The Chicago Boyz may sound alarmist, but it was within the last year that a Christian pastor in Canada was charged with a hate crime for buying a newspaper ad that quoted some Bible verse about homosexuality.

I have to say that I disagree with the Chicago Boyz. Christianity is our majority religion, but not our state religion. Not all Christians (or at least people who think of themselves as such regardless of whether other Christians agree) believe that homosexuality is a sin. Allowing gay marriage does not make Christianity illegal in any sense. Christians are still free to live, worship and believe as they please. Having said that I would hate to see a situation here in the US like the one James mentions in Canada. Christians must be able to speak their beliefs openly and without fear of being charged with a hate crime. Yes, their words might incite others to actions that ARE hate crimes but it is the ACTIONS that should be punishable under existing laws, not the words or beliefs.

Not so fast, chris. A printer in Washington state just settled
with the ACLU represented gay couple because she refused to
print up their "wedding" invitations. If Christianity means not
providing services to gay "weddings" but offering services to real weddings, then Christianity probably is illegal in the Bay state
right now.

See http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_05_14.shtml#1084899947

Oh for chrissake. If two consenting adults want to engage in a binding contract, what are you gonna say? The mortgage broker can't finance the homebuyer's property? The daycare provider can't take care of the working mom's kids? The man and woman -- and man and man, and woman and woman -- can't get married?

2 -- Your reply is very thought provoking. On one hand, I think that the case you mention is probably an example of grandstanding by the ACLU; they went after the one printer out of many who refused to do the work and decided to get some publicity out of it. It's an example of why the ACLU bugs me so much. However, the ACLU going after someone is very different than the government going after them.
On the other hand, I doubt that Jesus the carpenter would have refused to build them a house.
On the third hand, there are many things that we now believe are unjust -- such as systematic racism under apartheid -- that had a Christian/Biblical basis at the time. Is Christianity illegal in South Africa since apartheid had a Biblical basis and has been dismantled? Or is homosexuality different because it has a New Testament basis rather than an Old Testament basis? Who decides?
Living in a country where we are free to believe what we want means living in a country where people believe things we don't like. Allowing everyone to pursue the religion of their choice means that no one can probably pursue any one religion in its purest form. No one can tell us what to believe. Sometime we are told how to act, when acting on our beliefs prevents someone else from doing likewise.
On the fourth hand when desegregation came there were a lot of businesses that were pissed off they now had to serve blacks. It's a slippery slope when you give businesses the ability to choose who they serve and who they don't.
I still assert that allowing gay marriage, and perhaps someday saying businesses can't refuse service to homosexuals, is a far cry from making Christianity illegal.

Layne,

That is precisely why I have favored - pretty much alone in my old GOP caucus - civil unions.

And if you dig back in my blog, I've long favored getting government out of the marriage business; leave marriage in the hands of whatever church (or whatever) wants to perform them, and keep the state's interest at the purely contractual level.

But that's a pipedream, and the Massachusetts Supreme Court's wholesale definition of law, and redefinition of 2,000 years of western tradition - is today.

Almost whenever I point out to people that in every case, when homosexual marriage has been legalized in any country (including Great Britain and Canada), it has been accompanied by Hate Speech laws that make it illegal to put the biblical case against sodomy, I get a sort of thousand-mile-stare in response. The feeling seems to be, "OK, so what?"

The feeling seems to be that Christian fundamentalists and conservative Catholics are pains in the butt anyway, so taking away their freedom of speech might be a good thing. Why not give it a try?

Old-style Liberals used to say often, "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." I don't hear that much anymore.

But then defending something to the death would be another sign of narrowmindedness, in the present climate of opinion.

"It's a slippery slope when you give businesses the ability to choose who they serve and who they don't." Really?

Actually it's called "freedom of association," and its the rule in a free country. Anti-discrimination statutes directed at public accomodations are the exception, directed at eliminating a specific evil. Funny how this gets turned around now.