Respecting gay rights and religious liberties

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SALT LAKE CITY — For some, the question of same-sex marriage creates an unbridgeable divide between those who support it and those who are against it.

Communities are trying to strike a balance between respecting gay rights and religious liberties. They are finding that defining marriage on paper is not the same as defining it in everyday life, when practical services involving same-sex weddings are being questioned as often as the weddings themselves.

Can a baker refuse to make a wedding cake for a couple based on religious grounds? Is it discrimination if a photographer refuses to shoot a wedding for a same-sex couple?

Deseret News:

So far, only clergy and large religious organizations are allowed exemptions from laws meant to prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, preserving the rights of religious organizations to decline to perform religious ceremonies for same-sex couples.

There is disagreement among activists on both sides of the issue about when, exactly, protecting the liberties of one group encroaches upon the liberties of another.

Steps are being taken toward compromise, though. Deseret News reporter Sara Israelsen-Hartley points out a 2009 ordinance passed by the Salt Lake City Council that outlawed discrimination for housing and employment rights.

To read more about the collision of gay rights and religious liberties, click here for Israelsen-Hartley's analysis in the Deseret News.