage that was lawfully conducted in another state. So if a married couple from Illinois – where they may allow same-sex marriage – moves to Alabama – where they won’t – Alabama will have to recognize the couple’s marriage as lawful. There’s actually a full faith and credit clause in the U.S. Constitution, so this is a concept with which states are very familiar. The second thing the new law would do is require the federal government to also recognize any marriage that was lawful in the state in which it was conducted. Again, nothing terribly new here but very important to the married couple when it comes to things like Social Security survivor benefits.

There's no impact on religious liberty and conscience

But what about the religious freedom of churches and other nonprofits like Baptist colleges or universities that may refuse to conduct such marriages? Section 6 of the bill states: NO IMPACT ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND CONSCIENCE. It goes on to state that no religious organization, including schools and faith-based social agencies, shall be required to provide “services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privileges for the solemnization or celebration of a marriage.” And any refusal to provide such things “shall not create any civil claim or cause of action.”

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But that didn’t satisfy some people, including Blackburn and Hagerty, and most especially Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who was particularly worried that the Supreme Court’s decision allowing the IRS to revoke the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University for racial discrimination might be used to take such benefits away from church-related agencies and schools that refused to recognize same-sex marriage.

So again, language was added to foreclose even that remote possibility – remote because the Bob Jones ruling has never been extended to include discrimination based on any other classification, including gender – which is routine in many Catholic, Muslim and evangelical institutions.

Here’s what the RMA now says: “Nothing in this Act shall be construed to deny or alter any benefit, status, or right of an otherwise eligible entity or person, including tax-exempt status, tax treatment, educational funding, or a grant, contract, agreement, guarantee, loan, scholarship, license, certification, accreditation, etc.”

There are genuine threats to religious freedom, most often to the freedom of minority religions like Muslims and Orthodox Jews who must wear head coverings or Native Americans who must ingest peyote in some of their religious rituals. Even America’s majority faiths occasionally face governmental restrictions on their religious practices, such as the refusal of a public school to allow students to pray or share their faith in noncoercive, nondisruptive ways. But this new law does none of these things, and our senators’ claim – like the little boy’s in the fable – makes it more difficult for us to defend against real threats when they do occur.

While this new law poses no threat to religious freedom, it’s not the law that makes me believe it’s good for Tennessee and for America. I’m also a Baptist preacher. What kind of Christians are we if we don’t afford the same recognition to a marriage from another state – whether we agree with it or not – that we would expect if we moved to theirs? Did Jesus not teach us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us? And what of the religious freedom of those who wish to enter into a lifelong monogamous marriage as they sincerely believe God requires rather than continue to “live in sin,” as my Baptist forbearers might have put it?

America has lots of challenges, but the bipartisan Respect for Marriage Act is not one of them. To the contrary, it is a shining example of how civil rights and religious freedom do not have to cancel one another out but can happily exist side by side.

Buzz Thomas is an attorney, retired minister and former interim superintendent of Knoxville County Schools.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Opinion: The senators who cried wolf on the Respect for Marriage Act