Congress has an opportunity to protect religious liberty and the rights of conscience at the federal level. Policy should prohibit the government from discriminating against any individual or group, whether nonprofit or for-profit, based on their beliefs that marriage is the union of a man and woman or that sexual relations are reserved for marriage. Policy should prohibit the government from discriminating against such groups or individuals in tax policy, employment, licensing, accreditation, or contracting.

The Marriage and Religious Freedom Act, sponsored by Representative Raul Labrador (R., Idaho) in the House (H.R. 3133) with 100 co-sponsors of both parties and sponsored by Senator Mike Lee (R., Utah) in the Senate (S. 1808) with 17 co-sponsors, would prevent the federal government from taking adverse actions. And rightly so: Tolerance is essential to promoting peaceful coexistence even amid disagreement. States need similar policy protections, starting with broad, across-the-board protections provided by state-level Religious Freedom Restoration Acts.

We must work to make sure that marriage law does not marginalize those who believe what virtually every human society has believed about marriage: that it is the union of a man and a woman ordered to procreation and family life. Such belief must not be treated as an irrational prejudice to be purged from the culture. Christians such as Barronelle Stutzman are now seeing the ugly consequences of such marginalization, and the threats they face are the opposite of civil or tolerant.