Via the Wall Street Journal, “Some Businesses Balk at Gay Weddings” (subscription may be required):
The issue gained attention in August, when the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that an Albuquerque photography business violated state antidiscrimination laws after its owners declined to snap photos of a lesbian couple’s commitment ceremony.
Similar cases are pending in Colorado, Illinois, New York, Oregon and Washington, and some experts think the underlying legal question—whether free-speech and religious rights should allow exceptions to state antidiscrimination laws—could ultimately wind its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
And then there’s this:
In Oregon, bakery owners Aaron and Melissa Klein learned in August that a state complaint had been filed against them because they had refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple. A lawyer for the Kleins, who declined to comment, said the couple has done business with gay people for years, but didn’t want to be forced to participate in an event contrary to their Christian beliefs, especially given that same-sex marriage still isn’t legal in Oregon.
So, Oregon says gays can’t marry, but prosecutes those who balk at providing services for a same-sex nonlegal wedding. Both positions are profoundly anti-liberty.
Added: David Boaz comments on his Facebook page, more pithily than I, “The state of Oregon won’t issue a gay couple a marriage license, but it will prosecute you if you won’t bake ’em a cake.”
Related, via the Washiington Times, “Mormons try a more muted strategy against gay marriage second time around in Hawaii.” While the Mormon hierarchy still opposes same-sex marriage, instead of funding campaigns to defeat marriage equality they are attempting to secure a religious exemption for those whose beliefs prevent them from performing services for gay weddings.
We should accept that deal (“progressive” total statists, of course, won’t).
35 Comments for “Liberty, Conscience and Autonomy”
posted by Mike on
Would it be OK for a business to refuse service to an inter-racial wedding under the guise of “religious freedom?”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
We should accept that deal (“progressive” total statists, of course, won’t).
Absolute, total nonsense.
The proposed laws are not about protecting personal/religious conscience, except tangentially. The laws are about setting up a special class of discrimination applicable to gays and lesbians, and gays and lesbians only.
If the laws were about protecting personal/religious conscience, and not about setting up a special class of discrimination, the laws would be written — at a bare minimum — to protect personal/religious conscience with respect to any and all marriages that an individual finds morally objectionable, not just same-sex marriages.
I believe that there is role for personal/religious conscience exemptions in our legal system. I believe that the exemptions for personal/religious conscience in our laws should be extensive, and should apply to all laws.
That view is a subset of a seminal belief. I do not believe that the government should burden individual liberty without a compelling interest, and that belief shapes my view of personal/religious conscience exemptions. Accordingly, I agree with the approach being taken in Wisconsin, an approach that applies to individual conscience (both religious and non-religious), applies to all laws, and permits personal/religious conscience exemptions except when the government has a compelling interest to the contrary. I have some reservations about the Wisconsin approach (I do not think, for example, that government officials and/or employees should be granted the same latitude as private citizens, because government should treat citizens equally under the law, no matter what.) but I think that the approach is at least honest, and generally sound.
I realize that the Wisconsin approach is likely to create dislocation, increase societal friction, and might not, for most people, be considered the optimal approach. The Wisconsin approach would, for example, not differentiate between sexual orientation, on the one hand, and race, religion, gender and all the other protected categories that seem to be grist for the anti-exemption mill.
In short, I understand that reasonable people differ about the role of personal/religious conscience exemptions. But those differences — the extent and circumstances of personal/religious conscience exemptions — can be thrashed out in a free society.
But this approach, the latest “deal” to pacify the anti-gay movement, is not a case of “reasonable people may differ”. The proposed laws are a mockery of personal/religious conscience, an affront to “equal means equal”, and incompatible (“abhorrent” might be the better word) to American values.
We should not accept the “deal”. It is a “deal” that institutionalizes discrimination against a particular, specific class of citizens, for no good reason. That is just wrong.
I cannot believe, Stephen, that you are falling for this nonsense. I expect that you will harp on and on about it for months and months, but I would urge you to take a step back and think about where this takes us as Americans.
posted by Jorge on
If the laws were about protecting personal/religious conscience, and not about setting up a special class of discrimination, the laws would be written — at a bare minimum — to protect personal/religious conscience with respect to any and all marriages that an individual finds morally objectionable, not just same-sex marriages.
