I’ve been baffled recently what exactly we are trying to protect with our push for religious freedom. It’s a topic I am heartily tired of hearing about in General Conference. This is a political argument that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me as a non-GOP voter because religious freedom is already guaranteed in our constitution. Trump’s argument that we should bar Muslims from entry to the U.S. is a threat to Religious Freedom and would be unconstitutional, but that’s not what conservatives are upset about (except Mormons who generally don’t support anti-immigration discrimination).
Liberal pundits would say that conservatives’ push for religious freedom is:
- a mask for preservation of privilege.
- the “right” to discriminate against others based on a claimed religious belief, usually women, gays and minorities.
- a way for the already-protected majority to portray themselves as persecuted and victimized.
In short, they see proponents of this flavor of religious freedom as whiny bigots, persecutors of the downtrodden who want to have their cake and eat it too, while refusing to let the gays have any.
Conservatives see it as a focus on:
- individual rights.
- the ability of the marketplace to self-regulate–or maybe not.
- the framers’ intent, namely the tradition of special privilege for religion.
In short, they see opponents of this flavor of religious freedom as secular modernists hell-bent on turning us into a nation of godless atheists and promiscuous homosexuals which leads to the downfall of society, cats and dogs living together, mass chaos, etc. Or put much less drastically, they fear that religious people will be scorned and rejected for voicing unpopular opinions in an increasingly secular world.
This argument is incredibly polarized with neither side willing to see the other side as acting reasonably or in good faith. Whenever we can only see the other argument as ignorant, dishonest or evil, there’s a good chance we are mischaracterizing and underestimating our rhetorical opponent.
I was talking with Michael Austin about this, and he made a salient point:
Back when I was teaching stuff, I spent quite a bit of time in my Advanced Composition classes talking about “stasis theory,” or the gentle art of figuring out exactly what kind of thing we are disagreeing about. Basically, we disagree about four things: definitions, facts, values, and policies. Each of these four things requires a different kind of evidence and a different kind of argument. And the vast majority of the time, we never actually get to having an argument because we are defending one kind of assertion with evidence and arguments that are not appropriate to the kind of disagreement we are having.
When we talk past each other about “religious freedom” it’s usually because we are disagreeing about the definition of religious freedom. To a liberal, it’s about not discriminating against minority and disenfranchised groups on the basis of their religion. To a conservative, it’s about preserving the values of a religious nation–preserving an eroding status quo, particularly as the nation moves to embrace same sex marriage as equal to traditionally-privileged heterosexual marriage.- Definitions. This is clearly an area for misunderstanding because our existing laws protect individuals from being discriminated against for their religious beliefs, and the “right” to discriminate against others because of our religious beliefs is not protected.
- The purpose of anti-discrimination laws is to protect those classes of individuals who have demonstrated a pattern of consistent discrimination. Extending this to other groups or classes is fine if they pass that same requirement. They would have to demonstrate a pattern of consistent discrimination against them that deserves protection as a class. There are difficulties because individuals within religious groups often behave differently when it comes to discriminating against others based on their religious beliefs: some Mormons would sell a wedding cake to a gay couple, and some would not. These actions are then a matter of private conscience, not uniform across a religious class, and not dictated by that religion.
- Religions (as an organization) already have special privilege and are exempt from anti-discrimination laws in cases where they can claim ministerial privilege. For example, it’s illegal to only hire men for an office manager job. It’s not illegal to only hire men as seminary teachers if your religion can demonstrate that the position they are hiring is “ministerial” and therefore requires priesthood which is male only. It’s illegal for a clerk to refuse to sign a gay marriage certificate, but it’s not illegal for a Cathedral to refuse to perform a gay wedding.
- Individuals have legal protection for freedom of speech, even to say things that are unpopular, but that doesn’t mean that our speech won’t cause us problems in society or interactions with other people. I can share my opinions as a matter of conscience, and you can share your opinion that I’m an idiot for the opinions I hold. Everybody wins.
- Some conservatives would like to create new ground for protection here by allowing individuals to discriminate against others in pretty much anything they claim is a matter of conscience. Liberals are concerned that doing so only harms those most in need of protection: existing protected classes. Conservatives assert that this is not an extension of the definition of religious freedom, but that it is already protected and must not be eroded. From the newsroom’s article on religious freedom: “And indeed, religious freedom protects the right of individuals to act in line with their religious beliefs and moral convictions. Religious freedom does not merely enable us to contemplate our convictions; it enables us to execute them.” But the newsroom article also adds: “Religious freedom and freedom of conscience are vital because they help sustain this system of peaceful coexistence, and they must be balanced against other considerations, such as the rights of others, the law and public safety. However, because these freedoms are so fundamental to human dignity, and because they contribute so much to society, they merit careful protection.”
- Facts. Both sides of the religious freedom debate see the facts according to the lens of their own values and definitions. One side sees a gay couple being discriminated against. The other side sees a store owner receiving backlash and being forced out of business for a matter of conscience. This is an area where I am a little confused because conservatives generally prefer to let the market self-regulate rather than having the government intervene. And perhaps the church’s push for religious freedom isn’t suggesting that the government truly intervene when a business’s unpopular actions result in it going out of business or a worker’s ham-fisted comments result in a lost promotion. But if that’s not what is being advocated, then what is the freedom meriting careful protection?
- Values. The real question here is what type of society do we want to live in. What will that society look like? The newsroom seems concerned that religious views will be so unpopular that they can’t be expressed at all: “Research suggests, in fact, that religious people in the United States contribute to, enrich and improve society. They tend to demonstrate a disproportionate level of social virtues like neighborliness, generosity, service and civic engagement. Hence it is not only required by religious freedom for religious people and their voices to be welcome in the public sphere; it strengthens the civic fabric of society.” Privileging religion may be a long-standing tradition, but I’m not sure how you privilege the speech of religious individuals in the manner being implied.
- Policies. This is of clear importance to the LDS newsroom: “An inadequate understanding of religious freedom can be problematic if it leads, for example, to policy and laws that define it too narrowly and protect it too feebly. Ignorance of religious freedom can also, without care, allow for it to be slowly and subtly eroded, leaving this fundamental liberty exposed or compromised.”
I recently listened to a Maxwell Institute podcast on the history of religious tolerance with Chris Beneke and Christopher Grenda. One of the interesting points in the podcast was that some of the most notorious Bible bashing Puritans were very in favor of freedom of belief and speech, despite their incivility, because without it, there was nobody to convert. While the Puritans might have made laws that were inhospitable to non-believers, they were also glad to have people to argue with and prove wrong. Perhaps this desire to convert is a common theme among all religious people who advocate for free speech.
To boil down the freedoms I hear the church talking about in the article, they fit into three categories:
- Freedom of Belief. The freedom we all have to believe and think whatever we wish.
- Freedom of Speech. The freedom to express our ideas and engage in discussions about our beliefs openly.
- Actions. The freedom to act based on our beliefs . . . so long as we are not breaking the law.
While the newsroom article is advocating for these freedoms within society, that doesn’t mean that those religious freedoms are applied within the church to individual members. Perhaps the article is recommending more tolerance within the church for freedom of belief, speech and action, but that seems unlikely. Declarations of belief are required to obtain an ecclesiastical endorsement to attend or work at BYU, and if beliefs change, individuals may be expelled on a case-by-case basis. Church members have been told that disagreeing with the church’s stance on gay marriage is okay, but that talking about it openly is discouraged and could result in disciplinary actions if it becomes advocacy. From an interview with E. Christofferson as reported in the Salt Lake Tribune:
“There hasn’t been any litmus test or standard imposed that you couldn’t support that if you want to support it, if that’s your belief and you think it’s right,” Christofferson said in January.
Problems arise only when a member makes “a public, sustained opposition to the church itself or the church leaders and tries to draw others after them,” he said, and that support swells into “advocacy.”
So while the recent newsroom article supports religious freedom of thought, speech and action, those freedoms only apply in the public sphere. Religions still exercise the right within their organizations to restrict free speech and action (and to inspect belief closely) if that speech and action runs counter to church objectives. It may not be a great example of what we are preaching, though. Tolerance is a one way street, which reminded me of this quote that’s been floating around about authority and respect:
Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority” and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person” and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t.
