While the leadership of the Catholic church and others rail against the New York same-sex marriage bill, other religious leaders say “there are some among us who are using religion as a smokescreen to hide their intolerance, choosing to misstate the plain language of the bill and falsely claiming that it fails to protect religious practice.”. Among those is Bishop Prince Singh of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester.
From the statement put out by New Yorkers United For Marriage:
Our faith traditions teach us that all people are children of God, deserving of love, dignity and equal treatment, and we the undersigned therefore believe that gay and lesbian New Yorkers in committed, loving relationships should be able to protect each other with the critical safety-net provided by civil marriage. We recognize and respect that not all faiths support marriage equality, and agree that it is appropriate that the proposed marriage equality legislation provides broad protection for religious freedom. Sadly, however, there are some among us who are using religion as a smokescreen to hide their intolerance, choosing to misstate the plain language of the bill and falsely claiming that it fails to protect religious practice. Nothing could be further from the truth: the Governor’s bill specifically provides that no clergy, house of worship or denomination would be forced to perform same-sex marriages or make their facilities available to same-sex couples for marriage ceremonies, receptions or other functions.