The Rev. Susan Russell states in The Huffington Post that religious liberty is not the liberty to impose your religion on everybody else. Then she gives some illustrations as to what religious liberty grants, and what becomes “imposing”:
For example: A Jew has the religious liberty to keep a kosher kitchen — but not to take away your ham sandwich.
A pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic had the religious liberty to abstain from meat on Friday — but not to confiscate my pot roast.
And an Evangelical Christian has the right to believe that God doesn’t bless same-sex marriages – but not to deny equal protection to the marriage of the lesbian couple next door.
So when our elected representatives are making decisions about equal protection for LGBT Americans the question isn’t what the Bible says but what the Constitution says. And nobody’s religious liberty is under attack when the answer is equal protection isn’t equal protection unless it equally protects everybody equally.