When it comes to religious freedom, the political discourse has often devolved to this level. Religion has been afforded a special case in the past, a position of privilege and authority as people looked to religion to provide a guide for behavior. The newsroom is defining religious freedom as preserving religious authority, the respect for religious viewpoints, the moral weight of religion in public discourse. But of course, these are things that are difficult to protect if society doesn’t agree that they are authoritative and deserving of privilege.
The newsroom article isn’t specific about what policies might be enacted that could endanger religious speech or actions. I’m not sure you can legislate moral authority, though. Your viewpoints either persuade or they don’t. One of the core conservative principles is the belief that the market will self-regulate. Requesting special privileges in the marketplace of ideas seems like a lack of faith in either the market or the ideas themselves. How do governments subsidize arguments to make them more persuasive?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
I’m a little unclear on where the threat is being perceived, as I’m not current on all the anti-discrimination laws, or those which may one day be enacted. In the gay wedding cake example, isn’t the church saying that the baker should have a LEGAL right to discriminate, and that this is being threatened by current or soon to be enacted anti-discrimination laws? Or are they saying there is a general spirit of intolerance in the media and elsewhere, towards bakers who choose not to bake the cake? I thought the argument was about legal protection for religion, not protection from secular intolerance.
Or is this more about preemptive lobbying because the church worries that churches will loose tax-exempt status, etc someday, if they refuse to marry gays in the temple? Do they see encroaching secular control, like in France, where headscarves are forbidden, etc? Could this sort of thing happen in the US?
Threat clarity really isn’t the point at all. Group fear and the resulting dislike (actually hatred) trigger a tribal response of banding closer together and deferring to authority for protection. This is the desired outcome by our leaders, who we hate and why we fear is of minor importance. LDS Mormons revere their persecution heritage, today it plays out over and over as us vs. “the world”. This is social (reverse) engineering, start with the desired outcome and manufacture a situation that produces that outcome.
Very insightful blog post.
Sometimes I can’t tell if the church is actually trying to persuade the US government or the US population. I assume it may be both, but sometimes using the same statement to influence both isn’t all that effective.
I like the way you divided up Belief, Speech, and Action. It seems clear to me in the US we really have quite a lot of freedom on the first two. I mean look at all Trump is saying and there is no discussion about clamping down on him from the government. I think there isn’t much of a case to say we don’t have religious freedom of Belief and Speech in the US right now.
But it seems the sticking point (the battle ground) is really around actions. I would suspect that IF he were to be elected and IF he tried to actually make a presidential mandate to ban all Muslims from entering the US that there would be a HUGE effort to block that from the government itself.
Brilliant comment, Howard. The fact that opponents of gay marriage used to (and probably still do) defend their pro-traditional marriage stance by saying gay marriage is a “threat” to traditional marriage just illustrated to me that they had no actual argument and were trying to use fear as a motivating/defensive tactic. Both liberals and conservatives, particularly in this country, use fear mongering as a tactic and make the grave mistake of thinking that fomenting fear=a good argument.
IMHO, the Mormon Church, like other conservative Christian institutions, is more about boundary maintenance and fomenting fear of the other rather than encouraging love and inclusiveness. The church can do whatever it wants, I suppose, but I find it remarkable (and sad, frankly) that a document that was essentially created by a team of lawyers (The Family: A Proclamation to the World) in order to give the church some sort of leg to stand on so it could keep discriminating against LGBTQ people is now treated as if it’s a sacred document. I think what the church did with the proclamation and what it continues to do in order to maintain its discriminatory practices is deeply cynical and quite shameful, actually.
And lastly, hawk, to the point you make in your final paragraph: I, too, wonder about what I would call spiritual self-regulation. The thing I can’t figure out in all of this mess is why Christians, who believe that Jesus will come and judge everyone and straighten everything out let the fear of gay marriage, rock and roll, porn, whatever, drive them. If you believe Jesus is going to come and straighten everything out, why worry? Isn’t Jesus the ultimate invisible hand of the spiritual marketplace? If yes, that would extend to the quotes you provide about “sustained, public opposition” to the church and its leaders. If the Mormon Church is THE ONE TRUE CHURCH that shall never be taken from the earth, why spend so much energy on boundary maintenance if you believe that the “evil” dissenters/disagreers will eventually be judged and punished by God? Smh.
I agree with he post. I think there may be a realisation that our leaders have, in the past, tried to impose their views on others, and now that they have lost the battle/argument, they fear retribution.
There is another article http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/video-series-mormons-defend-religious-freedom-respect-differences that I think is a softening, and does sumarise with
Engage others with love, respect and understanding, never abandoning our religious truths.
Avoid “large group free-for-alls” and engage people one-on-one.
Respect your interlocutors and seek understanding.
Stand up for the basic civil rights of others.
Recognize that mutual understanding will take time.
I showed this to a conservative member, suggesting a softening he might follow, and his response, was that the only part that mattered was, never abandoning our religious truths.
It looks to me like it will be difficult to retreat from it’s hard line position. Members like the one cited still feel entitled by the Lord to impose their views on others.
There are also a series on civil society http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/civil-society-engaging-differences that also seem more concilitory, and perhaps aimed subtely at Trump, though I don’t think anything subtle will get through. Perhaps its aimed at others to not become Trump supporters.
Perhpas one way we can learn more what church leaders are concerned about is where the church joins in legal actions. Recently the church, along with other churches and individuals, filed an amicus curaie in the case of a Marine–Monica Sterling-who was court-martialed and dischaged. Stirling was discharged for not reporting to duty, not wearing the proper uniform when commanded to do so and for not removing 3 signs (from the bible) from her cubicle which read, “No weapon formed against me shall prosper.” The Becket Fund filed the motion on behalf of the groups to address only the action regarding the bible verse.
Click to access US-v-Sterling_Aleph-Institute-et-al_Amici-Curiae-Brief.pdf
A link to her appeal:
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2784127/united-states-v-sterling/
There may also be church actions involving the Becket Fund on other issues(?) Hobby Lobby? Or ?
A lot of thoughtful stuff here…
I agree that for me the clashes seem to be mostly around the actions. And a particular sticking point is when someone is forced to do something they find repugnant.
A while back an anesthesiology resident was sharing some of his feelings about having to work on abortion cases. I was struck at how his feelings were so similar to people I knew in the Army, who had regrets about accidentally killing innocent women and children. It turns out that at some training hospitals, gynecologists can decline to learn to perform abortions, but anesthesiologists have to work on whatever cases are in the OR to which they are assigned. To be fair, abortions in a hospital setting are most likely done to save the life of the mother, which is well within our LDS guidelines…but he still finds it repugnant and hates being part of it.
When it comes to photographers declining to be part of a gay wedding, I found it telling that some such photographers had no problem with gay clients when it came to professional head shots or family pictures. So they weren’t anti-gay per se. They just didn’t want to be part of a gay wedding. And so their business risked being shut down.
Even though the couple could have easily found another photographer rather than suing.
I think that we will have a truly civil society when the gay couple is willing to find another photographer and get on with their happy day.
Naismith
It is entirely possible there would be communities where no photog would be willing to provide servcies for a gay marriage. At a minimum I believe the onus should be with the photog, not the client, to find and hire or contract with a photog willing to do such work.
“The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that all medical schools offer opt-out abortion training, but the reality still lags behind the official guidelines. In a 2005 survey of U.S. medical schools in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, only 32 percent of respondents said they offer a formal lecture specifically about abortion as part of their OB-GYN rotation, and 23 percent reported “no formal education” about abortion at all. (Some schools that don’t have classes about abortion specifically may address the subject in classes on ethics or contraception.) In the same survey, 55 percent of medical schools reported that they offered students no clinical exposure to abortion.”
(TheAtlantic)
Naismith & Lois
I am a retired RN, with a daughter who is a family practice physician. During my daughter’s rotations in med school, in a rural location, she took the opportunity to observe a physician who had learned to do an in-hospital abortion without assistance. None of the nurses were willing to be involved, so this Catholic doc figured out how to not need any help, since she had patients who were not able to carry a pregnancy, as in ” would end the life of the mother”.
