The Iowa Supreme Court's and the Vermont legislature's controversial decisions to extend legal marriage rights to gay couples marked a victory for same-sex marriage advocates.  Washington, D.C.'s decision to recognize other states' same-sex marriages has also been hailed as a civil rights triumph.

However, Kevin J. "Seamus" Hasson of the Becket Fund for Religious Freedom asks the hard questions: What effect will legalized gay marriage have on our First Amendment rights to religious freedom?For instance, would a religious marital counseling program have to extend services to same-sex couples?  Would a religious employer have to extend spousal insurance benefits to same-sex spouses?  Would a religious university have to extend subsidized marital housing to same-sex couples?

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Seamus Hasson is Founder and President of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a bipartisan, interfaith public-interest law firm that protects the free expression of all religious traditions. Since 1994, Hasson and the Becket Fund have successfully represented clients from nearly every faith tradition including Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, Native Americans, Unitarians and Zoroastrians. Along the way, the Becket Fund has won kudos from thinkers from Pope John Paul II to Elie Wiesel.

Hasson enjoys broad credibility in the national media. He has been widely quoted, appearing for example, in Newsweek, US News and World Report, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor and USA Today. He has appeared on broadcast news programs including The Today Show, Dateline NBC, McLaughlin One on One, NPR?s Talk of the Nation, and CNN Talkback Live. He?s also appeared twice on Al-Jazeera, debating Saudi clerics.

Hasson lectures and debates frequently, in venues ranging from Oxford to the Vatican, from Harvard to Yeshiva. He is the author of The Right to be Wrong: Ending the Culture War over Religion in America.