I was going to write a post defending religious exemptions in the Employee Non-Discrimination Act passed by the Senate, and then got waylaid by some truly bizarre stuff regarding religious exemptions in the Hawaii marriage bill.
First, ENDA, where I support religious exemptions for faith-based organizations including hospitals, universities and charities. But Brian Silva, executive director of Marriage Equality USA, and Heather Cronk is co-director of GetEQUAL, blasted such exemptions in their op-ed in the Washington Blade. They wrote:
This version of ENDA, however, creates such broad religious exemptions that even a nurse at a Catholic hospital or a secretary at a Baptist university would be subject to discrimination for no other reason than being LGBT. … The legislative process is always a matter of compromise — but our core values should never be up for negotiation.
That objection seems reasonable, if you think it’s reasonable for the state to use force to coerce employers to violate their religious beliefs because you think those beliefs are in error. ENDA is sweeping enough (as I’ve said, I believe it would be better to limit anti-discrimination measures to government and government contractors. Race-based discrimination is an exception, given the systemic nature of anti-black hiring discrimination in the U.S. prior to the civil rights movement, often supported by state governments’ Jim Crow laws).
ENDA probably will never see the light of day in the House, but if it should come up, broad religious exemptions would be politically necessary for its passage. Trying to force traditional faith-based organizations to hire and promote openly gay people and transsexuals is the wrong way to go.
Another Blade op-ed, by businessman Mike Lee, makes a number of points I agree with. He writes:
Will there be more paperwork to complete and required cover-your-behind steps in hiring or firing? Will there be new human resource litigation-inoculation training to undergo? Will costly unfounded retaliatory claims by falsely aggrieved employees and applicants be instigated against employers honestly exercising the right to make employment decisions absent prejudice or violation of the law? Will pink-slip-chasing attorneys be beneficiaries? Yes, of course. …
Changing attitudes and behavior through coercion, whether concerning big things or small matters and no matter how soothing a salve to the pain of history, is the easy and empty act. We need to remember that.
But then, I find myself, along with many others, appalled by the fact that an openly lesbian state representative in Hawaii voted against their marriage equality bill because it has insufficient religious exemptions. As the Blade reports:
The Hawaii House of Representatives on Friday gave its final approval to a bill that would extend marriage rights to same-sex couples in the Aloha State.
But wait:
Lesbian state Rep. Jo Jordan is among those who voted against SB1. “I had come to the decision that SB1 needed to [be] amended,” the lawmaker told Honolulu Magazine. “It wasn’t protective enough for everybody.”
In the Honolulu Magazine piece, the reporter tells Jordan, “People are calling you the first openly gay legislator to vote against same-sex marriage,” and she responds, rather confusingly:
I really am not happy with the [religious] exemptions. Too narrow. … I haven’t figured out why I felt so compelled to fight for the religious exemptions … My religion is the mountain, the aina and spiritual. I’m still trying to figure out. I’ve always followed paths. I don’t find the path. The path finds me. This, obviously, is a path I’m supposed to go. You’re not supposed to question. Just ‘OK.’
Jordan added she was moved by the spectacle of those brought in by religious and conservative groups to testify against marriage equality, saying:
“when you’re outside the room and seeing people waiting three, four days to stand up there for two minutes. That spoke volumes to me. People coming back day after day, waiting for their chance when they got missed.”
Yes, they are very dedicated to making sure other people don’t receive equal legal rights. Jordan doesn’t get that.
The distinction is that ENDA is not about equal legal rights; it’s about limiting the rights of business, including faith-affiliated employers. But marriage is about equal rights under the law.
The Hawaii marriage bill has reasonable exemptions so that no denomination is forced to marry anybody. But civil servants should treat gay people equally, despite their religious beliefs, because the government should be neutral.
Beyond that, forcing private citizens and businesses to recognized legally married same-sex couples has more to do with anti-discrimination law (again!) than marriage law, which is where we get the bakers and photographers being sued to provide services to same-sex weddings and commitment ceremonies, which they believe is coerced behavior that violates their religious beliefs. Fault the anti-discrimination laws for not providing a sufficient religious exemption in those cases, not equal access to marriage under the law.
More. The Elane Photography case (in which a lesbian couple tried to force Elaine Huguenin, a conservative Christian, to photograph their commitment ceremony in Taos, New Mexico) could be heading to the U.S. Supreme Court. Is this really where we want to use our legal capital before the court, to force religious conservatives to bend knee to us? “Progressives” apparently think so. How truly sad and misguided.
Furthermore. Via Cato’s Walter Olson, “Why Is the ACLU on the Wrong Side of the Wedding Photographer Case?” and Reason magazine’s Jacob Sullum, “The Constitutional Right to Conscript a Wedding Photographer.”
77 Comments for “Religious Exemptions: Jobs vs. Marriage”
posted by Houndentenor on
First of all, nondiscrimination laws have never applied to churches. A woman can’t sue the Roman Catholic Church for sex discrimination because they won’t let her become a priest. So they are already exempt from all kinds of laws.
But I can’t think of any example in which some organizations recognize a legal status, a marriage, a divorce, an adoption, etc. because they don’t like it.
Overall I would say to just let the “religious affiliated” colleges and hospitals do what they want. You always have another option for education. No one is forced to go to a religious-affiliated school. But hospitals present a special problem. There are large areas in the country where there are no hospitals other than the ones affiliated with the Catholic Church. That means that people in those areas often have no choice (unless they are having elective surgery that they can plan for in advance) other than to subject themselves to religious rules of a religion to which they may not belong. Although it happened in Ireland and not the US, the case last year in which the woman died because the hospital would not remove the fetus that had already miscarried. While the doctors stood around wringing their hands, the woman died. Needlessly. I’m fine with people willingly subjecting themselves the Catholic theology, but as a non-Catholic I find it necessary to have other options. Where I live such options are available (subject to my insurance plan) but not everyone has that “luxury”.
As for individuals claiming a religious exemption…will that work for any job-related duties or just those involving gay people? Have we ever had such a carve-out in nondiscrimination policy? I find this incredibly odd. If we want to just let people opt out of anything based on their religion, that’s a discussion we should have, but if that opt-out is only available to anti-gay bigots then that’s a form of discrimination in and of itself.
posted by Houndentenor on
Sorry, I meant to post a link to the story about the Indian woman in Ireland.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/15/indian-woman-parents-decry-irish-abortion-laws-after-daughter-dies/
posted by Tom Scharbach on
But hospitals present a special problem. There are large areas in the country where there are no hospitals other than the ones affiliated with the Catholic Church. That means that people in those areas often have no choice (unless they are having elective surgery that they can plan for in advance) other than to subject themselves to religious rules of a religion to which they may not belong.
I live in one of those areas. The closest hospital (20 minutes away, 15 for EMS) is Catholic. The nearest secular hospital is a 45 minute drive. EMS uses the Catholic hospital unless air-evacuation is needed, in which case the patient is transported to a secular University hospital about 90 minutes away.
I don’t personally have a problem with the Catholic hospital because Wisconsin’s Domestic Partnership law gives registered domestic partners the same rights as a spouse vis a vis medical decision-marking, with no religious exemption. Michael had surgery in a Catholic hospital in late summer and all went smoothly. I was treated as a spouse, just like the law directs. That is as it should be, I think.
