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If gay marriage was "legal" but churches, insurance companies, etc. refused to recognize the union or give them the same benefits...wouldn't they be able to be sued?
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No, churches would not. The First Amendment rights of freedom of religion and freedom of association are very close to absolute. The Supreme Court permitted the Boy Scouts of America to exclude gay members even though it is not a religious organization, and even greater privileges are given to churches. It also ruled that a church may discriminate in hiring even when it is acting as an employer rather than a church (for example, it may choose to hire only Mormon janitors if it chooses, even though it would be illegal for an ordinary employer to do that).
Churches are permitted to select/reject members on any basis whatsoever, and cannot be coerced by the state to give their blessing to anything whatsoever. This can never change as long as the First Amendment stands.
Secular providers of public accommodations, such as insurance companies, are a different matter, and have to recognize any marriage recognized by the state. This is true just as an insurance company that wanted to stick to America's traditional definition of marriage, which was a white man and a white woman, and refused to cover interracial couples, could indeed be sued. That traditional definition of marriage existed in this country for its first 360 years, from the very first settlement of the Jamestown colony in 1607 until the Loving v. Virginia decision in 1967. Recognition of black/white marriages is a recent and radical innovation and a total departure from American legal tradition.
Ivy, J.D.