CHURCH AND SAME SEX MARRIAGE

When the Fathers of the Constitution wrote the 1st amendment, the basic holding of the entanglement clause was that Church and State should be separate, i.e. the civil government cannot tell the Church (any Christian, non-Christian, recognizable religious group) how to run their Church business. Concurrently, Churches cannot get involved telling the civil government how to legislate. Same-sex marriage laws are civil in nature and cannot mandate any duly formed Church organization to accept the civil marriage within the ranks of their membership. United States residents can choose whether or not to belong to a Church; they cannot choose which civil government to be subject to. When two people decide to make a lifelong commitment to each other, their only resource is civil government to recognize their decision and call it marriage. No government should deny the right of two people to marry. Churches can freely choose how to manage same sex marriages within their own membership.