I think that the idea of a religious exemption for Catholic hospitals vis a vis gay and lesbian married couples is preposterous. Catholic hospitals are heavily subsidized through government tax exemptions and charitable deduction exemptions for their donors. Why shouldn’t they serve the public just as any other hospital? And what in hell does having to recognize a same-sex marriage for the purpose of hospital visitation and/or medical decisions have to do with either medical care or religion, anyway?
Let me ask the proponents of religious exemptions for Catholic hospitals this: What would Jesus do? Would Jesus delay critical care decisions for Michael for the time it took to track down his brother in East Bumblefork, Texas, while I’m standing right there? Would Jesus deny Michael access to the one person he’d want to see at such a time? Would Jesus require Michael’s brother to step in and claim the body should that eventuality arise?
Ah, Christians. By their love you shall know them, indeed.
posted by Dale of the Desert on
“Changing attitudes and behavior through coercion……the easy and empty act”
Nonsense. Surely most of our laws deal with regulating behavior, and if you are not allowed to behave in a discriminatory manner, I will allow you to cling to any discriminatory attitudes you may choose to hold on to.
posted by Houndentenor on
“easy and empty” LOL
Stephen is probably not old enough to remember desegregation. Although it was about two decades after Brown v Board of Ed, my class was the first to go all the way though school in my hometown without ever having attended segregated schools. It was the opposite of easy and it mattered a great deal. The flippancy with which Stephen approaches these issues is insulting and he ought to apologize.
posted by Doug on
When the religious community drops it’s right to legal protections I’ll consider dropping ENDA protections for the LGBT community. Non discrimination applies to both or neither.
posted by Houndentenor on
There’s no like button so consider this my thumbs up!
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“I really am not happy with the [religious] exemptions. Too narrow. … I haven’t figured out why I felt so compelled to fight for the religious exemptions … My religion is the mountain, the aina and spiritual. I’m still trying to figure out. I’ve always followed paths. I don’t find the path. The path finds me. This, obviously, is a path I’m supposed to go. You’re not supposed to question. Just ‘OK.’”
When you can’t find an objective reason to oppose equality, find a religious reason. When you can’t find a religious reason, just babble.
Honest to God, the idea that people like this actually get elected to make rational decisions for society is frightening.
posted by Jorge on
“We agree that religious institutions should continue to be afforded the same exemptions they have had since the 1964 Civil Rights Act — but creating special rights for religious institutions to discriminate more broadly against LGBT Americans than against others is simply un-American.”
Hmm……
“Would it be acceptable to fire a janitor at a Catholic hospital just because he was Jewish? Would we allow a Baptist university to deny a woman a job solely because of her gender?”
Firing pregnant women. It’s sex discrimination. And it’s allowed under religious exemptions. To the extent you don’t agree with the religious employer’s doctrines engage in a different cultural practice it is religious discrimination. Hypothetically it could even be racial discrimination if a disparate impact can be proven (quite possible, given discrepancies in out of wedlock birth rates).
So, it really is nothing new. The religious exemption, by my understanding, refers to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That is as close as we can get to offering equal rights without offering special rights. The authors give examples designed to appeal to people social values, but they correct comparison is not what people think is sensible, but what is the law.
But then, I find myself, along with many others, appalled by the fact that an openly lesbian state representative in Hawaii voted against their marriage equality bill because it has insufficient religious exemptions.
Deal with it! You’re one of the would-be ringleaders of the let’s not march in lockstep with the progresso-commie movement. Eat dirt and like it.
And speaking of eating dirt, you may all remind me of why my opinion on gays marching in lockstep carries no weight.
Let me ask the proponents of religious exemptions for Catholic hospitals this: What would Jesus do? Would Jesus delay critical care decisions for Michael for the time it took to track down his brother in East Bumblefork, Texas, while I’m standing right there? Would Jesus deny Michael access to the one person he’d want to see at such a time? Would Jesus require Michael’s brother to step in and claim the body should that eventuality arise?
Jesus was pretty unstable and inconsistent in his day, what with his violent tendencies toward religion and business, turning away members of his own family, and playing word salad games with the Romans, so I’m not sure he’s the right person to ask. Asking a God who turns people to salt for showing compassion and wipes out the families of his most loyal retainers is even worse. And asking the Holy Spirit, hmm… well at least you won’t get Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as an answer, but that’s not much consulation–good luck with that one. If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather ask a priest. At least they speak in English.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather ask a priest.
Well, I’d rather ask you.
(A) Do you think that Catholic hospitals should have a religious exemption allowing the hospitals to refuse to acknowledge the following rights granted to spouses under state law:
(1) right to visit hospitalized spouse;
(2) right to consent to a spouse’s admission to the hospital if the spouse is incapacitated;
(3) right to be treated as a “person authorized by patient” for the purposes of disclosure and release of hospital/treatment records;
(4) right to make medical decisions for the spouse if the spouse is incapacitated;
(5) right to make end-of-life decisions for the spouse if the spouse is incapacitated;
(6) right to consent to autopsy and/or anatomical gift for a deceased spouse;
(7) right to custody of the body of a deceased spouse.
(B) What medical purpose is served by refusing to recognize same-sex spouses as spouses for such purposes?
(C) More broadly, do you think that a Catholic hospital should have the right to refuse treatment to a patient, if the patient is in a same-sex marriage, in order to avoid having to comply with state law granting spousal rights to same-sex spouses? If so, is that true for emergency treatment as well as elective treatment?
Feel free to ask a priest before you respond, if you feel the need.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Jesus was pretty unstable and inconsistent in his day, what with his violent tendencies toward religion and business, turning away members of his own family, and playing word salad games with the Romans, so I’m not sure he’s the right person to ask.
As an aside, do you think he’s improved since?
posted by Houndentenor on
I’m still stunned at the idea of acting a priest for moral advice. Someone in an organization that shuttled child rapists around the country would be my last choice for ethical guidance. I’d be better off just asking the next stranger I cam across.
As for the addendum, I’ll say this again, if someone is a bigoted against my kind (whatever kind that might be) I’d rather not hire them to do anything, especially something as important as photography of a major event. They have already admitted that they aren’t professional enough to put aside their own personal feelings and do their best work for their client. I’d never hire someone like that.
posted by Jorge on
(A) Do you think that Catholic hospitals should have a religious exemption allowing the hospitals to refuse to acknowledge the following rights granted to spouses under state law:
No.
(B) What medical purpose is served by refusing to recognize same-sex spouses as spouses for such purposes?
Every hypothetical situations that exists would not be limited to same-sex spouses.
(C) More broadly, do you think that a Catholic hospital should have the right to refuse treatment to a patient, if the patient is in a same-sex marriage, in order to avoid having to comply with state law granting spousal rights to same-sex spouses?
Yes.
If so, is that true for emergency treatment as well as elective treatment?
No.
As an aside, do you think he’s improved since?
Other than the fact that he came back to life and thus he really does intermediate for the forgiveness of everyone’s sins, no.