With the exceptions you have noted, of the anesthesiologist, most docs can refuse. Most RNs cannot. Keep in mind that many of those administering anesthesia are in fact nurse anesthetists, even in the big hospitals. I suspect one reason the clinical exposure to abortion is lacking in med schools is because one argument that always works when refusing to assist is “I have not been trained in that procedure”. It works in the hospital because it holds up in court. As an RN, I could not be forced to do a procedure on which I had not been trained, because my license forbade me from doing so.
This was a major reason why my daughter chose to work within a Catholic health system. It is why I attended an LDS school for my nursing degree, & one reason why I worked NICU instead of med/surg.
There is a lot of concern in the comments above about what the leaders of the church are concerned about and what they deem to be infringing on religious freedom. I respect that.
But my paradigm changed when I found out that many church leaders opposed desegregation legislation. Take David O McKay for example. I don’t have the actual quotes, so I risk misreprenting him, but I understand that while he was opposed to segregation he was also opposed to laws against segregation. He believed that the government should not force a business to serve a particular person in a free society. His concern was protecting other rights such as freedom of association vs equal protection. These days, most people agree that the government can and should enforce desegregation.
What do I take from this? Well, I think I have to look to my own moral compass. I listen to the counsel of the church leaders, but I decide for myself what I think is right.
One issue that I’m still trying to figure out relates to pharmacists and “The Morning After” pill. There has been litigation on this. I want to research it some more. I believe a pharmacist declined to provide the pill to someone and instead provided referrals to other pharmacists, and at least one court ruled the pharmacist had to provide the pill or pay damages. It’s a difficult situation because while I don’t want to force anyone to do something they think is wrong, people need to be able to get their medicine without having to go to several different pharmacies.
In many US towns, the Church is denied building permits with the comment “we have enough churches.”
In Canada a Catholic law school had to litigate when its graduates were denied the chance to take the bar exam on the thesis that no observant and believing Catholic was fit to practice law in Canada.
It is things of that sort that currently get their attention along with litigation in Canada as to wedding venues.
The broader world (eg Russia slowly expelling or blocking all LDS missionary service) and similar things leads to the focus.
The issue is that the LDS are not a majority. They are smaller in numbers than Jews. And anti-Semitic discrimination is real.
They are much smaller than Catholics or the Boy Scouts, both of which have been losing access to public places.
So the concerns are real and not fictional.
I just want to state one thing regarding the free market arguments to rejecting service.
The arguments that I hear are basically that in a free market, people should have more rights to refuse service to other people. The claim, then, is that for the government to say that people must serve members of protected classes is an undue limitation on the free market.
I don’t necessarily think that people are criticizing social backlash against such actions (although they may also be doing this). I think they are criticizing the fact that antidiscrimination laws disallow someone from refusing service to protected classes, and those laws also give aggrieved parties the right to seek damages in court if they are refused service. (In other words, not only can the baker NOT refuse to bake the cake, but that gay or lesbian couple can then sue them for tremendous damages that may force the bakers out of business.)
In this example, there are a constellation of differences of opinion regarding several things. i probably should fit them in Hawkgrrrl’s schema of definitions vs facts vs values vs policies, but I won’t because I’m lazy.
But, let me just mention a few differences:
1) The status quo of antidiscrimination statutes w/r/t religious freedom hold a difference between individuals or businesses availing themselves to the public, private clubs, and religious institutions.
Per the status quo, religious institutions are often exempted from many antidiscrimination statutes, private clubs are sometimes exempted (but sometimes not), and individual/businesses availing themselves to the public are usually not exempted.
What the advocates of religious freedom legislation usually are proposing is that individuals who are religious (yet who are availing themselves to the public) should be offered similar exemptions as religious institutions. In other words, if a cathedral can reject to perform a gay wedding because of its status as part of a religious institution, then why can’t a Catholic individual availing him or herself to the public also refuse to perform services in support of gay weddings because of its status as a member of that religious institution?
2) Depending on how free market you’re talking about, some people may disagree with the reasoning of antidiscrimination statutes for a number of reasons. For example, people may disagree that
a) there is ever any need to require someone to provide a service to anyone else, in any situation. (Online, you might see some people arguing that this amounts to slavery [even though the businesses are being paid for their services, but whatever])
b) there is a need to require someone to provide a service to someone, when there are alternatives available. (E.g., why does that specific baker need to bake the cake when there are other bakers willing to do so? [This gets into a question of what counts as valid alternatives? E.g., if increasingly, no one is being trained to provide abortions, and there are onerous rules that cause many abortion providing locations to close shop…?])
c) there is a need to require someone to provide creative services to someone, rather than provide material goods. (So, they might say that baking a cake is a creative free speech act, and thus, requiring someone to bake a wedding cake is not simply the provision of a standard product for a set amount of money, but rather is forcing the baker to make a certain speech act that they would not want to make.)
“To a liberal, it’s about not discriminating against minority and disenfranchised groups on the basis of their religion. To a conservative, it’s about preserving the values of a religious nation–preserving an eroding status quo, particularly as the nation moves to embrace same sex marriage as equal to traditionally-privileged heterosexual marriage.”
Well this doesn’t seem like a balanced description: One side cares about equal rights while the other cares about preserving unequal rights.
While this is a decent (though still tendentious) description of some conservatives, it does not justice whatsoever to free-market liberals. For them, the market is supposed to be able to build moral and traditional values into demand curves in that people can collectively boycott whomever they perceive to be a moral threat. By forcing people to provide the same services for everybody, regardless of their morally evaluated behavior completely destroys the ability of the market to do this.
To be sure, I think a lot of free-market people would object to an anti-gay cartel in which no cake maker within a 100 miles is willing to serve a gay couple. (Jim Crow laws were absolutely concerned with just such anti-black cartels in the south.) But in the case of cake makers, there was quite obviously no such cartel. The gay couple was absolutely free to take their business elsewhere and tell all their pro-SSM friends to boycott that one particular cake maker.
The strange coalition among the political right is grounded in the ability for a free market to allow for the free expression of religious values such they are allowed to boycott customers in the same way that customers are allowed to boycott businesses. Without this connection, there is no longer any connection between a free market, free religion and the free association that bridges the two.
When the free market is attacked (by forcing businesses to serve customers that they would otherwise boycott) and then the freedom of association is attacked (by forcing boy scouts, etc. to accept those they would otherwise marginalize for moral reasons), its not unreasonable to suspect that the freedom of religion is next on the chopping block.
@Rockwell
There is a lot of confusion regarding the morning after pill because litigants have not adhered to the appropriate classification of these drugs.
The “morning after pill” prevents/interferes with fertilization. They do not cause an abortion–the loss of a fertilized embryo. Morning after pills are available through pharmacists. On the other hand, the drug known as RU-486 is classified as an abortifacient. It does cause abortion–the termination of a pregnancy/fertilized-implanted embrryo. RU-486 is not available from pharmacies. Women seeking pharmacolological abortions are required to see a clinician/M.D. who administer/provide the drug.
@Mraviene.
Don’t med/surg nurses just care for postop pts in a hospital? And wouldn’t an abortion pt more likely to be a gyn/obstetric pts? Typically med/surge nurses aren’t called off the floor to assist in abortion procedures are they?
Two more items:
This was an interesting article which appeared in the Deseret News of the chief LDS Church attorney laying out different levels of religious freedom issues.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865657637/Elder-Wickman-Matt-Holland-address-religious-freedom-in-secular-age-at-BYU.html?pg=all
And
What about FLDS church’s freedom to practice polygamy? Will there be challenges to that prohibition? If not, why not?
“There is a lot of confusion regarding the morning after pill because litigants have not adhered to the appropriate classification of these drugs.”
You have some very good information there, but I think the case in question is actually about a pharmacist refusing to provide the morning after pill as I said before. Later on I may check and provide more info.
But in fact if we are talking about religious freedom, I’m not sure if it should matter. Can a hypothetical pharmacist refuse to provide any other drug on religious grounds? Opiates? Cannabis, after legalization? Can a court compel them or enforce damages if they refuse? I do not know.
