In theory, allowing homosexual couples to marry should not undermine anyone's religious freedom. In reality, the California Supreme Court decision upholding gay marriage poses a serious threat to religious freedom. For the first time, the Court held that homosexuals shall enjoy the same legal status as race — protection as a fundamental right. Yet the Court has refused to recognize that religious liberty is a fundamental right and has ruled against religious freedom interests. The result is a legal imbalance where gay rights receive maximum protection, while religious liberty is granted less protection.

The issue is not about hostility to homosexuals. We affirm the gospel teaching that Christ died for all, and that His love is inclusive. Our analysis of the challenges posed by gay marriage to religious freedom does not justify any hostility, discrimination, intolerance or breach of the gospel principles of love to all of God's children. It also deserves repeating that the Bible affirms the value of human sexuality expressed in marriage between a man and a woman. So where's the problem?

Massachusetts, as the first state to approve gay marriage, gives us a view of where this may lead. The city of Boston required adoption agencies to serve homosexuals, and refused to accommodate the religious objections of Catholic Charities. Although Catholic Charities accounted for most of the adoptions in the city of Boston, it closed its adoption agencies rather than compromise its religious convictions. Thousands of children will languish in foster care, because the city itself did not choose to provide the adoption services to gay couples.

Now that homosexuality is equated with race, we can expect a wide variety of challenges to religious organizations that adhere to traditional biblical interpretations regarding marriage. Bob Jones University lost its tax exemption because its policy against interracial dating was inconsistent with public policy. Logically, similar challenges to the tax exempt status of churches and other religious organizations can be expected. Already, cases have been filed against wedding photographers who refuse to film gay wedding ceremonies. Will pastors who refuse to perform gay marriages be stripped of the right to perform weddings?

Beyond these future challenges, there are two critical cases now pending involving conflicts between religious freedom and gay rights. The Lutheran High School case involves a claim of discrimination under the Unruh Civil Rights Act against a religious school that expelled two lesbian students for sexual misconduct. The lower court ruled that Unruh does not apply to private schools. If this ruling is reversed on appeal, all private and religious schools will become vulnerable to a multitude of discrimination lawsuits.

In May, the California Supreme Court heard arguments that two doctors and a medical clinic discriminated against a lesbian couple by denying them artificial insemination services. The doctors argued that they properly referred the patients for services that they could not conscientiously provide. Lawyers for the patients insist that religion not be allowed as a defense.

We have long assumed that religious liberty enjoys a preferred status as a fundamental constitutional right, but this has not been true for nearly two decades. The Supreme Court discarded the First Amendment's protection for the free exercise of religion as a "luxury that a well-ordered society can no longer afford" in its 1990 peyote decision, Employment Division v. Smith. The California Supreme Court has not explicitly followed Smith. Instead, it has simply ruled against religious freedom in every case since that time. For example, in 1995, the Court held that Evelyn Smith's Presbyterian faith was not a good enough reason to refuse to rent one of her four duplex apartments to an unmarried [heterosexual] couple, despite the fact that in her city, Cal State Chico maintained hundreds of housing units exclusively for married couples.

The issue of gay marriage may be resolved in November when Californians have the opportunity to amend the state constitution to restrict marriage to a man and a woman. But this will not change the legal status of homosexuality as a fundamental right, given more protection than the right to practice one's faith. With such an uneven playing field, religious liberty faces an uphill struggle. The trend is that religious freedom will mean the freedom to hold one's faith in private, but not to practice it publicly.