I’m still stunned at the idea of acting a priest for moral advice.
I would be glad to hear how easy it is to step on the crack of your broken record, but I find I don’t believe you.
posted by Doug on
“Jesus was pretty unstable and inconsistent in his day, what with his violent tendencies toward religion and business, turning away members of his own family, and playing word salad games with the Romans, so I’m not sure he’s the right person to ask. Asking a God who turns people to salt for showing compassion and wipes out the families of his most loyal retainers is even worse. And asking the Holy Spirit, hmm… well at least you won’t get Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as an answer, but that’s not much consulation–good luck with that one.”
Assuming this is true why are religious institutions given any deference, protections, at all?
posted by Jorge on
That’s why religious institutions are given deference and protection. Because when one religion is allowed to have a hegemony over others, or even over the lives of people of their own faith, the result is abuse and tyranny. Without the ability to rebel against God himself, the ability to worship is endangered and we decay, both socially and spiritually.
posted by clayton on
I don’t know why Stephen thinks “progressives” (his quotes) want rouse political capital bringing the Elane Photography case to SCOTUS. The Huguenins are the ones filing suit. Are these the progressives of whom he speaks?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I don’t know why Stephen thinks “progressives” (his quotes) want rouse political capital bringing the Elane Photography case to SCOTUS.
I assume you’ve noticed, as I have, that whenever Stephen asserts things like “Progressives” apparently think so … he always uses weasel words like “apparently” and never provides attribution or empirical backup. I usually ignore Stephen’s “progressives are evil” nonsense.
posted by Dale of the Desert on
This is off topic. but Stephen Miller used to be only one of a number of writers who would contribute topics from a variety of perspectives, many quite lucid and thoughtful. Just when and how did Stephen Miller co-opt the blog? Did the others desert, or was it a coup?
And while I’m at it, this Jorge Contributor seems to be intelligent, even if not always right. So why does he feel compelled to consistently write with a caustic, bitchy edge? Is it low self-esteem, or is he just an intelligent, caustic, bitchy person by nature?
posted by Jorge on
You could ask me directly, but you’re not.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I support religious exemptions for faith-based organizations including hospitals …
I thought about this, and read the Catholic arguments in favor of a religious exemption allowing them to refuse to hire gay/lesbian staff in their hospitals, and, for the life of me, I don’t get it.
What does sexual orientation have to do with whether or not a doctor is a competent doctor, or a nurse a competent nurse, or an administrative assistant a competent administrative assistant?
I support religious exemptions vis a vis employees serving a religious role in the hospital — for example, a chaplain or lay minister — and I can even argue that there is a case to be made for requiring employees to sign an affidavit of compliance with religious requirements (e.g. Catholic bans on the use of artificial birth control) or an agreement not to utter so much as a word contrary to whatever religious doctrine may be applicable while performing their duties in the hospital, in order to be employed by a religious hospital.
But sexual orientation, in and of itself, as a grounds for hiring/firing for jobs that have nothing at all to do with sexual orientation? It just doesn’t wash.
posted by Doug on
I’ll bet that Catholics would scream bloody murder if the only doctor who could cure the Pope or one of the Cardinals of some disease was gay and he refused on his own religious grounds. The cry would be deafening.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The absurd thing about it all is that the Catholic Church, at least in the United States, employs a lot of priests who are, in the terms of the Church, “persons with a homosexual orientation”.
It is difficult to determine the percentage reliably because priests must, of necessity, remain closeted; reputable studies range in estimate from 15% to 40%, with most clustering in the 30% range.
But all that is irrelevant to whether or not a Catholic hospital should have a “religious exemption” allowing it to fire/hire doctors, nurses, administrative assistants and maintenance staff on the basis of sexual orientation.
posted by Lori Heine on
What about LGBT Catholics, Southern Baptists, etc.?
Oops, too inconvenient. Neither the Right nor the Left wants to deal with us. Like LGBT Republicans or Libertarians, we must be ignored.
The entire concept of religious exemptions for the purpose of permitting discrimination comes mostly from social conservative nuts and irreligious liberals. Most of the Catholic laity, and a growing number even in churches like the Southern Baptist, would have a problem with hospitals bearing the name of their religious body turning gay people away. The bigots might think it’s a good idea, but it would be a P.R. disaster even among the faithful.
I will repeat that it is gay conservatives, libertarians — and Christians and Jews — and our allies who are making the difference. All the shrieking and cackling in the world from those who wish to deny it won’t change that. And having dealt with the deniers — the fingers in the ears, la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you crowd on both Left and Right — for years, I have abundant experience to attest to that.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
What is the Libertarian Party position on laws prohibiting non-discrimination in the workplace, ENDA for example?
posted by Lori Heine on
It’s probably opposed to them. I’m no longer a member of the Libertarian Party, so I’m not going to get into any more arguments about what they do or do not support.
Part of the reason I left the Lib Party was its purism. I think that’s principled in most cases, but sometimes it’d just plain dumb.
If religious institutions are going to take my tax money, I do think that changes the equation a little. I am vehemently opposed to laws that would force ministers to perform religious rituals to which they are opposed, as that would clearly be an infringement of their religious liberties. But as a gay Christian, I also see the automatic assumption that ALL religious organizations must automatically be opposed to same-sex love as bigoted and ignorant.
Does a person have the right to refuse service to bigots on religious grounds? In a life-and-death instance, of course not. But otherwise? My reason for hoping to one day get married is as religious as the reason some minister might have for not wanting to perform the service. Do his beliefs trump mine simply because his are more commonly held?
Most Republicans are on the wrong side of the same-sex marriage issue, but a growing number aren’t. In some ways, however, it’s easier for a (lower-case l) libertarian to deal with people who acknowledge the reality of the laws that do exist (and will continue to, whether capital-L Libertarians like it or not) than it is with the purists.
I can’t spend all my time up on the mountaintop anymore, with my head up in the clouds. The real decisions affecting our lives are being made down here on Earth.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
If religious institutions are going to take my tax money, I do think that changes the equation a little.
To me, it is very simple. If a hospital or other charitable institution (say an adoption agency) takes government money in the form of tax subsidies and/or direct contract payment for services, it has become, in a real sense, an agent of the government with respect to the services the government pays it to provide, and has an obligation to serve all citizens on an equal footing. If it can’t find its way to do that and stay true to its religious principles, then it ought not take the money.
I am vehemently opposed to laws that would force ministers to perform religious rituals to which they are opposed, as that would clearly be an infringement of their religious liberties.
Well, of course. We all are. I have never heard anyone suggest otherwise, even in the case of remarriage after divorce, which affects a lot more people than same-sex marriage.
That’s not what the controversy over “religious exemptions” is about, though.
But as a gay Christian, I also see the automatic assumption that ALL religious organizations must automatically be opposed to same-sex love as bigoted and ignorant.
As far as I’m concerned, who is Christian and who is not among Christians is a fight between Christians, and I’m staying out of it. What I see as an outsider is a bunch of fractious cats, hissing and clawing at one another.
