# North Carolina passes hateful Amendment 1

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [May 9, 2012, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351 "2012-05-09T02:33:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 17

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**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/321 "2012-05-26T10:45:13Z")

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> [@gamerunknown](#):
>
> Would a federal law declaring marriage to be between a man and a woman be placing undue burden on Episcopal churches?

No, unless the law actually forbade the churches from performing such a ceremony.

But the law in North Carolina does no such thing. It merely forbids the government from recognizing that marriage.

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**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/322 "2012-05-26T10:46:59Z")

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> [@mister\_nyx](#):
>
> I may be misreading him but I think he’s describing the faulty but omnipresent arguments that anti-gay religious groups frequently make. I’m not reading his post as endorsing it, just describing it. “Marriage equality violates our first amendment rights” is a frequent (and obviously fallacious) argument that these jerks tend to advance.

Ahhh… well, then, my reaction to reading such a claim would be… “Not unless the law compels you to recognize same-sex marriage in your religion.”

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**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/323 "2012-05-26T23:18:32Z")

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> [@Bricker](#):
>
> Ahhh… well, then, my reaction to reading such a claim would be… “Not unless the law compels you to recognize same-sex marriage in your religion.”

You know it won’t, I know it won’t, but I have run across that argument many, many times. That marriage equality is a creeping step along the path to forcing religions that ban certain types of marriage to perform them.

Which is absurd, of course; every state now allows no-fault divorce and yet that hasn’t obligated Catholic priests to officiate marriages of divorcees but it’s an argument that is nonetheless apparently compelling to some people.

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**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/324 "2012-05-26T23:38:53Z")

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> [@Bricker](#):
>
> No, unless the law actually forbade the churches from performing such a ceremony.
> 
> But the law in North Carolina does no such thing. It merely forbids the government from recognizing that marriage.

Unless you are possessed of knowledge about this state’s statutes greater than my own (not at all difficult), and better than that of Episcopal priests who are obliged to follow the laws here, you are distinctly wrong here.

The amendment referenced in the thread title does what you say. But I am given to understand that in the labyrinthine intricacies of the General Statutes, there is a section forbidding clergymen from purporting to solemnize ‘marriages’ which are not authorized by statute. (The singlke quotes on ‘marriage’, of course, mean no slight to the very real commitment between the couples, but to the invalidity at law of such proscribed ceremonies.)

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