The U.S. Supreme Court recently dedicated two days to hearing landmark cases dealing with the rights of same-sex couples. One of those cases, Hollingsworth et al. v. Perry, challenges California’s “Proposition 8,” a law passed by referendum in 2008 that amended the state constitution to deny legal recognition of marriages between same-sex couples. The other case, U.S. v. Windsor, challenges the federal Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA, which restricts federal marriage benefits to apply only to opposite-sex couples. Without knowing how these cases will be decided, it is likely that legal rights for same-sex couples will continue to expand. Currently, about a dozen states recognize same-sex marriage. As marriage equality meets with growing acceptance at the state level, familiar questions (and new conflicts) arise about how this sea change will affect the religious freedom of those who have religious objections to same-sex marriage.

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In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, a cab driver was dispatched to pick up a fare at a country club in northern Virginia. The driver, Mohamed Salim, an immigrant from Somalia, is Muslim. (He is also a naturalized U.S. citizen, an army reservist who served in Baghdad, and a married father of four!) When the passenger — who had been drinking but was said not to be intoxicated — found out Mr. Salim was Muslim, he allegedly became abusive, attacked Mr. Salim and fractured his jaw. Most of this was captured by video on Mr. Salim’s cell phone. According to The Washington Post, the passenger, claiming that the Quran mandates Muslims to kill non-believing infidels, declared: “If you’re a Muslim, you’re a [expletive] jihadist,” and continued, “You are just as bad as the rest of them.”

In our post-9/11 world, this attitude is not that unusual. In fact, I have heard similar sentiments expressed in Baptist churches — sans the inebriation and expletives, of course.

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