But I would point out that it is not those of us on the outside who are making the assumption for the most part; it is the Christians themselves who make the assumption one way or another across the religious divide within Christianity, each side denouncing Christians who don’t agree with them as “not true Christians”, hurling competing texts at one another like sticks and stones.
posted by Houndentenor on
Out gay people are welcome in Southern Baptist churches? That’s news to me. Of course there are gay Catholics. (And not just the priests.) I also have gay friends who work for Baptist colleges. They aren’t exactly in the closet, but aren’t talking about it on campus. Things are moving in both those churches, especially among the young, but the rhetoric from the pulpit hasn’t changed. just last year my parents’ preacher talked one of their friends into cutting off all contact with her gay son until he “repents”. I don’t know who you are lecturing on SBC church policies and politics. I have a front row view whenever I want it. Yes, I know a lot of people in fundamentalist churches who are gay friendly, but I sure wish they’d talk to their church about it instead of making excuses to me about the millions of dollars their church spends on things like Prop 8 and the anti-gay sermons in their pulpits.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Yes, I know a lot of people in fundamentalist churches who are gay friendly, but I sure wish they’d talk to their church about it instead of making excuses to me about the millions of dollars their church spends on things like Prop 8 and the anti-gay sermons in their pulpits.
Ditto. I can’t count all the Catholics and “Bible Church” people I know who are gay friendly, including neighbors and friends, who seem to spend a lot of time telling me that they don’t agree with what their churches teach with respect to gays and lesbians. But it doesn’t stop them from going to these churches and contributing to them, and letting these churches indoctrinate their children.
I don’t care what Christian churches teach and preach. I don’t care what they think at all. Christianity is irrelevant to my personal and religious life.
Except in one respect. I care about what the anti-equality churches do in the political arena. I care about the fact that the Catholic Church spends millions upon millions fighting equality. I care about the fact that the “Bible churches” around this area whip up their members to oppose any legislative action that might move Wisconsin closer to equality. I care about the fact that anti-equality Christians flood the local papers with anti-gay letters to the editor, and raise hell when the kids in the local high schools try to start a GSA.
Catholic laity are more pro-equality than the general population, by a point or two if the polls are accurate. That’s good. But it doesn’t stop the Catholic Church from funding NOM or stop the bishops from leading the charge against equality, as Bishop Nienstedt did in Minnesota and Bishop Morlino does in Wisconsin.
Lori points out, correctly, that we should not make the blanket assumption that all Christians are anti-equality. True enough. Few of us do. But the anti-equality Christians dominate the public discussion and the political action, and pro-equality Christians don’t fight it, at least not in the public forum.
posted by Houndentenor on
I do my best to differentiate between the over 30,000 sects of Christianity. Sometimes I forget (or just get lazy). It’s easy to do because it’s fundamentalists who identify themselves as Christian (with no other qualifier) so often and act as if they are the only Christians around. They are the ones who are the most guilty of ignoring the fact that there are many people who are Christians who disagree with them on all kinds of doctrinal issues (not just the current social issues). So again, the beef ought not be with me, but with the Christians who want to marginalize the non-fundamentalist ones. I have news for Lori, those Baptists she’s happy to defend don’t officially think she’s a REAL Christian (and say so all the time though usually out of earshot of anyone who isn’t also Baptist). I hear it all the time when I (and yes, I want pity for this) poorly plan a trip to visit my parents and am in town on a Sunday morning. (I usually go to the Episcopal church with my sister, but sometimes that doesn’t work out.) For those who think I strawman the Baptist church that my relatives go to, I can only say is that when I do visit it’s WORSE than I remember, not better. There are LOTS of politics discussed both from the pulpit and in the Sunday School classes. (I just refuse to go to Sunday School with them. It’s bad enough that I have to endure the horrid excuse for music that plagues those kinds of churches these days.) I realize there are lots of branches of Christianity about which I may have gross misunderstandings. Southern Baptists would most definitely NOT be on the list of religions I don’t understand. I was raised in it, I’m surrounded by it, and thanks to relatives who will not attend any other kind of church under any circumstances wind up observing it far more often than I’d like. (Actually any participation in fundamentalist religion of any sort is more than I’d like.) I know there’s a new “we’re not all like that” campaign, but really people who want us to know that (which we ALL do, so thanks for the pointless lecture), but that should be directed at the corners of religion who think they speak for everyone else. I know not all Christians believe the same things on any topic not just gay rights. I’m not the one who needs to know that. The “Christians” who speak as if all other Christians agree with them are the ones who need to be told that. The news producers who seem to only put on the most extreme, shrill voices representing any religion need to be told that. The politicians who pander to religious extremists at every turn need to be told this. THOSE OF US WHO WERE RAISED IN A FUNDAMENTALIST CHURCH AND LIVE AND WORK WITH FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS DO NOT NEED TO BE TOLD THAT ALL CHRISTIANS ARE NOT LIKE THAT.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
I take somewhat of a more moderate view on the exemptions issue. But part of the problem is that many of the folks screaming for a ‘religious liberty right of refusal’ are the same sort of people who have been verbally (if not physically) bashing gays and anyone else that they disliked in order to get more money and power.
BTW, does anyone else notice that the Independent Gay Forum has ads appearing on its webpage for Liberty University……?
posted by Houndentenor on
There are ads on this page? someone needs a better adblock on their browser! I don’t know how the ads work here, (I can’t even see them!) but on most webpages the ads are selected based on words that show up on the blog. This can lead to hilarious results where religious books are advertised on websites that mock such beliefs. I’m sure similar things happen on right wing or religious blogs as well. I’m fairly confident that one associated with this blog pre-approves the ads. If they do, it would be exceptional.
posted by Lori Heine on
Things will change in the churches when — and as — people change them. That’s simply how the dynamic works. I’m willing to be a royal pain in the A** and speak up for change. I actually enjoy it. A lot of people are afraid to, which is why they’re nice to us, yet do nothing to change the way leadership treats us.
Social cons are bullies, willing to throw temper tantrums and resort to thuggery to get their way. Most people give in to bullies, because they think it’s easier to do that. But behavior that is rewarded is that which gets repeated. When they reward it, it is never appeased — they only get more of it.
I know I’m telling many readers here things about bullies and thugs they already know. What I’m trying to say is that I’m willing to be one of the people who fight the bullies and thugs. I’ve spent much of my adult life doing so, and I’m still here — so hopefully I can convince others to join me.
Not true, the frequent meme I hear here that “no gays on the Right are doing anything about it.” I don’t care if you think I’m invisible, or don’t want to acknowledge what I and other like me do — we’ll do it anyway, because we don’t do it for your approval in the first place.
It takes no courage or integrity to sit around and carp about problems from the cocoon of Leftist acceptance. (And I don’t know who here is among them and who isn’t, because I don’t know what they do when they’re not submitting comments to this blog.) But it would be a hell of a lot more helpful to call us self-haters or ridicule us, as so often happens here.
Kudos to Mr. Miller, and to the other IGF authors, for putting up with having a bunch of (usually-anonymous) people call them senile, or drunks, or worse simply because they express opinions many on the Left find unfashionable.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Not true, the frequent meme I hear here that “no gays on the Right are doing anything about it.”
