It’s unsettling to read about friends in the religious and conservative communities mobilizing against the gay marriage bill in New York. It’s not that I’m surprised at their conviction on the issue – they hold genuine and deeply held beliefs on it – it’s that I find myself in the uncomfortable position of opposing people I have worked closely alongside for years.

These are people I respect, and their opposition to gay marriage instinctively gives me pause. It makes me want to check and re-check my math.  But I have, over and over again, and each time I come to the same conclusion:  civil marriage is an equal-rights-under-the-law issue. Republicans should support it. Equals rights under the law is the philosophical doctrine on which the GOP was founded. Remember the “Black Republicans”?

“Civil” is the operative word in this debate.  If government was trying to force gay marriage on the church, any church, I would strap on a vest. Government has no right to interfere with religion in this country, and I would fight tooth-and-nail alongside anyone fending off government encroachment in that area. But this is the opposite. Gay marriage in New York would be purely civil in nature. It has zero to do with religion.

A handful of Republicans will be needed to pass this bill in the state senate, and any caught on the fence will come under withering friendly fire. How awkward. They will know their would-be executioners.

I can only pray for their strength in voting their consciences, on whichever side of the issues that puts them.