In the UK, a Tory — yes, Tory — Member of Parliament is calling on the British government to forbid churches that won’t perform same-sex weddings from being able to perform weddings at all. Excerpt:

In a letter to David Cameron the south coast MP had said that the proposed Coalition amendment to the 2010 Equality Act to allow religious bodies or individual places of worship to register the controversial ceremonies would remain “unfair” as long as heterosexuals could marry in the churches of their choice.

The law must instead be changed to compel churches to register civil partnerships, said Mr Weatherley, whose constituency near Brighton which has one of the highest numbers of gay couples in civil partnerships in the country.

He told Mr Cameron to follow a precedent he suggested had been set by laws compelling 11 Catholic adoption agencies to assess gay couples as potential adopters and foster parents, although most of them have either since closed or left the control of the church.

Mr Weatherley said that the alternative would be to surrender to a “messy compromise” in which gays would remain the victims of inequality.

“I am becoming increasingly concerned about the inequality which exists between the unions of same-sex couples and those of opposite-sex couples in this country,” he said in his letter.

“As long as religious groups can refuse to preside over ceremonies for same-sex couples, there will be inequality,” he said.

The future of religious tolerance in Europe. It’s not enough to leave these churches alone to be as troglodytic (from the MP’s point of view) as they like. They must be forced to conform — or else. Meanwhile, in our country, a well-informed Catholic friend told me recently that a sitting American cardinal of his acquaintance is of the opinion that his successor will have some fierce battles to fight to preserve the Church’s liberties in the face of attacks based on same-sex equality laws — and that his successor’s successor will have to face the prospect of jail to defend the Church’s teaching and liberty on this issue. I don’t think that’s far-fetched at all.

“Such behaviour is not be tolerated in other areas, such as adoption, after all.”