I’ve frequently pointed out the fact that the tested and proven way to change a political party is for pro-equality members of that party to get involved in the party from the ground up, working at county, state and then federal levels. Pro-equality progressives did that in the Democratic Party, working long and hard for the last thirty-odd years, and it worked, little by slowly.
I’ve also noted that I have seen little or no evidence that pro-equality conservatives are doing that work in the Republican Party. IGF is evidence of that lack of evidence, in my opinion. Can you think of a single conservative on this list, over the last five years — other than you — who has said a word about doing the kind of work you are doing?
What has been your experience at the county level, where I gather from other posts that you have been working? Have other pro-equality conservatives joined the party and lent a hand? Or are they doing what Stephen has been doing, bemoaning the fact that Democrats don’t support Republicans, and letting it go at that?
If I’m wrong, I’m wrong.
But I know the Republican county parties in Adams, Columbia, Juneau, Marquette, Richland and Sauk counties in rural Wisconsin. I know the leadership of those county parties, past and present, and quite a number of the members, particularly in Columbia and Sauk.
I don’t know a single pro-equality conservative who is in there pushing and shoving — doing what you do — in any of those county parties.
I know quite a few moderate Republicans who have just tossed in the towel, given the Tea Party takeover of those county parties. I’ve had long talks with one, in particular, who is a close friend — he opposes marriage equality for religious reasons but is otherwise a moderate Republican — who was shoved out of leadership in his county party because he wasn’t nuts enough to cut the mustard. I’ve heard, from him and from others, similar stories from other counties.
So I don’t think I’m far wrong.
posted by Lori Heine on
Tom, you are making many assumptions in your comment that simply do not apply, and for a variety of reasons. I won’t go through all of them, but here are a few:
(A) You assume that where I live, in metropolitan Phoenix, is exactly like rural Wisconsin. It is not.
(B) You assume I intend to focus on working within a political structure, i.e. party leadership. I do not. I am a writer, and I focus on communicating. I do hope to inspire others to work in local party politics, but don’t expect to be doing much of it myself.
(C) You assume I intend to work only with whomever is currently in the Republican Party. I do not. I have better things to do with my time than try to convince bigots not to be bigots, or cowards not to be cowards.
I base my course of action on the people I know, and those they know. Are these people all living up to their potential as LGBT allies? Of course not. But as I do not live in a bubble, I know there are many, many more out there like them. I will try to reach them.
I will also poach from the Left as much as possible. I went from being a hardened and dedicated Leftist to being a libertarian Republican. Most of the gay conservatives I know ACTUALLY STARTED OUT AS LIBERALS, AND DID NOT MOVE TO THE RIGHT UNTIL A CONSIDERABLE LENGTH OF TIME AFTER COMING OUT.
That is inconvenient to the Left, but it is true.
There are many LGBT folks — including some of those who comment here — whose inclinations are conservative or libertarian, but who have been pushed much farther Left than they would have been otherwise by social conservatism in the GOP. They are quite reachable, as my conversations with them has shown.
Your characterization of the Tea Party is also a gross caricature. It is a movement as diverse as the political Right itself. Just because people like Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews try to make it sound as if ALL Tea Party people are socially conservative, that does not make it so.
Leftists are supposed to like diversity. They chirp about it all the time. I don’t know why, when it occurs on the Right, it’s so invisible to them.
I think you’re very far from right.
posted by Lori Heine on
Should be “as my conversations with them HAVE shown.” It’s hard to keep track of one’s thoughts in this little box.
I need to add a thought. Not necessarily Tom, Houndentenor or some of the more fair-minded commenters here, but a few of the others sound eerily similar to the homophobic closet-cases who troll on gay conservative and gay Christian websites, doggedly insisting the same things so often repeated here — that “real” gays can’t be conservative or Christian.
Again, the far Left and the social Right are Tweedledee and Tweedledum. It’s six of one, and half a dozen of the other.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
You can “communicate” until the cows come home, but the fact remains that those of us who are aligned with the Democratic Party have turned our party on LGBT issues over the last 30-odd years, and those of you aligned with the Republican Party have not.
The Republican Party remains mired in anti-equality, and, if anything, has moved in the wrong direction in the last decade, if the 2012 platform is any indication. Pro-equality conservatives need to do something about the latter fact, or the party will not change.
I don’t know about Chris Matthews or Rachel Maddow. I don’t watch either show. (I don’t watch Fox, either.) I have no idea whether either of them has claimed that ALL Tea Party people (your caps, not mine) are social conservatives, but I doubt it.
A number of independent polls have demonstrated, though, that Republicans who claim Tea Party affiliation are strongly opposed to marriage equality in very high numbers. A 2012 WP/Kaiser poll is typical. Drill down (using the upper right hand drop down) to “Political party clusters” and you’ll find this: Percent that oppose marriage equality:
I’ve been involved in the LGBT movement, one way and another, for many years. I’ve learned two things: (1) if you don’t work with facts, however distasteful, you don’t get anywhere; and (2) it is always a mistake to underestimate the depth and determination of the opposition.
posted by Lori Heine on
Tom, I’m not sure what really drives you here. You disagree with every single article that appears on this blog, yet you come back again and again — and attack those who write this blog.
The chance that I would ever return to the Democratic Party is, at this point, exactly nil. I no longer agree with much of anything that party stands for. Are they better on LGBT issues? Admittedly. But I am not simply a gay woman, I am a whole human being. I cannot vote simply on one issue.
Many of us reach a point in our lives at which we realize we’re no longer willing to be fed one s**t sandwich after another simply because we’re gay. That we don’t “need to” believe what the Leftist plantation bosses tell us, go to the churches they tell us to go to, or vote the way they dictate. I have reached that point.
If you really believe the stuff the Democrats do, then fine for you — you belong there. I do not. I, in fact, have come to believe they are so dangerous, and so wrongheaded, that they must be opposed.
Most conservatives — particularly older ones — lag behind on gay issues. You keep harping on the way things are at the moment, as if that will never change. You believe it won’t, while I believe that it will. We’ll simply have to agree to disagree on that.
What I’m not supposed to realize, but do, is that “They’re not moving fast enough” is actually the Leftists’ fall-back position. Originally, it was “They’ll never move at all.” I have a prediction, and I don’t think it’s an especially bold one: we’ll never move fast enough to suit you.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I’m not sure what really drives you here.
It is mostly habit, I suppose, at this point, Lori.
I started reading IGF regularly about a decade ago, when IGF was a lively blog, and folks like Paul Varnell, John Covino, Dale Carpenter, Andrew Sullivan, Chris Cain, Richard Rosenthal, Jon Rauch, Jennifer Vanasco and many others of similar intelligence were frequent contributors. I learned a lot from the blog in those days, and enjoyed exploring ideas with others who commented.
Stephen’s posting was different then, too, I think. More thoughtful, less attack dog on the left, more balanced. Less bitter than it now seems to be, at least to me. Not that I’ve ever agreed with him much, mind you, but his posts were a lot less formulaic then.
IGF had lots of interesting people making comments years ago, too, representing many points of view, and representing them intelligently.
