Government’s Interest in Stopping Nazis > Interest in Validating Couples

Ed Morrissey makes a good point (“Religion: The new Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?”) about the government’s new definition of marriage:  As a country, we allowed Quakers and other religious objectors to opt out of military service, even in World War II.  The protection extends to non-religious objectors as well.  If the government doesn’t force people to act against their principles for national defense and saving the world from Nazis—the most “compelling interest” the government can have—why on earth should it force people to participate (whether by baking cakes, issuing the licenses, or otherwise) in same-sex marriages?

In case you’re wondering, Mark Steyn sums up the latest news from various states:

Right now across the land town and county clerks are resigning because they cannot in conscience issue same-sex marriage licenses. In one Tennessee county, the entire clerk’s office has resigned. They are observant Christians – which is to say they hold the same view of marriage that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton claimed to until the day before yesterday. But an observant Christian can no longer work in the American civil service, or at least in those branches of it responsible for issuing marriage licenses . . . .

Read the whole thing for more discussion of how this relates to World War II and Nazis.