The semantics of the entire thing bothers the heck out of me. For the longest time, Brian Brown, Maggie Gallagher, and the rest of that bunch at the National Organization for Marriage constantly sounded the clarion call of "Let the people vote!"
So the people of Maryland did vote on election day in November. And they voted for allowing gay couples to marry.
That should be the end of it. But folks like Brown, Gallagher, and the rest of the folks of NOM don't want it to be. Apparently in response to the fact that their clarion call backfired in this case, they create new controversies and attempt to move the goalposts farther away from gay couples.
People have to make choices every day when it comes to what's best for them, be it their business or peace of mind. And the trolley owner decided to get out of the marriage business because marriage equality was against his personal religious beliefs. That was his right, but it is his only right. And even that right goes just so far because I have always felt that the "religious liberty" argument is a dangerous way to cloak discrimination with an aura of respectability. Just how far will this argument be taken? Today it's gay couples and trollies. How do we know that tomorrow it won't be gay couples and apartment rentals? Or African-Americans and apartment rentals? Or Jewish people and apartment rentals?
Just how many acts of possible discrimination will be allowed because of the "religious liberty" argument?
I'm sure we are going to hear more about this as NOM and its folks plot new strategies of making gay couples seem like the oppressors when all they want is the simple right to marry.
And to do so is not fair and it's not right.
Gay couples worked hard to earn the right the marry in the correct fashion, i.e. through the ballot box. These rights were won fair and square. And no portion of these rights, nor the dignity of marriage equality, should be sacrificed via sneaky semantics or weaving the thread between the lines