If an African-Amercan artist turns down a commission to celebrate the __th birthday of the Ku Klux Klan on religious grounds that he or she cannot support that legal organization’s values, that’s okay with me.
If a Jewish artist turns down a commission to celebrate the __th birthday of a dead Nazi’s __th birthday on religious grounds, that’s okay with me.
If a baker or photographer turns down a commission to celebrate a gay marriage on religious grounds, that’s fine with me.
If a decorative welder wants to turn down a commission for a dagger that will be used in child sacrifice by a secret combination of child molesters on religious grounds, that’s fine with me.
If a religious assembly wants to limit its priesthood to men, that’s okay with me.
If a religious assembly wants to accept only converts from certain ethnic backrounds, that’s okay with me.
If a religious assembly wants to recognize only marriage between a man and a woman, and to declare all other marriages to be sin, that’s okay with me.
And so forth.
Note: In matters of business, I tend to differentiate between those services (a) involving artistry and conscience and those (b) involving commodities. I am far more supportive of the right of artists to turn down commissions that I am for peddlers to refuse to sell their commodity wares. For example, I see a difference between an artistically-decorated wedding cake and a standard frosted sheet cake.
Beep…
blacksgays are bad. See Social experimentI think the government shouldn’t be given authority to force people to act in ways that violate their consciences. With the gay wedding example, I don’t feel a minister-for-hire should be forced to perform the wedding, or a photographer forced to do the photographer, or even a baker forced to put a same-sex couple on the cake. I think we need gynecologists who can perform abortions because I think there are times when the procedure is both moral and needed, but I don’t think medical personnel should be required to participate in abortions they feel are immoral. I don’t think a fertility doctor should lose her license because she refuses to artificially inseminate a gay couple on moral grounds.
I understand the argument about discrimination. If it comes to something other than a service that is offered to the general public, it shouldn’t be withheld from people the provider might disapprove of. A justice of the peace should not be able to withhold marriage licenses from gays, or apartment complex owners allowed to discriminate against gays when it comes to renting rooms.
I feel religious freedom is threatened when the government says you’re not allowed to evaluate the morality of an action based on circumstances. The same action can have different moral overtones from one situation to the next.
On the other hand, I think public pressure and boycotts of service providers who act their consciences is not a violation of their religious freedom. We have a right to choose whom we disparage. I also think employers can require people to do things as part of their jobs, and if they find those things immoral and refuse to perform them, the employer shouldn’t be forced to keep them on.
I just don’t feel the government should be given the authority to force people to act against their consciences, and it’s becoming clear to me that isn’t the majority opinion in our country any longer.
This seems to me to be about respecting the other persons right to decide for themselves. When we refuse services aren’t we saying I am deciding whats best for you?
I am not aware of this debate in Australia. There are those on the extreme right who are still preventing marriage equality, but they have lost the respect of the majority, which is perhaps what the church is afraid of.
Is there this debate in other countries?
“When we refuse services aren’t we saying I am deciding whats best for you?”
No, not necessarily. Person A can refuse to perform a service for Person B because it’s not right for Person A.
Geoff,
“When we refuse services aren’t we saying I am deciding whats best for you?”
Do you think that’s what a customer is doing when they boycott a business? They’re basically the same aren’t they?
Here is a link to a story about the case I mentioned earlier.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/supreme-court-declines-hear-pharmacy-s-religious-objections-case-n600261
It’s interesting. The Washington law allows pharmacists to choose what medicine to stock UNLESS they have a religious objection.
As an ethical matter, my biggest problem with the religious freedom/discrimination argument is that it really does seem to entail a particular animus toward gay people. I get what Naismith is saying–because photographers are willing to do head shots of a gay guy, just not a wedding, it’s not anti-gay, just anti-gay marraige–but it still seems that much of the wedding-centric discrimination is specifically anti-gay.
Catholic doctrine doesn’t permit divorce, and, by extension, holds that marrying someone else after being divorced would constitute adultery. But you don’t hear about the plethora of Catholic bakers who need to check in on their clients’ previous marital status before agreeing to do the wedding. Many Christians oppose premarital sex. But you don’t hear about a plethora of photographers saying, “Wow, you have a lovely family, and I can’t wait to do these family pictures of you, but could I please see your marriage license first? Because if it turns out you’re raising these kids together while living in sin, well, then I can’t be involved.”
Again, I’m not talking about the legal issue, but just as an ethical matter, I would be a lot more convinced that this discrimination was about religious freedom if it was applied equally to all sinners. Where are the bakers who won’t bake cakes if alcohol is served at the wedding, or the wedding venue owners who won’t permit marriages on their premises if the bride and groom aren’t the same religion? Many people believe these to be sin, but it never occurs to them that they are somehow promoting evil by going along with it, or that they have some moral obligation to take a stand against it by refusing to participate. Religious individuals are free to believe homosexuality is a sin, but they should at least have the decency to treat gay people the way they treat other sinners. It’s when religious individuals seem to hold on to a special dislike of gay people, and a special standard of how they will treat gay people, that it looks a lot less like religious freedom, and a lot more like bigotry.
Again, this has been about ethics, rather than laws. Typically speaking, though there are some exceptions, courts don’t question the sincerity of someone’s beliefs (and there are good reasons for this). So if a Catholic baker refuses to bake a cake for a gay couple, but does bake cakes for divorced couples, you’re not going to get anywhere talking about that in a court of law. They are perfectly free to sit on the stand under oath and say, ‘Well, I think gay marriages are sinful, and I don’t think a divorced person getting married is sinful.’ You can’t cite Catholic doctrine to the court to try and prove what they believe, or try and argue what they are ‘supposed’ to believe. Nor should you be able to do so.
(For similar reasons, this is why the debate about pharmacists, morning-after pills, and RU-486 are irrelevant. One may be abortifacient while one may only prevent fertilization, but you can’t ‘prove’ that the pharmacist believes abortion is wrong, but should be fine with preventing fertilization. They are simply free to say, “Well, I don’t care if my church is against abortion but ok with other contraception, I’m against all contraception, so I am against the morning after pill *in addition to* being against RU-486.” Courts won’t question the sincerity of that belief.)
This is all totally anecdotal, of course. Maybe the media just isn’t reporting other types of religious-based, anti-sinful behavior discrimination. But to the extent it is true, that’s why I would support anti-discrimination laws, even at the expense of religious peoples’ conscience. It just seems like it stems from a particular dislike of a specific group of people, rather than from a sincere desire not to promote something you believe to be sin. Yeah, if you’re a gay couple about to get married, I really don’t know why you want to force someone who is clearly uncomfortable with it to be your baker or photographer. Go find someone else. But as a society, I’m not particularly fond of simply letting the free market take its toll on businesses when the behavior they’re engaging in is discrimination of a specific minority due primarily to their dislike of that minority.
Just a follow up to what I wrote about morning after pills–I wanted to clarify that when I said it was “irrelevant,” I meant only that it was irrelevant in the eyes of a court determining sincerity of belief. The case being discussed obviously didn’t turn on this issue. I just wanted to be clear that in other cases, with other facts, a court would not look at whether or not the pill prevented fertilization vs. whether it caused an abortion. All that would matter is that the person has a personal religious opposition to the drug; the court wouldn’t otherwise get into whether that opposition is sincere, for example by looking at evidence of whether the individual’s church officially opposed just abortion (and thus not the pill) or also opposed contraception.
But as a matter of *education*, it is of course very helpful and very relevant to making sure all people, pharmacists included, better understand the differences between what the morning-after pill actually does and what an abortifacient like RU-486 actually does, so that when people claim they are acting a certain way because of their beliefs, they can better be certain that their acts and beliefs do correspond.
Having a burger joint is something but a business like photography or wedding cakes is another matter you have to sit down and decide whether you can do business or not. And yes, I think forcing someone to photograph a gay wedding or bake a gay wedding cake is forcing them to participate in something against their wishes.
