In 2014, a year before the Supreme Courts Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized marriage equality in all 50 states, the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a lawsuit claiming that two pastors, a straight couple named Donald and Evelyn Knapp of Idaho, were being threatened with jail time for refusing to perform marriages for same-sex couples.This was despite the fact that the city said it never threatened legal action at all against the Knapps and instead only responded to questions about a private business the pastors owned. Related Conservative org insisted straight couples would divorce in droves if marriage equality were legal Instead, 10 years since Obergefell, the divorce rate is down. The idea that the government would force members of the clergy to perform marriages is absurd. The First Amendment allows religious leaders to refuse to marry anyone for any reason. Members of the clergy dont have to perform marriages for couples of a different faith, and churches can even set requirements for their own members to be eligible for a wedding in the church and the government cant do anything about that. Dive deeper every day Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues Subscribe to our Newsletter today But, according to ADF, the Knapps were living in a constant state of fear that they would be arrested if they declined to perform a same-sex ceremony after a federal court ruled that their state couldnt deny same-sex couples marriage licenses. ADF is a legal organization, and apparently, they never thought to inform their clients that their fears were unfounded.This month, LGBTQ Nation is looking back at some of the predictions made by opponents of marriage equality prior to the Obergefell ruling to see if they came true and, if they were wildly inaccurate, why people were making those predictions at the time. And while there were many resources for religious leaders back then explaining that the government cant force pastors to perform anyones marriage because of the First Amendment, a lot of religious people seemed to fear that they would be jailed for refusing.Several states, from deep-red Texas to true-blue Hawaii, even passed laws to protect pastors from being jailed for not performing weddings for same-sex couples, even though state lawmakers, many of whom were lawyers who presumably knew about the First Amendment, agreed that this was not something that was going to happen. Nevertheless, rumors spread on Facebook at the time about pastors being thrown in jail for refusing to marry same-sex couples, including one that was completely made up about a fictitious pastor in Vermont.This prediction, that pastors would be jailed if they refused to perform same-sex marriages, was made in bad faith. That is, it was just something someone made up to scare people into opposing marriage equality.More than that, it played into many rightwing Christians desire to be oppressed. Despite Christianitys stranglehold on American politics, conservative Christians like to see themselves as a beleaguered minority fighting against a system that wants to force them to change their views, a powerful system that they are bravely standing up to. Instead of just admitting that they face some minor social pressure to change their views and plenty of social pressure from people around them to keep their views they lie and say that theyre truly worried that the government is coming for them. [Televangelist] Jack Hibbs said he will no longer perform any marriages in his church rather than be pressured to marry same-sex couples, NPR reported in 2015, just after the Obergefell ruling was handed down. In that same article, Hibbs attacked other Christian leaders, calling them weak, pathetic hirelings in the pulpits who backed down and went into their little cloisters and hit out.Hibbs needed his actions to feel necessary because he was a true believer, a brave Christian. Thats why he needed to believe hed be arrested for only performing heterosexual marriages otherwise, there would be no stakes and nothing to differentiate himself from those weak, pathetic pastors.A third reason Christians made this prediction, though, might have been legitimate confusion that they brought upon themselves. In the years leading up to the Obergefell decision, one of the actual reasons conservatives opposed marriage rights was that it went against their religious beliefs. The Bible opposes same-sex couples marrying, so it should be illegal, the logic went, usually with no explanation about why public policy should have to follow their private religious beliefs. When LGBTQ+ advocates tried to explain that marriage as a government institution is separate from marriage as a religious rite, they wouldnt listen. Admitting that civil marriage and religious marriage are distinct would be admitting that they didnt have as much power over the government and, therefore, over others as they wished they had. I dont think theres any such thing as a separation of church and state, said David Lane, founder of the conservative Christian American Renewal Project, when presented with the notion that civil and religious marriages arent the same thing. The U.S., he continued, was established by Christians for the advancement of the Christian faith. My goal is to return to restore a biblically based culture and a Judeo-Christian heritage.I think that this outrageous decision [Obergefell] that was made last week just puts an engine on what were doing because I think that Christians in America are going to return to the public square with our values. Somebodys values are going to reign supreme our values or militant homosexuals values. LGBTQ+ advocates never pushed to force pastors to perform anyones marriage. They never pushed to ban anyones marriage, either. The battle was always about conservatives trying to reduce other peoples freedoms, never LGBTQ+ people trying to take away Christians rights to live their lives.But many on the right couldnt see that. They assumed that if they lost the battle, LGBTQ+ people would treat them the way they wanted to treat others. Claiming that they would be thrown in jail for not performing same-sex weddings was a way to make that logic concrete because they just couldnt imagine that other people wanted to live and let live.Needless to say, no religious leader has been arrested for refusing to perform a same-sex couples religious ceremony in the 10 years since Obergefell. But in 2022, the claim reared its head once more and made its way into the Respect for Marriage Act, the federal law that requires federal and state governments to recognize same-sex marriages performed by states if the Supreme Court were to overturn Obergefell. That is, seven years after Obergefell with no pastors having been jailed, Congress still felt a need to add a provision to the bill saying that religious leaders cant be forced to perform weddings for same-sex couples, something that one religious leader at the time called a tremendous win for religious freedom despite the fact that it changed nothing and the First Amendment already existed.Misinformation dies hard.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.