I don’t understand why gay rights fanatics only hate religious liberty when it impacts themselves negatively. But because such a narrow situation is what we have, there is nothing wrong with a solution that is equally narrow. Put the blame where it belongs.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I don’t understand why gay rights fanatics only hate religious liberty when it impacts themselves negatively.
It seems to me that the shoe can be put on the other foot here: Why is it that anti-equality conservatives only love “religious liberty” when it protects them and not others and aligns with their particular biases?
Keep this in mind: I support very extensive personal/religious conscience exemptions from our laws. You don’t. You draw back at allowing non-religious personal conscience exemptions, and you are now, apparently, backing off from even treating all religious objections to marriages of one type or another with equal dignity.
But because such a narrow situation is what we have, there is nothing wrong with a solution that is equally narrow.
Two things are wrong with it:
(1) It promotes the idea that our laws can and should single out particular groups of people for special discrimination not applicable to other groups of similarly situated people, whenever it is politically convenient to do so.
It is similar to allowing bar owners to refuse to serve Native Americans but no one else. I can see the argument now: That’s a narrow solution (impacting 2-3% of the population) to a narrow problem (the remarkably high level of genetic propensity toward alcoholism in Native Americans), so what’s wrong with it?
The idea that our laws can and should allow selective discrimination to fit particular narrow biases and/or circumstances, while banning discrimination in similar/identical cases runs contrary to a core American value: All citizens should be treated equally under the law unless the government has a compelling reason to do otherwise.
Let me turn the table on you — what, exactly is the compelling government interest in allowing personal/religious exemptions for same-sex marriages while not allowing them in other cases of morally objectionable marriages? Political convenience is not a compelling interest, it seems to me.
(2) It promotes the idea that our laws can and should elevate particular types of personal/religious conscientious objection over others.
That seems to me to be the flip side of the coin of permitting selective discrimination against specific groups; it codifies into law the idea that personal/religious conscientious objection to same-sex marriage is more valid and/or valued than personal/religious objection to adulterous marriage, and grants special rights to citizens who hold a particular moral objection while denying those rights to other citizens who hold an identical/similar moral objection.
I would again ask, what is the compelling government interest in making this distinction, in granting special status to a particular form of moral objection and a specific group of people?
Put the blame where it belongs.
What blame?
posted by Doug on
I’m gay and want equal rights . . . that makes me a fanatic?
posted by Don on
I still insist that the entire notion of creating any such laws for any particular reason is nuts. Baking a cake for a price is not an endorsement of anything. Selling someone a block of cheese is not an endorsement of anything. Taking a picture is not an endorsement of anything. It is baking a cake, selling cheese and taking a picture. Do Christian contractors refuse to build an atheist’s house? The sole reason for these laws is to legalize shaming people into changing their behavior. Exercise your constitutional right to dislike anyone or anything, but religious leaders are creating a tempest in a teapot by creating avenues to publicly shame people into thinking the way they do. How is this freedom of religion? It sounds like state endorsement of the right to publicly coerce people into joining the majority. Oh, wait, it’s the minority opinion now.
posted by Jorge on
Baking a cake for a price is not an endorsement of anything.
Yeah, no.
If you oppose gay marriage, and you’re a Catholic, to use that religion’s example, “clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.”
posted by Don on
I understand the principle. it is quite simple. but it seems to fly in the face of religious freedom, no? Not the Catholic’s but the non-Catholics. “We are duty bound to harass you into changing your views to match ours.”
I don’t want to be overly acrimonious, but it seems a little weird that the argument is “I need the religious freedom to harass you with my religious views using the force of law to demonize you as intrinsically evil.” I need for force of law to protect my right to coerce you to bend to my will. That’s what we’re arguing here.
I get that Francis wouldn’t use Benedict’s language anymore. But that is the gist of the operating system we were under when all this started. And it’s just nuts to me. Believe what you want. But do you have to chase me down and make me believe what you believe? And should the law establish that? I’m just not there.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
If you oppose gay marriage, and you’re a Catholic, to use that religion’s example, “clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.”
