LETTER: Religion shouldn't ask government to sanction marriage

Citing God over and over against the government concerning gay marriage is hopeless if not hapless for the defense of civil freedom. Religion has nothing to do with the Constitution. 

Religion is protected by the Constitution, but the Constitution is not based on it. Failure of conservative imagination and understanding history with regard to the political left is causing national despair. The wrong people are coming in, and the right people are fleeing our country. 

I agree with the logic of the left: You cannot use religion against government-sponsored marriage. To fight it, read American history and then throw the “tea” overboard. The colonists never thought for one second that Britain had a right to tax them for their own “tea.” Neither did the Chinese when the British empire shipped addictive opium into China for profit. Both parties succeeded by cutting off trade. 

The lesson is, throw all the “tea” overboard! No more government sanctioned marriage. American colonists broke the back of British power. They decided they could live without the tea, while the British could not live without the taxes! 

If the federal government dictates the rules for the sanctity of marriage, then government-marriage has no value, not for Christians, Jews, or Muslims. And if you marry using government oversight, then you stand with them. Churches must refuse to cooperate with any government oversight by simply keeping it private. Any minister can perform marital services without permission of government records, forms, or paperwork, submitted to a state or federal bureaucrat. Why does religion need a government to “permit” what only God can sanction?  

This is the final dividing line. Churches must publicly stand up and choose if marriage is holy or not. If it is, simply throw the tea overboard, and get on with business. —Mike Donohue, Kalispell