As we near the one-year anniversary of Obergefell, let's reflect on the many ways those who oppose marriage equality have done their damnedest to fight the law of the land:

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis of Kentucky refused to marry LGBT couples, claiming that her Christian faith was at odds with the ruling: "You have millions of Christians who object to this whole same sex marriage issue, are their rights invalid? Are their rights not worth anything?"

In response to LGBT non-discrimination legislation that was passed in the more liberal parts of the state, Georgia State Senator Josh McKoon pushed for a Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It was rejected in June 2015, but he did not relent, proposing another bill that would prevent the government from pursuing legal action against anyone at a state-funded organization who has "a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman or that sexual relations are properly reserved to such marriage." That one made it through the State Senate but was vetoed by Republican Governor Nathan Deal in April 2016.

Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe rejected a similar bill in March 2016 that would allow businesses and individuals to cite their faith as reason to refuse services for LGBT people.

You get the idea: social conservatives are using one of the core values on which this country is founded—religious freedom—to justify blatant discrimination.

Araya Diaz Getty Images

On its surface, the argument might sound difficult to dismantle: if a minister or rabbi or imam believes that God doesn't want him or her to marry two people of the same sex, who is the government to step in and do anything about it? Separation of church and state, etcetera. Go find another synagogue to have your gay wedding.

Not so fast, says George Takei, he of Star Trek and all-around-greatness fame. In the second video of his animated series, "Draw Your Conclusion," made in conjunction with The Social Edge, Takei points out that this is far from the first time religion has been used as a cover to promote discriminatory legislation. The Jim Crow laws of the post-Reconstructionist South were used to solidify state-sanction segregation. In 1901, Georgia Governor Allen Candler said, "God made them negroes and we cannot by education make them white folks." To oppose the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Virginia Senator Harry Byrd quoted from three sections of the Bible to demonstrate why laws banning employment discrimination and whites-only lunch counters should not move forward.

Then and now, such positions ignore the Establishment Clause, which prevents the government from favoring one particular religion. So while the First Amendment without question protects our individual rights to religious freedom, Takei says, "We may not foist those beliefs on others in order to deny, or reduce their participation in, or their enjoyment of civil society."

Aaaaaaaand…..mic drop.

Eric Sullivan Eric Sullivan is a senior editor for Esquire.

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