Is not the same true of Catholic opposition to adulterous remarriage after divorce? If the shoe fits in one case, it seems to me that it ought to fit in the other. Yet, you’d never guess that from the proposed laws, which protect Catholics exercising the requirements of their faith in the one case but don’t in the other.
posted by Doug on
When Catholics start living up too ALL of the prescriptions in the Bible and quit focusing only on LGBT folks, then I’ll consider a religious exemption.
posted by Jorge on
Nope. You don’t get to define what an observant Catholic is. The First Amendment protects the cafeteria Catholic just as forcefully as it protects the fanatic as it protects the heretic.
posted by Houndentenor on
I’ll put it more bluntly. So long as the Catholic Church continues to shield child rapists from prosecution it’s laughable that anyone associated with it thinks they are a moral authority on any subject.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The First Amendment protects the cafeteria Catholic just as forcefully as it protects the fanatic as it protects the heretic.
This has nothing to do with “cafeteria” Catholics. And it has next to nothing to do with the First Amendment, except tangentially.
The question is this: What compelling interest does the government have in picking and choosing among Catholic religious beliefs, allowing personal/religious conscientious objection in the case of same-sex marriage but not allowing it in the case of adulterous remarriage after divorce? Are not both Catholic beliefs worthy of protection, if either is?
posted by Doug on
I may not be able to define an observant Catholic but I can certainly point out the hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty.
posted by Jorge on
And it is largely out of fear of government-established religious orthodoxies that the settlers in this country prized so strongly the freedom to declare their own religious beliefs.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
And it is largely out of fear of government-established religious orthodoxies that the settlers in this country prized so strongly the freedom to declare their own religious beliefs.
True enough. A number of the original colonies were founded by Christians who were persecuted by other Christians, using the government as the weapon of persecution. That’s the reason why we separate of church and state.
And Catholics, as anyone who knows the history of Maryland and parochial schools knows, were terribly persecuted in England and, later, in this country.
But it isn’t relevant to the question at hand: What compelling interest does the government have in picking and choosing among Christian religious beliefs, allowing personal/religious conscientious objection in the case of same-sex marriage but not allowing it in the case of adulterous remarriage after divorce? Are not both Christian beliefs worthy of protection, if either is?
posted by Jorge on
…But it isn’t relevant to the question at hand
Don’t try to double-team me by changing the subject. Doug stated, “When Catholics start living up too ALL of the prescriptions in the Bible and quit focusing only on LGBT folks, then I’ll consider a religious exemption.” He is wrong. The First Amendment does not allow him, or the government, to pick and choose which orthodoxies or heresies actually are religions.
When the Supreme Court invalidates a government policy because of the First Amendment, the government must exercise a certain amount of dilgence so that it will always act in good faith. That state and local governments refuse to recognize the First Amendment is also something that has real consequences, and an antidote is sometimes needed. That is where religious exemption laws come from.
posted by Jorge on
I understand the principle. it is quite simple. but it seems to fly in the face of religious freedom, no? Not the Catholic’s but the non-Catholics. “We are duty bound to harass you into changing your views to match ours.”
What harassment? Stop making stuff up. “Everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.”
I get that Francis wouldn’t use Benedict’s language anymore.
“Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.”
I read that as an endorsement of Pope Benedict on the issue of gay marriage.
There is no daylight between Pope Benedict and Pope Francis in regards to doctrine. The only difference is in what order they say things in, and how often they say one thing compared to another. “It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. It is just that Pope Francis is more of a missionary than a doctrinaire.
posted by Don on
We simply differ in the belief as to what the nature of the conscientious objection is. While you see refusing to bake a cake as a simple act of faithfulness to doctrine, many see it as a form of public shaming to encourage compliance with the baker’s worldview. That is the point of my Amish comparisons. The Amish have no desire to convince others to their way of thinking. That is why they do not see their acts of commerce as endorsement of behavior. While conservative Christians do. And they would not be alone in that thinking. (this is the harassment of which I speak: shame through public reprobation)
I believe the act of refusing to have anything to do with a gay wedding is an attempt to shame the gay couple, pure and simple. To legally assign them a scarlet letter. While you see it as a simple standing silently on principle, one has to ask what exactly is the principle? It is that the baker disapproves of you and your choices and wants you to know that. If he had no desire to make his judgments known, he would bake the cake and silently pray for the saving of the “lost soul.” But that’s not what the baker wants. The baker wants public confrontation and reprobation.