Suburbs: “It’s when religious individuals seem to hold on to a special dislike of gay people, and a special standard of how they will treat gay people, that it looks a lot less like religious freedom, and a lot more like bigotry.” From the conservative religious standpoint, they see gay marriage as counterfeit, as tearing apart the fabric of society, the ties that bind us together in their gender complementarian viewpoint.
Premarital sex doesn’t alter the very glue that holds society together, particularly not if followed by a shotgun wedding. That’s traditional marriage, and traditionally, gay people have been encouraged to hide who they are and marry straight people. It’s only been in the last few years that the church’s official stance is that it’s NOT ideal for a gay person to marry a straight person. There are still plenty of bishops out there who think a gay person should just marry a straight person. If it was good enough for King James, why not for them? Or so the thinking goes.
“When we refuse services aren’t we saying I am deciding whats best for you?’
No, not necessarily. Person A can refuse to perform a service for Person B because it’s not right for Person A.”
Where’s the line? It should be clear at this juncture that anybody can come up with a set of beliefs. Anyone can form a non-profit / a religion. Where’s the line? What religious beliefs and practices are deemed ‘worthy’ to be respected ‘religious freedom’, and what is not? Who gets to decide? It’s a slippery slope.
Kt,
That’s exactly why it is best to leave it up to individuals to decide on particular questions (within broad public policy boundaries), rather than the nanny state.
I believe that public accommodations should be public. Closing people out is corrosive.
Especially in housing and employment.
But I still feel that isn’t enough.
Rockwell, I think that article is an excellent example of what I fear – and what the church leaders fear. It’s not the specific case, but the fact that freedom of conscience specifically is being valued less than even freedom of whim, and by the Supreme Court no less. The article is short and explains the issue well.
Martin 22, If I decide that a service you are asking me to provide would not be good for you, surely I am saying I know better than you do what is good for you. Who gave me that responsibility?
Jeff 23 Taking the example above, where I have decided not to provide a service to you, for whatever reason, would you and your friends boycott my business because you know whats best for me? Possibly, though I think your motivation is more likely a natural consequence of the lack of respect in my initial refusal of service. If someone disrespects you, I think your response is a different thing. If we are talking of someone refusing to serve a person because of their race is that OK. Is it OK if they are racist?
Why is it OK to discriminate against anyone, unless they are harming others?
Geoff
I think in the not too far distant future people are going to demand that someone photograph them urinating on a cross. And if they refuse they are going to be hung out to dry for discrimination. Ridiculous? Hardly. Look how society is going.
Geoff, as an example, take the fertility specialist. She doesn’t feel good about inseminating a lesbian couple, or an unmarried woman, because she feels SHE has a moral duty to the child. You’re arguing that she doesn’t have a right to determine what’s best for the child, and I’d agree. She has no right to prohibit the insemination. But she shouldn’t have to do it – someone else can.
Ronkonkoma: that’s patently ridiculous. Seriously. To conflate protection from discrimination with any strange whim people might have is further insult to people who have successfully demonstrated a pattern of discrimination to them as a group which is why they are now protected.
What about the hypothetical doctor who won’t see me because he believes the world is overcrowded and I have five children and am therefore partially at fault? Does he have the right to not see me?
Wally,
If there’s another perfectly qualified doctor across the hall that is willing to see you, why should the first doctor be forced to see you? So long as the doctors aren’t forming a discriminatory cartel where you can’t find treatment anywhere, how does one doctors refusal to serve you hurt you?
Wally, I think it depends on whether the doctor herself is required to do something she feels is immoral. Not liking you because you’re gay, have too many children, or do something immoral shouldn’t be a reason to refuse you service. The criteria is whether the doctor herself is forced to act immorally. If you have 5 children and are asking the doctor to artificially inseminate you with your sixth, and she feels it’s immoral to over-reproduce the world, she shouldn’t be required to do it in order to keep her license. However, you can revile her on social media and her employer can fire her if she’s damaging business.
For those who believe that the market should (always) self-regulate by never forcing individuals to provide services if they object, we know that it doesn’t / hasn’t adequately protected individuals of (now) protected classes historically. For example, go back a few hundred years, and people might not be willing to provide services to disabled people or those with dwarfism characteristics because they believed (religiously) that it meant that person was the offspring of Satan or otherwise cursed. Because certain groups of people have been able to demonstrate systematic discrimination against them, it is not legal to discriminate against them if they are identified as a “protected class.”
This religious freedom argument now seems to be down to just how much we are allowed to discriminate. The argument as to whether a business refuses to support gay marriage but still serves gay people for other types of services is such a question. Since gay marriage is now legal, I think this would fall under protected class, but this is clearly not what most conservatives think.
Hawkgrrrl,
I don’t think anybody is (or ought to be) saying that markets solve every problem. The same could be said for any person who thinks that free markets are never the solution.
This brings us to people who mistakenly think that all discrimination is created equal. I have yet to see any left winger in this thread acknowledge that there is a drastic difference between an individual business refusing service when there are plenty of alternatives and an organized cartel of businesses that collectively discriminate.
The whole point is that a collectivist cartel is NOT a free market, and it is for this reason that it cannot solve the problem of discrimination. An actual free market, by contrast, actually would solve the problem here since the discriminated person can simply cross the street and give their business to the competitor.
What is the religious principle behind discrimination?
Just so we are not confusing things, under the Constitution, the only protected classes that get heightened protections are race/national origin, gender, illegitimacy, and undocumented immigrant children. Homosexuals/homosexuality is not a protected class under the Constitution. It is a protected class under some state laws but not all and not federally.
@Other Doug – Just to be clear, while you are right that the Supreme Court hasn’t ruled yet whether sexual orientation is a protected class under the Constitution, it also hasn’t explicitly said it is not a protected class. Some courts of appeal (including the largest, the Ninth Circuit, covering 9 states) have held that it is a protected category under the Constitution, and the Supreme Court has refused to overrule that decision. So that remains an open question.
@Jeff G – “I have yet to see any left winger in this thread acknowledge that there is a drastic difference between an individual business refusing service when there are plenty of alternatives and an organized cartel of businesses that collectively discriminate.”
The reason I don’t like acknowledging this ‘drastic’ difference is because it is very hard to draw a line between individual and collective discrimination–and even if we agree on a line, it then becomes very difficult to turn that line into a reasonable, enforceable law.
This example isn’t about conscience, but it is a useful illustration: Take the Texas abortion laws that just went to the Supreme Court. After the law was passed, the number of abortion clinics in Texas fell from 42 to 19, and–if other portions of the law hadn’t been put on hold–likely would have fallen from 19 to 7. The Supreme Court overturned the law for violating a woman’s right to an abortion.
But let’s say it wasn’t Texas law that caused this, but doctors’ ethical concerns. Can a doctor opt-out of a procedure even if that means you have to go somewhere an hour away? What if you have to drive six hours to get to a doctor who is willing to treat you? Or you have to go on a three day trip to Austin to get care? If that is the standard, should we care that wealthy individuals are still going to be able to go get the procedure, but poor women are the ones that can’t?
Assuming you come up with a line, somewhere, how would you enforce it? A gay couple gets turned down by one baker, then too bad for them, but if they get turned down by three bakers, they can now sue all three? Or just the last one? Does it matter that the three bakers aren’t a ‘cartel’ in the sense that they’ve never spoken to each other about not serving gay couples, they just all have that policy? Can the bakers defeat the lawsuit by polling every baker within an hour’s drive radius, and proving that 80% would have served the couple? 51%? One single baker in the community, who has agreed to specialize in gay weddings so that all the other bakers can keep exercising their beliefs? If we agree to let bakers discriminate, can we at least require that they stick some bold text on their website saying ‘no gay weddings,’ so that gay couples don’t waste their time?
Frankly, it’s easy to dismiss bakers or photographers as a bit of a silly example (surely in all but the most rural areas, they could find someone else), but LGBT individuals can face far more serious types of discrimination. What if a pharmacist doesn’t want to fill a gay man’s prescription for PrEP? What about therapists? Think about the suicide rate among LGBT teens; should a therapist be able to say, “You know what, based on my personal beliefs, I can’t help you with what you’re going through, you better go elsewhere.”
