Fuck Samuel Alito and this bullshit argument.
Marriage is not just some private religious ceremony. The government attaches real, tangible benefits to it: tax treatment, inheritance rights, Social Security benefits, health insurance protections, property rights, hospital access, immigration benefits, and a mountain of other legal advantages.
So spare me the claim that same-sex marriage is somehow an affront to “religious liberty.” Your religion does not get to decide which American citizens qualify for government benefits.
If they genuinely believe marriage should belong exclusively to religion, fine. Then take government out of marriage completely. No married filing jointly. No spousal tax breaks. No government-recognized marital status. Every American files separately, pays separately, inherits under the same rules, and receives exactly the same treatment regardless of whether some church considers them married.
Then marriage can be whatever religious ceremony people want it to be.
But you do not get to keep every government benefit of marriage for heterosexual couples while telling gay Americans that recognizing their marriages somehow violates somebody else’s religion.
That isn’t religious liberty. That’s using religion as an excuse to give one group of citizens government privileges that another group is forbidden from accessing.
If marriage comes with government benefits, then equal protection means those benefits cannot be reserved for the couples Samuel Alito personally finds acceptable.