Rape victim denied emergency contraception based on religious beliefs of the doctor.

What makes you think that's true? Usually, the rapist is a man the victim is already quite familiar with.Personally I don't think doctors should have the freedom to withhold treatment for religious reasons. We allow doctors to practice medicine because it's in the public interest, that's why they need licenses. Thus, they're obligated to serve the public interest. If providing patient care violates their religious beliefs then they have an obligation to cease the practice of medicine. They can't have it both ways.Is that worse than being raped? I wouldn't presume to know. It's certainly not a good thing when the victim of a rape is betrayed by somebody who is supposed to help them.But I notice a lot of American doctors doing things like that, these days. It honestly seems like I live in the one country in the world where doctors expect to get paid doctor salaries to not practice medicine. It's ridiculous.

How so? In one situation, you have doctors asserting a civil right to deny another person's civil rights. In the other, two people are requesting a civil right that other people want to deny them.I don't see anything functionally equivalent, except where religion, as always, makes people behave like douchbags.

Isn't that the problem? That two people are being unfairly denied the right to establish that social contract?

Er, wait, now you've lost me. A gay couple wants to establish a contract between the two of them.A doctor wants to violate his contract with the state.How are those comparable situations?

Nothing faulty about it. There's millenia of socially redeeming history for same-sex marriage. It hardly destroyed the societies in which it was practiced.Not to mention recent history - where a multitude of countries and even one US state now allow same-sex marriage. Last I checked Canada hasn't descended into anarchy; last I checked, Massachusetts hasn't slid off into the ocean.So actually there's plenty of socially redeeming history for same-sex marriage. It's just that you haven't been paying attention, apparently. I don't see how that's an analogous situation, either.Is that how it works in your head? "All kinds of pervy weirdos might want rights, too, so we better not let the queers get hitched." I don't understand the reasoning.

Since same-sex marriage has been around in one form or another for thousands of years, does that count as a "traditional value"? You know that I agree with you that the government should be in the business of civil marriage, not religious marriage, but what legitimate state interest is there in setting churches as the authority over who can call themselves "married" and who can't?I'm all for churches having freedom of conscience to decide who they'll marry, and who they won't, but if the legal structures of marriage are divorced from the term, I don't see a legitimate state interest in preventing people from simply calling themselves "married."I don't know, maybe we're talking about the same thing. I don't think that I need a church to tell me whether or not I can be married or not; only whether or not they'll marry me. If not, fuck 'em. I'm calling myself married to my wife anyway. Who's to stop me?

If we have already granted civil union rights, then correct me if I'm wrong, but they can call themselves "married" anyway, just like anybody else can.Or, are you proposing legislation that prevents people from describing themselves as "married" unless they have the imprimatur of a church, as you implied earlier? I apologize if I misunderstood but that's what I thought you were saying. I agree 100%. It's just that when you say "I think the churches should be in charge of marriage" I'm not sure if what you mean is, nobody can say they're married unless a church says they are too, and we're going to enforce that with some kind of law.That seems ridiculous. I apologize if I misunderstood but that's what I thought you were saying. I think the legal concept of "marriage" should be vacated, but I don't think there should be any legal impediment to two people adopting the social mantle of marriage, if they chose to.