If you, however, separate reason and faith so that it's purely a rationalistic scheme, it will end in violence. If a pure faith scheme - sometimes called the fundamentalist scheme in modern parlance - you'll end in violence too.

Interest in religion is not necessarily interest in God. Religion in public life means a set of ideas, an ideology that has certain positions. Religion is then one more ideology among others. Religion is about God. Religion begins with a relationship to God, not a relationship to an idea. It is God who is an actor, not just individuals who have certain beliefs who are actors. God is an actor.

Equality, therefore, becomes the criterion because we can handle all that in process, but we can't handle that as principle without infringing on freedom.

He [God] made us free, and He respects that. It is two different spheres of causality. Interdependent, though. It is not two boxes looking at one another without any kind of direct connections. There are very direct connections. That's why the question of "how are we free if God is omnipotent?" is a real, constant question. Ultimately, God is all powerful, and yet we are free.

The presumption that the law can tell us what natural institution is supposed to be is a formula for totalitarianism. There's not equality in a family; there never is. And yet for that reason, the family is condemned as patriarchal. The goal of this sort of legislation is about the destruction of the traditional family, not just marriage.

Law is a process. If there is equality of process for everybody, then that's our definition of justice. Whether or not what is done is right or wrong, you follow the process. And so, the end result is just by definition within that alternative universe that is American law. Most people still operate within a moral universe where principles of good and bad and what is right and wrong in itself, and not just as a result of the process.

So, in every case if you really love someone there is an element of submission to them because you want what's best for them, and at times they're going to tell you what's best for them. Even if you have second thoughts about it, you'll probably still do it because you love them.