I don’t know what happened to the blog over time. I remember a period a few years ago when a number of, well, marginal people began dominating the comments, and the comment section got very ugly, not unlike the comment section in Gay Patriot. You probably remember that time, too. I think that drove a lot of folks away. But whatever happened, IGF has changed a lot, become more polemic and polarized, with a lot more heat than light most of the time.
I think that your unstated premise — that I’m wasting my time (and yours, too) continuing on IGF — is probably right. I’m retired now, having fought long enough and hard enough over the last 40+ years to take a rest. I’ll do that, and see if I miss IGF after the holidays.
posted by Lori Heine on
My unstated premise — that you are wasting your time or mine by continuing on IGF — was unstated, because it’s not my premise. I just don’t understand why so few of LGBT conservatives and libertarians actually comment here. As I believe I’ve stated in previous comments, I’d like to see more. I intend to bring over all I can.
The problem at Gay Patriot seems to be a lack of courage in facing down the slime-balls who dominate the comments. Most of their slime-balls are social conservatives, and they’re about the most repulsive excuses for human beings I’ve encountered online. One of the chief attractions of IGF has been that even those with whom I disagree are usually civil.
Even the liberal trolls at GP are slime-balls. Only the moderate people who comment there make any sense — and they are constantly attacked by the soc-cons.
Here, at least, those on the Left are capable of something besides “Duh…you conservatives are self-hating,” or “Duh…you’re Jewish Nazis.” I have come to appreciate that.
I suppose I have chosen the course I have because I believe it is the right one. I don’t know how many people agree with me, but I believe what I believe, and I stand for what I stand for. That’s probably not a good enough answer to suit you, but in the final analysis, it is my answer.
posted by Houndentenor on
I don’t think any gay person is self-loathing for being an economic conservative. But voting for a candidate actively campaigning against your rights or the rights can only be described that way. When confronted the response is…”I vote Republican because I’m for small government.” even though not one Republican in my lifetime has reduced the size of government. Every last one of them has expanded spending and programs. Just different spending and programs than their Democratic challenger would have. If you are a libertarian, be a libertarian. but talking like a libertarian while voting Republican, a party that is in no way shape or form libertarian, is laughable.
And one more thing, your rights do not include freedom from criticism. No matter what you do, someone isn’t going to like it. Stop being such a crybaby. No, I don’t think much of the anti-gay churches. I have every much as right to hold my views on that subject as people have a right to attend those churches. I am not going to shut up when I see things that I think are wrong.
Good luck moving the social conservatives into the 21st century. It’s going to happen. You can look at the poll numbers and see that anti-gay bigotry is less among younger people. The GOP at some point will drop this issue. Even now gay-bashing seems like less and less of a cash cow every year for right-wing organizations. I would say that it’s going to take decades but the shift in public opinion about gay rights in the last 10 years is unprecedented in our country’s history. it’s been swift and fast. This many not be an issue in national elections in our lifetimes. I look forward to that day. It’s been exhausting facing an anti-gay ballot initiative in every election cycle for the last 2 decades.
posted by Aubrey Haltom on
Tom, I just wanted to drop in to add a quick personal note.
Unlike Lori, I enjoy your comments here at IGF. I don’t find your critique of Miller’s constant whining to be bothersome. I actually wish Miller would address (at least some of) what is said here at IGF. Rather than simply play the ‘stuck-on-repeat’ performance that he does.
I remember Lori from some years ago. And I’ve always found her to be more of an individual in her comments/thoughts than many other conservatives that post on IGF.
And yes, I was one of those who commented frequently some years ago (5 – 6 years ago, maybe?) – but found the North Dallas 30 (or whatever moniker he goes by) style to be tiresome (not to mention – his links would often disprove his point, but that didn’t seem to bother him. He was mostly fishing for some angry reaction to his comments, it seemed to me. After a while, he became no more than a troll, rather than a person interested in a valid conversation.)
I also remember a ‘Deb’ – a woman who apparently was spurned in her past by some gay man, and carried a chip-on-her-shoulder from that time hence. Her comments usually resorted to a ‘gay sex is anal sex is gross’. She supported any comment that raised the ire of any liberal commenters here. At times she would make some valid comments, but too often, in the end, it was all about how gross we were.
I visit this site, Tom, because of comments like yours. Well-informed, thoughtful, engaged and engaging.
When Lori falls back to the ‘plantation’ criticism (similar to ND30 in that regard), then you know you’ve touched a nerve.
I hope you reconsider your statement re: distancing yourself from this blog.
The blog would lose a significant part of whatever attraction it still holds. And I would feel that loss.
posted by Doug on
“That we don’t “need to” believe what the Leftist plantation bosses tell us, go to the churches they tell us to go to, or vote the way they dictate. ”
I have never encountered a Democrat that tells me which church to attend but Republicans constantly tell me how to believe. Former president Bush is speaking at an organization that is trying to convert Jews to christian. As for rigidity, the latest polls show that 45% of Republicans believe Obama was born in a foreign country. Talk about delusional, that’s almost half of a major political party that wants to govern this country.
posted by Lori Heine on
I am piggybacking onto Don’s comment because no “Reply” option is being listed for Houndentenor’s.
It’s easy to reach for the “crybaby” label to fling at anyone who issues what you feel to be an invalid complaint. But in this case, H, your argument is disingenuous. As you very well know, I was not claiming that you should not be just as free as a bird to express your opinions, not attend gay-hating churches, etc., etc.
I was attempting to provide a gentler response to Tom S. I was describing the situation at another blog, and expressing my appreciation that it is not happening on this one. I don’t think it merited an attack.
To some degree, though I don’t excuse it, I can understand what’s happening on Gay Patriot. The hive minders don’t want to see conservatives (those they consider “real” conservatives — as narrow and idiotic as that definition is) driven away by swarms of Leftists who might come in and take over the comments.
Whether that was the intention or not (and I don’t think everybody Left of center who comments here gathered in some dark cellar to plot IGF’s demise), it does seem to be happening. I suspect a great many LGBT conservatives and libertarians who read this blog are leery of commenting here, because a flame-war might develop.
If that is the case, I want to encourage them to comment without worrying about that. They may have been burned by their experiences on other blogs (GP comes most readily to mind), but I don’t think that will happen here.
As far as the church thing goes, I have for years been very actively and passionately engaged in the battle to make us more welcome in churches. I do it by persuasion, rather than by trying to get the government to coerce them. I believe this is the proper way to get this done. Not only would coercion be, in my opinion, morally wrong (and as un-Christian as the behavior of the bigots), but it would backfire — generating even more opposition and actually setting back the cause of LGBT acceptance.
posted by Lori Heine on
In my comment below, Doug, I mistakenly called you “Don.” Sorry. Senior moment.
posted by Jorge on
Geez, you guys are really making me want to look at GayPatriot to see what all the fuss is about. But I don’t really like the blogs much.
Good luck moving the social conservatives into the 21st century. It’s going to happen. You can look at the poll numbers and see that anti-gay bigotry is less among younger people. The GOP at some point will drop this issue. Even now gay-bashing seems like less and less of a cash cow every year for right-wing organizations. I would say that it’s going to take decades but the shift in public opinion about gay rights in the last 10 years is unprecedented in our country’s history.
