First…  Robin Wilson, professor of law at Washington and Lee University School of Law, writing in the Los Angles Times…

So what should states do to respond to [these] clashes between same-sex relationships and religious liberty?

What they should not do is what New Hampshire’s Senate did last week: pay lip-service to religious freedom while enacting meaningless protections. New Hampshire’s bill provides that "members of the clergy … shall not be obligated … to officiate at any particular civil marriage or religious rite of marriage in violation of their right to free exercise of religion." But this is a hollow guarantee: The 1st Amendment already provides such protection.

Okay.  Got that?  All those religious freedom clauses being written into same-sex marriage statutes are hollow, since the 1st Amendment already establishes religious freedom in the first place.  Well…duh.  But that’s not the point. 

Here’s the point…

In her May 3 Times Op-Ed article, "The flip-side of same-sex marriage," Robin Wilson urges state legislators across the country to undertake "the careful crafting of robust religious protections" when they draft laws to recognize same-sex marriages. Her goal in recommending such religious accommodations is to "allow Americans with radically different views on moral questions to live in peace and equality in the same society."

I share Wilson’s goals. States that recognize same-sex marriages should protect the autonomy rights of religious individuals and institutions at the same time that they protect the autonomy rights of gay and lesbian individuals and couples. But Wilson’s column does little to promote the careful crafting of accommodations to achieve the equality she seeks.

Wilson starts off on the wrong foot. She characterizes clauses such as the one in the New Hampshire same-sex marriage bill that reiterates the protection of clergy from being required to officiate at same-sex marriage ceremonies as "meaningless protections" and a "hollow guarantee" since the 1st Amendment already provides such protection.

Where was Wilson six months ago when we had an election in which the opponents of same-sex marriage insisted that the defeat of Proposition 8 would result in churches being forced to conduct marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples?

-Letter to the Editor, Alan Brownstein, May 11, 2009

[Emphasis mine]  See…here’s the problem:  No Alan…you don’t share Wilson’s goals.  Wilson’s goals are that his gay and lesbian neighbors remain second class citizens, Regardless Of What The Law Says.  This claptrap about churches being forced to marry same-sex couples, and all the other crap, is what we in the IT profession call FUD…  Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.  Wilson is a goddamned professor of law…he’ knows goddamned well that the first Amendment prevents states from doing to churches, precisely what the Proposition 8 hatemongers said they would.  And no…you didn’t see him taking them to task for it in the pages of the L.A. Times, did you?  There’s a reason for that.  It isn’t the religious freedom clause in New Hampshire that’s hollow.  As far as Wilson is concerned it’s the First Amendment that’s hollow.

So now what’s happening is that states and some gay rights activists are starting to call the religious rights bluff on this and expressly including religious freedom protections in their same-sex marriage and civil unions statutes.  And naturally, now we find out the truth…that the first amendment protections aren’t enough.  What they want is a religious exemption from the equal opportunity laws that everyone else must abide by.  A Specific Exemption in fact, just to accommodate their specific hatred of a specific class of people…gay people.  They want to be able to deny gay people health care and medicine, housing, jobs, services…in short, they want to be free to keep on persecuting gay people and same-sex couples regardless of their status in the eyes of the law. 

What you have to understand about the religious right is they’ve elevated persecuting gay people to a religious piety greater then that of belief in the resurrection.   You aren’t saved by the blood of Jesus Christ…you are saved by your hatred of homosexual people.  That is what religion is in the kook pews.  If a nurse can’t eject a gay person’s spouse from their hospital room, they have no freedom of religion.  Because it isn’t Jesus who saves.  Salvation depends on how much you hate your gay neighbor.  If we don’t bleed, they aren’t being righteous enough.

[Edited a tad…]