Religious freedom versus same-sex marriage

Does freedom of religion mean adherents of a religion can believe whatever they want? Maybe within reason.

Many religious beliefs cannot be validated today. Resurrections, healings, miracles. Most everything is interpreted from books. These books might have biases from the writers. Over time, these religious works would be likely be purposed to fit the need of the time. In the beginning there is a need to grow the power of one religion over non-believers, secular humanists, or other religions. Someone probably had an idea to prohibit contraception as well as homosexual behavior in order to increase birth rate of Christians. (I guess it was quite obvious that sex between two men or two women never resulted in children.) In the old days, more people simply meant more power. Therefore increasing Christian population was the reason behind prohibiting homosexuality. Political entities in Europe eventually probably didn't mind sustaining these beliefs. England needed fighters for its Empire. Germany needed more soldiers for it's world domination. Obvious right?

Today Christianity is no longer the fledging religion it once was. In America, Christians are the majority. They are the 800-pound gorilla to borrow the old internet boom days business analogy. There are plenty of Christians, and even some Christians have come to allow contraception. (Also, countries generally have enough population these days except Japan, some European countries, and Russia, but I digress.) Besides allowing contraception, there are other examples of Christianity changing over time to meet practicalities and becoming more 'civilized'. Anti-semitism, slavery, anti-native americanism, and anti-miscegenation were widely held beliefs earlier in America even when Christians were practically the only people on the North American continent. I don't think one can claim that Christians did not participate in these discriminatory activities or that some churches did not perpetuate such bigotry. I do credit that these forms of discrimination are mostly no longer tolerated in churches. I think it a matter of time before Christians see the light that being anti-gay is no more a fundamental tenet of Christianity than racism.

So, what of the argument that allowing same-sex marriage is discrimination against Christians? Well come on, folks. Christians don't rightly believe Buddists, Muslims or Jews will be saved. Surely practitioners of these other religions are sinners. But Christians don't try to prevent them from getting married. It isn't considered discrimination against Christians that Buddists, Muslims or Jews get married. One might argue, being gay isn't a religion, but being persecuted by other religions sure gives being gay religion-like credentials. Eventually the 800 pound gorilla religion is going to have to realize that claiming a small minority religion is harming them by getting married is not consistent and is unreasonable.