Well, Houndentenor, you’ve explained much of the reason why I am very comfortable voting for social conservatives. Who deserves the credit?
I’ve said this before: the gay rights movement is, and shall ever be, a progressive movement. And just like every other progressive movement, it’s competent enough to exert change on the right from the right.
posted by JohnInCA on
Since when are “progressives” some sort of all-encompassing hive mind? Last I checked, the lawyers in Elane Photography weren’t affiliated with any “progressive” organization. Yeah, the ACLU and others have filed amicus briefs, but that case isn’t being pushed by *any* “progressive” org.
I mean, it’s like the California Prop 8 case… the “progressive” groups so derided weren’t actually involved. So complain about the Elane Photography case if you want, but blame the right people.
posted by Kosh III on
“Just because people like Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews try to make it sound as if ALL Tea Party people are socially conservative, that does not make it so.”
Maybe not in your neck of the woods but here in TN the vast majority of Teanuts ARE socially conservative, Obama hating, gay-bashing, religion-pushing bullies.
Google Sen. Stacey Campfield, Sen. Ron Ramsey(Lt Gov) or the craziest: Congressman Marsha Blackburn.
posted by Kosh III on
“I have never encountered a Democrat that tells me which church to attend but Republicans constantly tell me how to believe.”
I’d second that. It’s the conservatives who are the nannies, telling us what to believe, demanding extra special rights for THEIR beliefs and pushing THEIR notions of morality onto the rest of us.
In fact, I’d suggest that progressives are less likely to be attendees of organized religion than avowed conservatives.
The city I live in is the HQ of the Southern Bigot Convention: they routinely meddle in civic affairs to push THEIR agenda along with the even more regressive Church of Christ which is centered in this area.
Last year the chairman of the GOP for the reddest county in the state(Williamson) pitched a fit because the governor appointed a Muslim to lead the effort to lure foreign businesses here. She was eminently qualified as she spoke multiple languages, had lived abroad and was an attorney. (sarcasm alert)But she was Mooooooslim and probably a terrorist—eeekkkk.
posted by Don on
I’ve been listening to this debate for a long time. And I have come to the conclusion that the only religious exemption should be for those individuals whose job primarily requires teaching or promoting their religion. No one else.
Hospitals out. Inns and photographers out. Church secretary? Maybe. Let the courts decide how much a particular job is promoting the religion. Priests, rabbis, youth pastor, bishops, teachers in religious schools – all covered. Everybody else: out.
If you’re not a figure head designed to teach and promote the religion’s practices, then whether or not you adhere to them has nothing to do with job performance. Church janitor? No way.
This is already not much of a problem. The Baptists have had a snit fit a couple of times over divorced preachers but inevitably they keep their jobs. So it’s legitimizing animus and giving it legal cover.
Why am I so narrow? Because if your job isn’t to teach morality (as your religion defines it) then the only reason to fire someone is to shame them into adhering to your religious beliefs. THAT is a very powerful weapon of coercion to “spread the Good News.”
Why isn’t the debate framed this way? I think the liberals have been fearful of this issue for a very long time. I think social conservatives have learned from their mistakes in other battles.
But that is where I would draw the line. And anyone who disagrees with that line should be state their opposition as it is: I believe I have the right to deny medical treatment to gay people because their illness is God’s punishment and I should not stand in the way of His righteous work, or I believe I should have the right to fire a janitor because I believe those people should be publicly shamed and starved out of a decent job because they are living an amoral life.
This is not about the freedom of conscience to believe as they wish. It is about wielding a weapon against other members of society to coerce them into believing as they do. Sadly, the war has been lost. The public has been long wary of the legal right to use religious shame to marginalize or punish people. The 1960s saw to cracking that wall.
Now religious conservatives want to use the force of law to convert others. It’s essentially what liberals do with secular causes. Only conservatives think they’re doing it for the right reasons and liberals are doing it for the wrong reasons.
Still, social conservatives are starting to resemble the Japanese holdouts in some of the atolls 20 years after WWII was over. No amount of dialogue, even from their fellow Japanese could convince them to stop fighting. They just could not believe it was over.
posted by Lori Heine on
As you say, social conservatives are beginning to look crazier all the time. Their lies are getting more outrageous, because they are becoming desperate. They are losing, and they will lose.
Which is exactly why laws forcing all bigots engaged in commerce to serve LGBT people are unnecessary. By the time such laws become possible, they usually have outlived any necessity there ever may have been for them.
posted by Jorge on
Why am I so narrow? Because if your job isn’t to teach morality (as your religion defines it) then the only reason to fire someone is to shame them into adhering to your religious beliefs.
A religion is not a group of scribes. Scribes are very important. Pope Benedict XVI was a scribe, praise the Lord! Pope Francis is not. Pope John Paul II was not.
That is, if a religion’s job is to teach morality, you cannot disqualify acts of community service such as, well, yes, schools, and yes, also hospitals and social service organizations. Things that represent religion’s commitment to the moral principles they espouse. “Introduction to Christianity” is not the end-all, be-all of what Christianity is about. There are other paths–and the personal biases of non-members who think to say what religion should be about does not get to decide what religion is about. Else Christianity would be reduced not to a church, but to a textbook.
posted by Don on
I appreciate the argument, Jorge, but it’s not really what I’m saying. And, as Francis has pointed out, it’s awfully unchristian to wage a legal war on those who do not believe as the church does. But I would go beyond a particular religion’s viewpoint. What would happen if muslims refused to serve a woman who wasn’t sufficiently covered. Justice Ginsberg was brilliant in using this tactic to shine light on laws the majority is perfectly happy with until it is turned against them.
I would happily chose not to use Elaine Photography if it was my situation. But I would hope that someone would shame Elaine in turn for being a Godless woman who has left her home to work in the world of men clearly against God’s mandate for her role in the world. Frankly, I think someone should fire all the women in a company and claim religious exemption on those grounds. Then maybe people would get the point.
But I’m more hopeful that Francis will reach his own church and get them to ask the simple question of “why are we spending all this time and money shaming people and making their lives miserable?” Really? That’s what we’re here to do? It’s not the point of Christianity, but it is what most of them are spending their time doing. I hope he puts an end to all that.
posted by Jorge on
Frankly, I think someone should fire all the women in a company and claim religious exemption on those grounds. Then maybe people would get the point.
It’s probably been done, but never brazenly enough to win. The defendant always denies it in court or settles.
And, as Francis has pointed out, it’s awfully unchristian to wage a legal war on those who do not believe as the church does.
Pope Francis has never said that. He does not stray from the position of “hate the sin, love the sinner.” In his major interview to the Jesuit society, he stated that “religion has a right to express its opinion in the service of its people.” The only difference between that and the then Cardinal Ratzinger’s “clear and emphatic opposition is a duty”, is tact. What the current Pope did say is that “it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person”. Nowhere did he say it is unchristian for the Church to stand up for it believes in–that would be highly inconsistent with the Catechism. He merely critiques the wisdom of the Church focusing only on matters of gay marriage and abortion, arguing (I think accurately) that its moral edifice could “fall like a house of cards”.