This was longer than intended, but basically, show me a way to reasonably draw a line between individual discrimination and collective discrimination, and then show me a way to have that line become a law, and we can talk. But barring that, it’s probably got to be all or nothing, and given that choice, I say let’s say you can’t deny services to someone based on their sexual orientation.
Suburbs of SLC,
You make a very good point, I just think it’s one sided.
Basically, you’re saying that in the case of isolated discrimination, we should throw away 1) traditional mores (against SSM), 2) individual liberties (of the business) and democratic legislation (to the extent that votes were taken, they were overturned) in favor of unilateral state intervention for no reason other than because there isn’t any obvious place to safely draw a line between it and systematic/cartelized discrimination.
That’s a pretty big claim, especially since we do have laws against other forms of cartels – both economic (microsoft) and cultural (Jim Crow).
The main disagreement seems to reside in where different people assign presumption and burden of proof.
Conservatives want to err on the side of the individual liberty and local democracy (basically the freedom for persons and communities to live how they like) upon which the nation was founded. Progressives, by contrast, see individual liberties and local, democratic legislation as mere pretexts for systematic oppression, choosing instead to focus on universal rights/duties and systematic/collectivist freedoms. Of course, conservatives see universal rights/duties and collectivist generalizations as a form of cultural imperialism.
Of course, this tension is as old as modernity itself. Kings and the propertied bourgeoisie (which just means “city dweller”) teamed up to do battle against localized feudal lords of the country. The French revolution and Napoleonic wars pitted “universal rights” of the French Enlightenment against the (300+) localized Germanic kingdoms. The civil war pitted the self-legislation of individual states against (what they perceived as) the cosmopolitan/Yankee imperialism of the federal state. And here we are fighting the same fight between the cultural imperialism of constitutional lawyers/intellectuals and their metaphysics of universal rights against local votes, local mores and individual liberties.
Other Doug: To add to your comment, sexual orientation has protected class status in 20 states (CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, IA, ME, MD, MA, MN, NV, NJ, NM, NY, OR, RI, UT, VT, and WA), 2 territories (Guam & Puerto Rico) and Washington DC. Nine states protect sexual orientation for state employment: IN, KY, LA, MI, MN, NH, NC, PA, and VA. 8 states are currently seeking to expand protection for sexual orientation: MI, NE, OH, FL, AZ, IN, PA, ID. Additionally, 89% of Fortune 500 companies prohibit discrimination for sexual orientation.
So you are correct that some states have not yet legally protected anti-discrimination for sexual orientation, but the case for this class meriting protection is gaining ground. Frankly, the leader on this is big business.
The church has for 25 years, and continues to, teach violence against gay people. When they gained some rights it fought to have them removed.
In Australia they were part of a group that persuaded a conservative Prime Minister put “between a man and a woman”into the marriage act in 2004. They are now part of the group trying to stop that limitation being removed.
Until recently it was illegal to be gay, and there were laws against buggery.
This is not two equally valid points of view, held by different groups with equal entitlement, this is a priveledged group opressing another groups civil rights.
It is now being seen as such, and the opressor is now trying to claim they are the victim. Very few accepted the slave owner was the victim when slavery ended, and even fewer believe the opressor is the victim here.
Where this leaves the Church is a problem, I am unable to understand, but it does not leave them with much credibility.
Perhaps I was a bit strong wih violence, the deprived other people of their civil rights, with love, but that still does not mak it right.
Since we are talking about protected classes, the Office of Personnel Management has also determined that sexual orientation is a protected class in terms of hiring/firing/promoting federal civil servants.
https://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html
“The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA) contains a number of prohibitions, known as prohibited personnel practices, which are designed to promote overall fairness in federal personnel actions. 5 U.S.C. 2302. The CSRA prohibits any employee who has authority to take certain personnel actions from discriminating for or against employees or applicants for employment on the bases of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age or disability. It also provides that certain personnel actions can not be based on attributes or conduct that do not adversely affect employee performance, such as marital status and political affiliation. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has interpreted the prohibition of discrimination based on conduct to include discrimination based on sexual orientation.”
All this talk about people being forced to provide services to people they don’t approve of, and whether or not there is collusion.
Do you allow people to refuse service on the basis of race in America? Would some of the same people who want to refuse gays also want to refuse blacks, but wouldn’t dare.
Surely it is all about respecting the other person, and their rights, and not discriminating agains anyone. If you are in the business of providing a service, you must provide it for everyone.
In most of the first world this is only being discussed by those on the fringe right. We do not help our missionary effort by wanting to co ntinue to discriminate, whether we claim we are defending freedom or not. From the outside its just discrimination.
Seems ridiculous but look at society. Can’t you see the writing on the wall
“Would some of the same people who want to refuse gays also want to refuse blacks, but wouldn’t dare.”
That honestly has not been my experience at all, and I have lived in the Southeast US. When Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich was forced out as CEO because of his Prop 8 stance, part of the outrage was from gay folks who thought he was their friend. He had supported extending health insurance coverage to gay partners as a corporate policy. He had interacted on a personal level with them. They thought he was on their side, so they were doubly outraged.
“Surely it is all about respecting the other person, and their rights…”
It is. And I absolutely think that gay couples should have the same rights to medical decision-making, survivorship, health benefits, etc. as married couples. If gays in USAmerica had pushed for civil unions that secured those same rights, I would have supported it 100%.
But in the US, the first battle for gay marriage was convincing gays that marriage was the way to go. A lot of gay couples thought their relationship was different enough to deserve a different title. They quietly consulted a lawyer to put things in place to ensure they would have such rights. Sorry I can’t remember the names, but a recent NPR program talked about a young lawyer who played a pivotal role in making the focus on marriage per se.
I roll my eyes when someone says, “We were in school for our PhD…” when one member of the couple never set foot in a classroom. Or a man who says, “We are pregnant.” It is misleading and inaccurate.
Men can say “expecting” of course. Why insist on claiming a word that doesn’t really apply when there is another alternative?
And of course not all services are created equal. A baker can just decide to produce all tiered cakes without whatever on top. They are providing the cake in advance and don’t need to know what kind of couple is getting married. But a photographer is much more involved in a real-time way with the actual participants.
These are tough issues, and dismissing those who do not support gay marriage as being the same folks who want to refuse blacks does not quite capture the nuance and struggle in people’s lives.
Geoff,
Surely you can see that you’re dodging some important questions.
The right for a black mother not be excluded from all the grocery stores in town is HUGELY different from a gay man wanting a wedding cake from this specific store:
Being black is indisputably genetic, whereas gay marriage is obviously cultural. Buying food is a basic necessity, a wedding cake is not. Being blocked from all stores in one’s town is very different from being blocked at one store. The right to biological nourishment is very different from the “right” to participate in a culturally varied institution. Indeed, if ever there was a case of cultural imperialism, its when one group forces another to accept their definition of marriage.
With all the above differences that you elide, you also seem to ignore the following questions:
Who says that all these “rights” exist? At what cost do these rights exist and to whom? Do their benefits justify their costs and for whom? Who do we give the power to enforce the answers to these questions and what costs does that entail? What rights to we have against that power?
The whole point of liberalism is that we tolerate as much non-violent wickedness as possible since one person’s vice is another’s virtue and vice versa. Your definition of rights flat out contradicts this by inflating the definition of violence to such an extent that you can claim that the state ought to take a stand on a cultural practice that YOU think is vice but another thinks is virtue or vice versa.
The more the state starts taking stands on cultural issues like this, the more we inch back toward the civil wars of religion that liberalism was originally supposed to be the solution to.
Jeff,
It’s not about tolerating the other persons wickedness, it’s about respecting there way of doing things, without judging.
When you can do that, then no the questions you think I am dodging, are just degrees of discrimination.
I believe the Saviour wants us to love as he does. I don’t think that allows us to judge who we should love, and I don’t see how we can love while we also want to apply degrees of discrimination.
I also don’t understant the idea that the Saviour also said “if ye love me keep my commandments” can be applied to other people, and if we judge them to be wicked, we can love them less. When the Saviour said this, the commandment he was talking about was to love our fellow man.
