It isn’t hard to bump around the web and find people voicing their ideas as to what they want the US Supreme Court to say in its decision in the marriage equality cases before it right now. An opinion is expected in June, and much will change no matter how the decision goes. This isn’t the last effort or needed achievement when it comes to full equality. In a way, it is barely the beginning, with many more efforts ahead. And that’s if marriage equality wins. But as I watch conservatives across the country grand standing and trying to push these so-called religious liberty laws, here is the question, I want to see the chief justices address:

Are LGBTQ persons a protected class, and if not why shouldn’t they be?

From my perspective, that’s the real issue that these religious liberty laws will turn on. Courts have already ruled that gays and lesbians are singled out for discrimination. I believe in the Prop 8 case, the judge ruled that LGBT is a protected class. Unfortunately that case was so botched, that the judge’s ruling is rarely cited. The Supreme Court ruled that the anti-LGBT parties had no standing and so the circuit should not have heard the case. So what is it SCOTUS, are we or are we not a protected class similar to race or gender, or a host of other acknowledged groups of people?

If you take any of these religiously motivated discrimination laws, and take apply it to any other group of people, the law’s discriminatory purpose is without question. But too often, the issue gets raised by the anti-LGBT folks that gays and lesbians choose a sordid lifestyle. As if “choice” makes a difference. But people choose their religion, and religion is protected.

So, SCOTUS, I want to read in your decision, for you to detail how gays and lesbians have been treated as seconds class citizens and discriminated against, in such a way to demonstrate that we are a protected class, or should be a protected class.