Benedict is attempting to shift the priorities of existing doctrine, as you pointed out, to say public condemnation and judgment of a sin is not the way to go. He hasn’t erased the teachings about homosexuality. But he is absolutely attempting to shift the focus of the church to what I would call the “Amish model”: removal of judgment and public shaming is not an endorsement nor an approval. It is merely an act of mutual respect and civility that allows people to follow their own conscience about what God wants for people.
Whether he is right about this is something for Catholics to decide. As a non-Catholic, I must admit it is a much more civil way to go. But I also understand that this goes against centuries of Catholic tradition rather strongly. Having spent much time in Catholic countries (mostly Ireland and Colombia), the Church has a very long history of guiding the public morality through government action. That is why I see the current pope as much more radical than many may realize.
And while you suggest that he’s changed very little because doctrine has not changed a single letter, if his worldview becomes the new thrust of the church, it will be a spectacular revolution. Without changing a word, he is confronting the role of the Church in rather drastic terms.
posted by Sifrid on
Oh my god! Are you STILL hocking about this?!
posted by Kosh III on
This place calls itself “Independent” but it often seems to do little more than parrot stuff coming from Limbaugh the drug Felon, or Faux News.
posted by Doug on
Apparently Stephen’s love of money and tax cuts is stronger than his self respect.
posted by Houndentenor on
So let me see if I understand this. One particular religion demands a special carve out to discriminate against one particular minority. I can’t even think of a precedent for that demand.
Either we have nondiscrimination laws or we don’t. No special rights for certain Christians to discriminate against gays. Equal means equal. Or not. It’s one or the other.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I think that it is absurd that there all these cases concerning Christians and same-sex marriages, when there is none at all about state-sanctioned adultery in the form of remarriage after divorce.
Roughly 300 million people live in this country. Roughly 150 million are adults. According to Pew’s 2012 survey, 73% of those, or roughly 110 million American adults, self-identify as Christian.
You would think, given the large sampling and in terms of statistical probability, that there would be one Christian baker, wedding planner, or photographer, somewhere in the United States, who would object to “participating” in adultery. But nope, not a single complaint or case has become public, despite the spate of complaints and cases involving same-sex marriages. Not one.
The whole uproar is a farce, a mockery of Christian moral teaching. If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d assume that it was an Onion-style put on.
posted by Houndentenor on
Who are we kidding? America’s chief religion isn’t Christianity. It’s hypocrisy. They are happy to single out the one “sin” they aren’t tempted by (or in some cases the one they are most tempted by). In fact the louder someone shrieks about declining moral standards, the more likely you are to catch them in a scandal if you only knew where to look. Sorry but not only am I not impressed by the fake outrage of Christians who have to actually treat gay people like human beings, I laugh in the face of most of them for the back-stabbing, gossiping sorry excuses for humanity they really are. I was raised around such people. I learned this at an early age. The exceptions are rare and too busy working at a food pantry or disaster relief effort to give a crap about bullshit like this.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
“Either we have nondiscrimination laws or we don’t. ”
This seems to be as absurd as the idea that we should carve out unique exceptions for citizens of the ‘religious right’, but not the ‘religious left’.
It seems that the latest tactic is to frame the issue so that people believe that we most either abolish civil rights laws or we must allow the religious right, but not the religious left, to ignore them. I do not accept that this is the proper way to frame the issue.
Yes, we should have nondiscrimination laws that apply to BOTH the public and private sector. Yes, they should include sexual orientation. However, we also have a First Amendment.
How do you protect both civil rights and civil liberties? Well, its not always easy. However, in this particular case…
If a small business owner does not approve of a particular marriage — any particular marriage — then they should not have to provide services for said marriage (i.e. food, drink, room rental, photography, etc)…assuming that they don’t initially agree, take the money and then all of a sudden back out.
I agree that creating an exemption that ONLY applies to the religious right, is not the First Amendment. If someone on the religious right can refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple, then someone on the religious left (or whatever) has every right to do the same.
