Albert Mohler, president of the
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, this
week admitted that there's no criminal threat to pastors who refuse
to marry gay and lesbian couples.
Mohler, 55, made his comments during
this week's Southern Baptist Convention's two-day meeting in
Columbus, Ohio, at which the nation's largest Protestant denomination
approved a resolution pledging to defy the Supreme Court if it stuck
down state bans on gay marriage.
(Related: Southern
Baptists pledge to defy Supreme Court on gay marriage.)
Social conservatives often claim that
if the high court strikes down the nation's remaining 13 bans, then
pastors would face criminal prosecution for refusing to marry gay
couples.
Mohler said that the “real danger”
for opposing pastors wasn't the threat of criminal charges but a
cultural backlash.
“It's really important that you and
every other pastor needs to say, 'I'm not going to perform a same-sex
wedding,'” Mohler
said. “But let's be honest, there's not really a danger that
the sheriff's gonna show up and say, 'You have to do this.' So far
as I know, no pastor has been sued successfully for refusing to marry
someone on other grounds – that's not the real danger.”
“The real danger is we're going to
pay an enormous social, cultural price for not doing a same-sex
ceremony. We're going to be considered morally deficient. Let's
admit it. We're much more accustomed to being accused of being
morally superior. They've said we've been 'stand-offish' meaning
better than them, now a large part of this culture thinks we are
morally deficient,” he
added.