New Legal Study Indicates Approval Of Same-Sex Marriage Would Trigger Discrimination Suits

Nov 10, 2008

Over 350 separate state anti-discrimination laws would likely be affected by the legal recognition of same-sex marriage, according to a new study by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

The Becket Fund surveyed over 1,000 state anti-discrimination laws -- specifically those prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender, or marital status -- to assess how those laws would affect religious dissenters to same-sex marriage if same-sex marriage were legally recognized.

The study found that all 50 states prohibit gender discrimination in some way, and only 37 states have explicit religious exemptions to these provisions, many of them quite narrow. This lack of robust exemptions could become a problem if (as has happened in some instances) religious objections to same-sex marriage are treated as a kind of gender discrimination. In addition, 33 states prohibit at least some discrimination based on marital status, and only 13 of these states provide religious exemptions, some with a wide latitude of exemption, others with only narrow exemptions. Of the 20 states that prohibit sexual orientation-based discrimination, 18 provide exemptions for religious objection.

Based on the data, The Becket Fund concludes that if same-sex marriage is recognized by courts or legislatures, people and institutions that have conscientious objections to facilitating same-sex marriage will likely be sued under existing anti-discrimination laws—laws never intended for that purpose. the rest