All couples deserve to have wedding photographers, decorators, etc who are professional, competent and treat them with dignity and respect. You are simply not going to get that by forcing a small business owner (who is a prude or ass#&@) to bake the cake or take the photographs.
It is a different situation, if was not a small business or if the small business initially took the money and then backed out or if we were not talking about (I suspect) is a small number of small business owning caterers, photographers, florists and the like.
posted by Doug on
Who does the religious left want to discriminate against?
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Doug
Perhaps — as some have already said — gay folk (and their straight allies) in the “bridal industry” will take the position that their religious beliefs prevent them from associating folk that oppose marriage equality.
posted by Scott on
Gee, Stephen bought into Animal Farm. All are equal but some are more equal than others.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“The state of Oregon won’t issue a gay couple a marriage license, but it will prosecute you if you won’t bake ‘em a cake.”
David’s Facebook link was quoting (or more accurately, paraphrasing) you, Stephen, and now you are quoting him paraphrasing you, as if that added anything to the conversation. The echo chamber in action.
posted by Don on
This whole thing about wedding wars strikes me as funny. Taking a lighter note, i’m just surprised that it has occurred to so few that this just might blow up in everyone’s face. Dress makers, cake bakers, wedding planners, florists, hair dressers? Sure there are quite a few strict adherents to religion in these professions. But the list seems to strike me as a tad on the gay side. “I’m sorry, I would love to do your hair on your wedding day for the entire bridal party. But you’re having it at the Catholic Church on Elm street and, well, I have a religious objection to supporting organizations that raise money to write laws to make my life miserable.”
I just have to laugh. Really? You want to start a religious war against gay people and you’ve set the battleground in the wedding industry. You would think after a several hundred years of political organizing, the churches would have thought this one through a little more.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Taking a lighter note, i’m just surprised that it has occurred to so few that this just might blow up in everyone’s face. Dress makers, cake bakers, wedding planners, florists, hair dressers? Sure there are quite a few strict adherents to religion in these professions. But the list seems to strike me as a tad on the gay side. “I’m sorry, I would love to do your hair on your wedding day for the entire bridal party. But you’re having it at the Catholic Church on Elm street and, well, I have a religious objection to supporting organizations that raise money to write laws to make my life miserable.”
Yes, and that is exactly why the proponents of these so-called “religious liberty” laws confine them so narrowly. None of them give a tinker’s dam about personal/religious conscience, not if it might turn against them.
The proposed laws and the motivations behind them are so dishonest that we should reject them outright on that basis alone.
posted by Houndentenor on
Exactly. They are asking for special rights for certain religions to discriminate against select citizens. They don’t dare ask to repeal all nondiscrimination laws because they know full well that if they were repealed they would suffer as a result. It’s also why I laugh when people who vote Republican act libertarian on issues like this. Rand Paul may talk about nondiscrimination laws being unnecessary or even unconstitutional but he’s not stupid enough to put a bill that would repeal them up for a vote. he knows how badly that would play for most of the country. In fact the biggest obstacle to passing ENDA is that 80% of Americans think it’s already illegal to discriminate against gay people so when a law is proposed right wing bigots (Fox News, Limbaugh, Hannity et al.) make it sound like gay people want rights beyond those that everyone else has. It’s despicable but all to typical of the current media and political climate. I don’t know how any self-respecting gay person could defend this nonsense…oh wait, no self-respecting gay person would.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
or… (as I like to say to someone who tries to sell me Ayn Rand or the latest dribble by the Libertarian-Right)……
“OK, if everything should be put into the hands of the free market, then I hereby declare ownership of the air you breath. If you want to use my ‘service’, then you need to pay my fees and agree to whatever demands I set.”
posted by Eva on
“So, Oregon says gays can’t marry, but prosecutes those who balk at providing services for a same-sex nonlegal wedding.”
Ha, I live in Oregon and thought I was the only one bothered by that dichotomy. Why would anyone want a service provider who didn’t want to be there involved in their wedding anyway — especially someone with the capacity to spit in the cake? I say publicize such incidents but let the free market punish them, not the state — and let everyone get married, obviously. Last I heard that bakery in Oregon had gone out of business.