Oklahoma Latest State To Protect Pastors, Churches

by Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow.com (via GOPUSA): Oklahoma legislators are protecting pastors in that state, even as homosexuals are asking them to perform "marriage" ceremonies.

Gov. Mary Fallin has signed into law a bill that protects pastors and churches if they refuse to perform or host same-sex "marriage" ceremonies.

Timothy Tardibono of the Family Policy Institute of Oklahoma says the legislation is responding to the current moral and legal fight across the country. He cites religious freedoms that were once taken for granted – but not anymore.

Because of the various cultural forces," he says, "we're having to put those religious freedoms into explicit language in statute."

A landmark decision is coming from the U.S. Supreme Court in June that conservatives fear will erode natural marriage laws across the country.

Homosexual activists, meanwhile, are demanding "marriage equality" while they go after bakeries, florists, photographers, and other wedding vendors.

OneNewsNow reported in recent days that Texas, like Oklahoma, has passed a state law that protects pastors.

Without the state law, says the Family Policy spokesman, there's the potential that same-gender couples could take action to force pastors to violate their religious beliefs.

Citing a non-discrimination policy, a city council in Kansas proposed an ordinance in 2012 that would have forced churches to rent their facilities to same-sex couples.

A retreat property in New Jersey, owned by the United Methodist Church, was forced by a judge to rent its facility to same-sex couples.

There's already a movement among the far-left to remove the tax-exempt status from churches, which some homosexuals tie to churches' stance against homosexual "marriage."

"Churches that lobby to have freedoms and rights taken away from ANYONE should absoutely have their 501(c)3 status revoke!" a Wyoming homosexual activist declared earlier this year in a Facebook post, a conservative website reported.

In 2004, 76 percent of Oklahoma voters declared natural marriage should be preserved as state law. Mirroring the pattern in other states, the state's marriage amendment was challenged in court and a federal appeals court overturned it last year.

Pastors took notice, says Tardibono, especially after their phones began ringing.

"They had three calls from couples asking if they could have a same-sex ceremony at their church, and done by their pastor," Tardibono tells OneNewsNow.

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