So no I think it is pretty black and white, if you want to apply degrees of discrimination, you are, refusing to love your fellow man, which is the basis of what Christ taught. This is why I believe there is no need to justify degrees of discrimination.
That is my understanding, and I don’t wish to impose it on anyone else, but it explains why I don’t need to adress degrees of discrimination.
It seems to me like you’re re-making Jesus in your own, progressive image. The Jesus of the NT had a whole lot of judgement to pass on a whole lot of people.
Did Jesus discriminate against the money changers in the temple when he started whipping them? What about the Scribes and Pharisees when he denounced them as hypocrites? Why didn’t Jesus just respect their way of doing things without judging?
To be sure, this isn’t a blank check to discriminate against or condemn whoever we want, but neither is it a blank check to tolerate and empower whatever minority is currently in fashion either. In other words, it’s never black or white for all time and in all cases. The best we can do is trust in the modern day revelation that we receive in the church.
Geoff–since 1982 or so the Church had been behind employment equality. I know that Salt Lake County had government non discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation about then.
Great post! How often we argue past each other.
Elder Wickman made it clear that one of the key reasons Church leaders are worried about maintaining religious freedom is to maintain the Church’s tax exempt status.
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/promoting-religious-freedom-secular-age-fundamental-principles-practical-priorities-fairness-for-all
And I think they have reason to fear. I doubt the courts or government would ever try to force solemnization of same-sex unions in the temple. That’s just chum for mobilizing the conservative right-wingers into action. No, the real concern is a world that recognizes BYU’s honor code as discriminatory therefore no more tax exempt status for the university. Or the Church is seen as a discriminatory institution, therefore no more tax breaks on it’s non-profit holdings. This is a legitimate fear. And after the November exclusionary policy, I’m not sure I’d mind that financial pressure being exerted on the Church.
@Naismith
Brendan Eich was not “forced out.” He chose to resign. In fact, the Board wanted him to stay. He should’ve stayed.
On the other hand, how many people have been fired or not hired simply because they were LGBT?
@JeffG
Various Supreme Courts over the past 120 years have ruled at least 15 times that marriage is a fundamental
right. Being gay very likely has a genetic basis. Gay marriage is now the law of the land as it should be.
Leave the judging up to God,
MTodd. Interesting thought–lose tax exempt status like Bob Jone University did in 1983?
Or to watch the Boy Scouts lose access to meeting spaces and campgrounds.
That has made them nervous.
Gay marriage is the law of the land. That is what five members of the Supreme Court said, and it will remain the law of the land until the court changes its mind or the Constitution is amended.
In this context, religious freedom means that an individual is free to believe that gay marriage is sin, is free to say so in the public square, and cannot be compelled to swear allegiance to the practice. It means that a religious assembly is free to hold that gay marriage is sin, is free to teach its members to avoid the practice, is free to expel disobedient members, and cannot be compelled to swear allegiance to the practice.
The beautiful thing is that within our pluralistic society, we allow for these differences. As fellow citizens, we allow others to hold and practice religious beliefs that differ from our own. We all get to participate in shaping public policy, and we are allowed to let our religious beliefs affect our opinions in the public square and votes in the private booth. We do this willingly and happily, because of our respect for the first amendment to our Constitition. We live and let live.
Religious freedom is not an issue in the rest of the world, (except that using it to try and impose your views on others is likely to have it removed) but there are consequences to proudly maintaing that gay marriage is a sin. In much of the first world the line between conservatives and progressives is further to the left. Many conservative parties are to the left on issues like this than the Democrats in the US.
So where are the anti gay marriage people in these countries? Who do we associate ourselves with? Who do we think the missionaries might teach, when potential members look up and see this kind of stuff, that we want the freedom to discriminate against gay people.
This may play well where mormons are a substantial number, but when we are way less than 1%, and gays are 10 times as common, we are putting ourselves in a risky place.
I don’t see many benifits to our stand on freedom of religion, and numbers of down sides, so as the post questions, why? Especially when many members also question how it relates to the Gospel.
Geoff – Aus,
So, are you opposed to religious freedom? Or maybe you support religious freedom in principle but disagree with one sect’s religious beliefs or its practice based on those beliefs? Or maybe you support religious freedom for all matters except gay marriage, where you will not allow for a difference of opinion based on religious belief? Part of freedom is being free to be wrong in the eyes of others. So I’m really wondering — do you believe that a religious assembly has a privilege (or even a right) of believing and teaching its adherents that gay marriage is sin? or would you deny that assembly that privilege and force them to honor gay marriage or face dissolution under penalty of law? That is the question of religious freedom.
Religious freedom, IMHO, is the freedom to assemble and hold religious services, period. However, a religious body may not run afoul of public policy. For example, a religious body may not raise money by robbing banks. IMHO, a religious body has freedom to *teach* its followers anything, but followers are bound by public policy and the law of the land in *practice*. Religious freedom is not freedom to break the law.
Bakers have been successfully sued for refusing to serve gay customers. The argument that the plaintiffs can “just go across the street” is ridiculous. The humiliation of the refusal itself is damaging enough.
We have hate speak legislation, and the definition is The Act makes it “unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people
Would a visiting GA saying that gay marriage is a sin, be reasonably likely to offend or insult, a gay person, some of which are very religious?
Would it make great headlines if a GA was accused of hate speak, even if it was not proven? How would that affect missionary work? Would it improve the chances for religious freedom? What other consequences might it have (tax exemption )? Might even make the international news.
Could even a conference talk do it?
Ji, I am not opposed to religious freedom, but I do not believe it allows you to hurt other ny people. I believe it is under threa because it has been used in this way and even other more moderate religious people are pushing back.
The previous note about hate speak, might give pause. That is part of my concern, many countries, have moved past this debate, and limit freedom to hurt others.
Sorry for the typos, I’m writing on my tablet while on holiday in Vietnam.
Jesus told the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more. That would be hate speech and punishable under your law as you described it and in light of our modern sensibilities regarding sexual freedom. But was Jesus a hateful person?
The whole first world is moving your direction, it seems. I wonder if your law has an exception for religious belief and speech?
It is a sad day for freedom when governments dictate what religious assemblies must believe and teach. I suppose the Church has attorneys to advise leaders on what they cannot say in various places around the world.
I agree that religious freedom should not be used to maliciously hurt others. However, a religious assembly teaching its adherents that sex belongs within man-woman marriage and that gay marriage is sin is intended to be helpful, not hurtful.
“Brendan Eich was not “forced out.” He chose to resign.In fact, the Board wanted him to stay.”
He chose to resign because the company he co-founded was being boycotted by pro-gay-marriage groups for the CEO’s personal actions. Many analysts have viewed that as being forced out, as they do other boycott situations related to other topics. According to the FAQ on the website at the time, the Board offered him another C-level position; they did not ask him to stay as CEO.
“He should’ve stayed.”
One reason I joined this church is that the principle of personal revelation for one’s own stewardship meant that we would trust one another to make our own decisions and not judge others or tell them what they should do.
Many analysts (not being truthful or accurate) have viewed that as being forced out. The term “forced out” to the uninformed clearly implies he was fired. These same type of talking points (misleading, untruthful) were used during the Prop 8 campaign. A truthful representation would be “Brendan Eich voluntarily resigned in response to calls for boycotts.”
From Mozilla:
“Brendan was not fired and was not asked by the Board to resign. Brendan voluntarily submitted his resignation. The Board acted in response by inviting him to remain at Mozilla in another C-level position. Brendan declined that offer. The Board respects his decision.”
“One reason I joined this church is that the principle of personal revelation for one’s own stewardship meant that we would trust one another to make our own decisions and not judge others or tell them what they should do.”
Seriously? “Not judge others”?
Nice in theory, far from reality. I hear plenty of judging at church. For instance listen to how many characterize needy people as “ne’r do wells”–just looking for a “handout.”
Have you noticed boycotts and protests are part of the fabric of the U.S.? For instance, recently, calls to boycott Target for Its transgender bathroom policy etc.
I would add, it is extremely disappointing when I hear/read church leaders (Elder Rasband, Sept Ensign) not being accurate and truthful. They should hold themselves to a higher standard.
