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mony that runs counter to their beliefs.
• Frankenfeld said the measure dealing with businesses seems to be an assault on the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was passed mostly to prevent businesses from refusing service to black people.
• "You can't be forced to believe that gay marriage is OK. But you can be forced and you should be forced in your business to provide the same goods and services you provide to anyone else, regardless of their orientation or their color or their religion," Frankenfeld said.
• Rep. Steve Hickey, R-Sioux Falls, the lead House sponsor of the measures, said the bills are tolerant of gay people and those who oppose same-sex marriage. Gay people can find someone to marry them and provide wedding services, but they shouldn't be able to force pastors or businesses to take part.
• Hickey, pastor of a Sioux Falls church, said a court ruling legalizing gay marriage in South Dakota might expose him to lawsuits or prosecution because he believes in traditional marriage between a man and a woman.
• "Religious rights need to continue to trump gay rights. Otherwise, we're heading down the road of Iran, where it's convert or die, be quiet or die," Hickey said. "If we want to talk about church and state, this is a bill that keeps the state out of my church."
• Hickey said the public is free to avoid churches and businesses that don't support gay marriage, but he also anticipates a lot of public support for "people who don't want to make a wedding cake with a two-groom topper on it."
• Judges in Oklahoma and Utah recently overturned bans on same-sex marriages in those states. And a state agency in Oregon and an administrative law judge in Colorado recently found that bakers who refused to make wedding cakes for same-sex ceremonies had discriminated against the couples. Cases in other states have involved refusals to provide flowers or take photos in same-sex marriages.
• Lawrence Novotny, chairman of Equality South Dakota, said he sees no reason the bills were filed because the state already bans gay marriage. The bills are not needed and lawmakers should defeat them, he said.
• State laws ban gay marriage and say South Dakota does not recognize same-sex marriages from other states. A 2006 state constitutional amendment says only a marriage between a man and woman is valid.
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