Religion and Obergefell et al. v. Hodges

Today's historic Supreme Court decision has thus far received an understandably mixed reception. I have been troubled by those, including dissenting justices, suggesting that religious institutions are now under threat by the decision. All of this in spite of the fact that the decision itself and Justice Roberts' majority opinion carefully protects religion under the first amendment. So let's talk about the rights of religious institutions and what this decision could mean for us as a society.

So, regarding marriage, what rights do religious institutions have? After the civil rights struggle of the mid-twentieth century, churches have to marry people of other races and interracial couples, do they not? And if they can't discriminate based on race, they surely can't discriminate based on religion! So, up to this point, all religious officials have had to marry all opposite-sex couples that have come seeking to be married, correct? WRONG!