FWIW, My family started out as neutral regarding Prop 8. But when we saw lies and misleading information used by leaders during Sunday services, brought it to their attention, ignored, we knew this was not in line with everything we thought the church stood for. The Prop 8 camapign was seriously damaging to my family’s involvement with the church precisely for that reason.
The fact is religious freedom is far more a global concern (ex. Russia etc) than here at home. Yet the emphasis/concern on religious freedom has tracked closely with LGBT civil rights here in the U.S.
Hey Lois. I like your comments. Can you elaborate on where you thought Elder Rasband was being inaccurate? I have my own ideas, but just wanted to get your sense of that article.
“Being gay very likely has a genetic basis.”
Anybody who thinks that modern sexual identity is fully genetic in the same sense as race is HUGELY misinformed.
@jeff
“hugely misinformed”
Less misinformed than thinking electroshock therapy or marrying somebody of the opposite sex will “cure” being gay. Or that gay people need to be “cured”. Or that it’s OK to be gay, but not OK to have sex or marry. Or that married gay couples deserve to be kicked out of the LDS church as apostates.
Your attempt at changing the subject suggests that you agree with me: sexual identity has much more to do with culture, nurture and social constructions in general than race does.
This does not prove that black rights are defensible while gay rights are not, but it definitely throws a wrench in those in this thread who insist on conflating the two.
“@jeff”
Sexual orientation is largely determined at birth by genetics and the early uterine environment. Discriminating on the basis of gender or sexual orientation is no different from discriminating based on race, skin color, disability, or any other characteristic. The LDS church and its members discriminate against LGBT people. Until relatively recently, they discriminated against Black people. It’s just a matter of time. The LDS church will be forced to stop discriminating against LGBT people, too.
Anon:
I suggest you read Foucault’s History of Sexuality, for starters. Then move on to read the following review of the biological literature:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/number-50-fall-2016
This review of the literature, like other such reviews aimed at a popular audience, was not peer reviewed, but it was fact-checked – so take it for what it is. See this exchange here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2016/08/27/editor-of-the-new-atlantis-responds-to-my-critique-of-the-mayer-and-mchugh-article/
That should be plenty to throw most of your blanket statements into serious doubt.
Bro Sky,
Problems with E Rasband’s article:
uses the same vague reference “CEOs (plural) forced to resign or marginalized,” and “have been forced to close because owners have spoken their conscience” Or, rather than “spoken their conscience did they choose to follow their conscience, violating state laws?
Examples Ethan and Samantha, ending with Etahn has many advocates, but who will defend Samantha?–
–ignoring the fact that Samantha is protected under the Civil Rights Act as well as other laws and has many advocates on her side while several states still have no protections for those who are LGBT in terms of employment or housing.
What is the definitionof “fair”? “Fair” is a vague term and lies in the eye of the beholder.
Im curious about the reference to “already religious schools are being questioned because they require….fidelity and chastity.”
I disagree with conflating agency and freedom–“it is a gross violation of that agency to force you to betray your conscience because your views do not align with the crowd.” Agency is a condition of this world–it is what the “war” in heaven was about, it cannot be taken away. “Agency” includes conscience. One can choose to conform or not to confrom, to rules, regulations, laws, commandments yet not change their
conscience. However, those choices can and do involve consequences, spiritual as well as temporal. But just because we don’t like the consequence doesn’t mean we had no choice–no agency. We have agency, we don’t always have freedom (a Dallin Oaks pointed out in a talk on Agency and freedom).
Engaging in dialogue with co-workers, at school, with neighbors–how about church? How will I be received if I defend LGBT rights at church?
I agree where he says “do not judge people or treat them unfairly because they sin differently than you.”
A few of my thoughts…..
Jeff G
Would you disagree with the statement that “sexual orientation may have a genetic basis along with other biological factors”?
The truth is, research into the basis of sexual orientation is still new. In fact, scientists have yet to fully identify the causes of non-right handedness though they do know it (left handedness) develops before birth. In fact, they are looking into whether there is a connection between handedness and sexual orientation.
At a minimum it is clear sexual orientation is not nurture (outside the womb) over nature.
FWIW The New Atlantis is a conservative publication.
@jeff
No. I will not click on your links. I will not read your “references”. I stand by my remarks.
Lois,
I would agree with something like that. I just don’t like the blanket statements that I’ve seen here.
Yes, New Atlantis is right wing (more towards the classical liberal than conservative side), but Foucault is about as left wing as they come.
Indeed, I think social analyses like his are far more important than any biological study since rights are a social phenomenon, not a genetic one.
The wikipedia entry on his book is great and I also wrote a post about his approach to the issue:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Sexuality
http://www.newcoolthang.com/index.php/2016/02/repression-confession-and-human-sexuality/3944/
Given the advances that we are making in genetic engineering and the possibility of transhumanism in general, I don’t think it’s very smart for progressives to place too many eggs in the sinking basket of genetic innateness. It’s only a matter of time before people start claiming that their genetics don’t match who they really are (indeed, people already claim this). But the more genetically innate homosexuality it, the more it becomes treatable or preventable through gene therapy.
*To insist that homosexuality is genetic is to insist that a cure is on the way!*
The main point is that genetics is not really the issue and that New Atlantis review is only meant to indulge the mistaken many who this it is… Identity politics at the social level is where all the important issues truly lie and I get frustrated when I see so many people kicking up dust every which way in an effort to not address that central issue.
Lois,
Yeah, those are about my issues, too. The fictional examples he gives don’t ring true to me because I think he really is trying to defend bigotry and discriminatory practices in the name of religious freedom, even though he claims he’s not. And I especially take your point about Samantha being protected.
And to Jeff G, Michel Foucault was indeed left-leaning and History of Sexuality rejects, if I recall, both Marxism and at least traditionally understood psychoanalytic frameworks. However interesting H of S is, it’s certainly in no way any sort of definitive work on the subject, even if we confine the subject, as you suggest, to social phenomena. And there are enough problems with his conceptions of power both in H of S and Savoir/Pouvoir to engender skepticism in most readers. Even a tentative embracing of psychoanalysis (at least Lacan. I can certainly understand his rejection of Freud) could have done him some good. I don’t think he’s very good at tracing out/understanding the admittedly complex human interior. For my money, Zizek comes closer to the methodology that might yield better results in his book The Ticklish Subject. And I think Judith Butler makes superior arguments about sexuality in Gender Trouble.
I might agree with you about putting too many eggs in the basket of genetic makeup. In my view, homosexuals should be a protected class simply because they are human beings and deserve the same rights as the rest of us, regardless of whether their kind of love is genetic/hard-wired or a choice. It is simply the ethical and charitable thing to do.
Now that’s a response that I can give a strong thumbs up to!
Ji @68, So you are not so concerned about the wicked world, let me explain how hate speak legislation works.
A person may not offend, insult, or humiliate, another on the grounds of their
Colour, ethnic origin, religion, disability or sexual orientation.
A person who is the victim, takes their complaint to the discrimination commisioner, who adjudicates. The police are not involved. A woman who threw a banana at an aboriginal footballer has agreed to take a course on understanding racism in modern context.
All this produces a less divided society, where we are less extreme in our thoughts and actions, which I think is a worthwile outcome.
The Church has some articles about the same subject just out.
Geoff – Aus,
Under the law you describe, may a person believe that homosexual marriage is sin? May he or she teach others in a church setting that homosexual marriage is sin? If the answer is NO to either question, then there is no religious freedom in your country.
I’m not wondering about discrimination in employment and public accommodations and so forth — just whether individuals and religious assemblies are free to believe and exercise their religions.
I haven’t been to W&T in a couple years. I’ll be honest I’m surprised it’s still here, and that Hawkkkkggggirllll is still writing her awesome posts.
I just thought she’d have left the church by now. Keep on keepin on all you intellectual-NOMy-Trying to make it work types! The church needs you to help reform from within.. i juts couldn’t do it.
Thanks Hawkgrrl for attempting to define this. Personally, although I am a Mormon who has been listening to other Mormons talk about religious freedom for about a decade, they always lose me. It sounds to me like they are saying, “We want freedom to force our religious beliefs on other people.”