The two trends continue to go together: states enact marriage redefinition laws and those laws fall short of providing more than minimal protection for the religious freedom of institutions and individuals. In the various states, legislators make a big show of protecting in the same-sex marriage law what doesn’t require their attention-the freedom of churches and ministers to decline to perform marriages that are out of step with their respective religious traditions (sometimes these laws even admit that they are pretending to protect by statute a freedom that is actually guaranteed by the state’s constitution!). And the legislators then minimize the harsh reality that they are willing to provide little protection for people and institutions of faith that seek only to continue to uphold marriage as they are sure God intends marriage to be.

Carl Esbeck, Rick Garnett, Tom Berg, Douglas Laycock, Robin Fretwell Wilson, and other top church-state experts continue to tell succeeding states what they ought to put into their marriage redefinition laws in order to prevent the predictable and wrongful attacks on religious freedom and the many lawsuits that will be the consequence of these deeply flawed laws. Alas, no state yet has proven to be a very good student of the excellent education they’ve been offered by this gang of experts.

Their letters to legislators and governors are collected on the Mirror of Justice website.