Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County

SAC Joins Amici Curiae in Support of Same-sex Marriage

In support of Unitarian Universalist Churches in California who have filed the following case in California Supreme Court in support of gay/lesbian marriage rights the Social Action Committee of UUFellowship of Stanislaus County has unaminously voted to lend its name to the Amici Curiae explained below. We have taken this stand as a Committee and in no way should this be read as representing the UU Fellowship of Stanislaus County and/or its Board of Trustees. The Committee is proud to stand with other California UU Churches. Martin J. Zonligt, Chairperson

Amici curiae are Boards of Trustees and ministers of California churches and fellowships that welcome members without regard to race, ethnicity, sex, or sexual orientation. Those congregations embrace and promote loving committed relationships between couples, whether heterosexual or homosexual. Their Boards and ministers accordingly urge this Court to embrace the arguments advanced by the Woo plaintiffs concerning the right of committed adult couples to marry - without regard to their religious affiliations, racial or ethnic background, sex, or sexual preference.

The case, of course, is not about religious marriage but about the civil marriage - a fundamental civil right. But recognizing that right has important consequences for amici, who feel compelled by their faith to celebrate marriages between couples in their congregations without regard to those couples race or sex. Unitarian Universalist ministers have faced criminal charges, lately, for officiating at the weddings of same-sex couples in New York - and some ministers in other states feel they no longer can officiate at marriages for heterosexual couples so long as the right of homosexual couples to marry is denied. Charges against the New York ministers dismissed only because a New York state-court judge had integrity and courage to recognize that the right to marry is a fundamental right that cannot be denied merely because of the contracting parties' sex or sexual preference. Amici urge this Court to do the same.

Moreover, because the arguments for discriminating on the basis of sex and sexual preference in dispensing the fundamental right to civil marriage are rooted in religious traditions, amici urge this Court to recognize that the point is one on which different religious traditions can and do legitimately differ. Religious traditions thus can provide no legitimate basis for denying the fundamental right to civil marriage. Indeed, our constitutions' religion clauses flatly prohibit laws designed to enforce one religious orthodoxy over another.

(17 October 2004)