The United Church of Christ, whose origins go back to Plymouth Rock, overturned North Carolina's ban on same-sex marriage. The federal judge ruled that the state could not criminalize the role of clergy in solemnizing the same-sex unions of members of their congregations. "It is clear," U.S. District Court Judge Max Cogburn declared, " ... that North Carolina laws ... threatening to penalize those who would solemnize such marriages, are unconstitutional."

The religious bodies that brought and supported the suit illuminate why McCrory's statement, however belated it may be, was the right thing.

"We didn't bring this lawsuit to make others conform to our beliefs, but to vindicate the right of all faiths to freely exercise their religious practices," said Donald C. Clark Jr., general counsel of the United Church of Christ.

"The historic wins for marriage equality and our willingness to seek justice through the courts," said president Michael D. Castle of the Alliance of Baptists, "not only places us as a leading witness for justice, but also allows the Alliance of Baptists to offer a powerful and prophetic witness to a Christian faith where love always trumps fear, and where the welcome of Jesus always trumps hate and archaic religious dogma."

The Alliance of Baptists -- progressives who fled the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in the `80s -- and the Central Conference of American Rabbis signed onto the UCC suit as co-plaintiffs, along with a number of individual clergy from a variety of religious traditions.

"Depriving rabbis of the freedom to conduct same-sex marriage ceremonies in North Carolina," Rabbi Steven Fox, Chief Executive of the Conference stated, "stigmatizes our religious beliefs and relegates many of our congregants and community members to second-class status."

"There is no more central tenet to our faith," added Fox and several other Reform rabbis in the wake of the Windsor decision of the Supreme Court last year, "than the notion that all human beings are created in the image of the Divine, and, as such, entitled to equal treatment and equal opportunity... Thanks to the Court's decision, the federal government will now recognize these marriages as well, while still respecting the rights and views of those faith traditions that choose not to sanctify such marriages."

Remarkably, McCrory's statement explaining his veto of the legislation that would have exempted government officials from having to be in anyway involved in same sex marriage, is very much in line with the then Democratic governor of New York  Mario Cuomo's explanation in a 1984 speech at Notre Dame, that Catholic politicians, like any other politician, owe their first allegiance to their constituents and the U.S. Constitution. He argued for the principles of separation of church and state, and the rights of individual conscience. And he did it over the hottest issue of the time and the trickiest one for a Catholic politician to this day.

Cuomo was personally opposed to abortion, but pro-choice in public policy. (So was fellow New York Catholic and then-Democratic vice presidential candidate Rep. Geraldine Ferraro.) He explained why it was necessary to respect the reproductive rights of others:

"Catholic public officials take an oath to preserve the Constitution that guarantees this freedom," he declared. "And they do so gladly. Not because they love what others do with their freedom, but because they realize that in guaranteeing freedom for all, they guarantee our right to be Catholics: our right to pray, to use the sacraments, to refuse birth control devices, to reject abortion, not to divorce and remarry if we believe it to be wrong."

He underscored the fact that Catholic elected leaders "serve Jews and Muslims, atheists and Protestants, as well as Catholics." This, he said, requires them to bear a "special responsibility" as they work to "create conditions under which all can live with a maximum of dignity and with a reasonable degree of freedom; where everyone who chooses may hold beliefs different from specifically Catholic ones -- sometimes contradictory to them."

"The Catholic public official lives the political truth" he continued, "...that to assure our freedom we must allow others the same freedom, even if occasionally it produces conduct by them which we would hold to be sinful."

McCrory is not a Catholic, but he is in the same boat as any other government official whose religious views may conflict with the law.  They all swear an oath to uphold the law, no exceptions.