Same-sex marriage and the courts

In a recent editorial calling for same-sex marriage to be legal, the Century editors noted that if and when legalization happens at the national level, the First Amendment will protect religious groups that have their own position on the question. The government won’t, for example, be able to force a church or minister to perform a same-sex wedding against their will. 

Yet as Mark Silk notes, a range of religious liberty questions will likely have to be addressed—and probably litigated. These are limited and justiciable but not trivial. They include whether

• religious colleges must provide married student housing to same-sex couples
• religious organizations can discriminate in employment against people in same-sex marriages
• religious organizations must offer benefits to same-sex spouses of their employees
• individuals or organizations can refuse to provide services to same-sex couples