Also when you say the Catholic Church is shaming people and making their lives miserable, I assume you’re talking about its own worshippers because I really don’t see it playing that role politically in this country.
posted by Don on
“Also when you say the Catholic Church is shaming people and making their lives miserable, I assume you’re talking about its own worshippers because I really don’t see it playing that role politically in this country.”
So I guess NOM isn’t real. The money the Catholic Church raises to fight gays at every turn isn’t real. And the enormous political pressure upon their members to effectuate second class citizen status for gays through voting against their basic civil rights isn’t real.
As for your points regarding what Francis did and didn’t say, your point is taken, but it’s a little too inside-baseball for Catholics. The effect of what Francis is saying is more in line with my assertion and that’s how it is being taken by the world at large (in my opinion) while the Catholic hierarchy is trying to spin that “what he’s saying isn’t quite what he’s saying” technically.
On the technical point, Francis is within the current teaching. But the distinction reminds me of the infamous phrase “it depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.” The parsing is absurd (to me).
He’s told them to sit down and shut up. You’re being mean, hurtful, and counterproductive. They’re just not ready to hear it yet.
posted by Jorge on
“Also when you say the Catholic Church is shaming people and making their lives miserable, I assume you’re talking about its own worshippers because I really don’t see it playing that role politically in this country.”
So I guess NOM isn’t real. And the enormous political pressure upon their members to effectuate second class citizen status for gays through voting against their basic civil rights isn’t real.
I disagree in the strongest possible terms with your assumption that legal recognition of marriage is a basic civil right. The basic civil right is to marry, to perform a traditional, personal, or religious act of free will and conscience about how one chooses to form a family and solidify a romantic relationship, without state interference. State approval of private acts is another matter entirely. So long as there is no evidence the Catholic Church has opposed the banning of sodomy laws, your suggestion that it supports second class citizenship for gays or denying their basic civil rights is something I will not entertain.
The money the Catholic Church raises to fight gays at every turn isn’t real.
I wish you went into more detail here; it would make more sense to me if you didn’t use the present tense. As it stands, you seem to be falling under the assumption that gay rights begins, lives, and dies dependent on the fortunes of legal recognition of same sex marriage. It does not. But when people believe and act like it does, then there is no room to perceive any conversation, outreach, or attempt at understanding that the Catholic Church may partake in. There is no room for the idea that there could be such a thing as the Catholic Church and gays being irreconcilable enemies on marriage but partners on many other causes–medical health, public safety, emotional health, social service, matters of waging peace, and building a culture of integrity–in which the ideology of gays and the Catholic Church run into concert slightly more often than not.
As for your points regarding what Francis did and didn’t say, your point is taken, but it’s a little too inside-baseball for Catholics.
The quotes I used were publicized in dozens upon dozens of media articles when Pope Francis gave his interview. Lest you accuse me of reading between the lines (which I did do) most of the articles’ interpretations weren’t that far off, either. The follow up to these stories (and the “who am I to judge?” comment) is generally that Pope Francis’s comments give people hope that he might be more reformist on doctrine. That maybe something earth-shattering will happen in the future. I understand some people may have gotten the mistaken impression that Pope Francis is a liberal on gay rights and maybe even gay marriage, but the stronger impression was that he is a moderate. How am I wrong?
On the technical point, Francis is within the current teaching. But the distinction reminds me of the infamous phrase “it depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.” The parsing is absurd (to me).
Perhaps. But you should spend more time on parsing out from the limits of the Catechism (which is on balance quite stentorian) than from a straightforward focus on those limits.
posted by Lori Heine on
And exactly how, Don, do you propose that the Pope do this? Wave his magic scepter?
As a longtime Catholic, a former teacher of adult catechism and still a member of Dignity, I can tell you that it doesn’t work like that. The folks in Dignity are very pleased with Pope Francis because they understand how the Catholic Church really operates.
The people in the pews — as poll after poll after poll shows — are light-years ahead of the hierarchy on LGBT issues, including that of our inclusion in, and treatment by, the Church. It isn’t going to work by the pope descending from a mountaintop and making the people see anything. Perhaps many Church leaders are full of themselves enough to think that it does work that way, but it doesn’t.
According to the doctrine of the Church, the people in the pews are the Church, just as much as is the hierarchy. Kindly learn a few things about the Catholic Church before making absurd statements about what it should or should not do.
Are there bigots in the Catholic fold? Of course there are. There always have been, and there always will be. As conservatives do not believe in driving out or exterminating people with whom they disagree, they will naturally be puzzled by liberal demands that we “do something” — the Leftists’ frequent phrase — about this matter or that.
We will go on coexisting with them, we will see their numbers gradually reduce, but the LGBT issues will be settled within the Church itself, rather than based on demands from clueless outsiders. As they should be.
posted by Don on
I have not suggested the catholic church DO anything. Or that the pope descend from “on high” and dictate anything. I simply stated that outside Catholicism, his words are not being perceived as they are inside Catholicism. That’s it.
And his words OUTSIDE the Church are perceived as dictat of the Church, even though they are not. And the subtle distinctions he is using in threading this particular needle are totally missed by almost everyone outside the Catholic Debating Societies.
And I don’t recall suggesting anyone be exterminated because we might disagree. I do, however, disagree that it is a liberal trait and not a conservative one. It seems to be a human trait amongst some.
I will note, unfortunately a tad snarkily, that purging of dissent has a name in one party but not the other. RINO anyone? What is it leftists call that? That’s right, I can’t remember either.
What I might ask is why are you so upset that everyone is painting you as an EVIL LIBERTARIAN and a HATEFUL CATHOLIC when they aren’t? And why is it that EVERYONE misunderstands your positions and declares wrongfully what you do and don’t believe when no one is actually doing that?
Much of your retort misrepresents what I wrote. May I respectfully remind you how much you hate that yourself?
posted by JohnInCA on
” As conservatives do not believe in driving out or exterminating people with whom they disagree […]”
… is this a “No True Scotsman” thing, or are you actually ignoring all the conservatives who have done exactly that? Not even talking about the recent ones that have said they want to pen us up behind electric fences and let us starve, the ones that want to exile all of us, the ones that want to imprison all of us, the ones that go to Uganda and try to get THEM to kill us…
Throw in the various shades of “kill brown people”, cries for mass deportation, people trying to ban Muslims…
Are you really ignoring *all of that*?
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Lori;
I suspect you are comment to the other ‘Tom’ that posts here, right? So, I will not reply to those comments — temptimg as it may be to do so.
Anyone else:
All civil rights laws — going back to the 1960s — generally look at the size of the business, what its purpose or mission is and how essential are the services being provided. I think that this basically apply to sexual orientation/gender identity as well.
Religious groups (fraternal clubs or youth clubs) who have as their mission ‘spreading our religion’ are generally treated differnetly then a group that generally seeks to sell goods/services to the public.
For example, getting someone to bake you a cake is not quite as ‘essential’ as getting fairness in housing or health care. People can probably live without cake, but without housing and health care (for example) your life will be bad or short or both.
So, I think that if some small business owner really disapproves of your wedding — any wedding — then it is not a good idea to give him anymore of your time and money. He should not be forced to bake you a take or take your pictures. I also think that he will stand to lose customers and (quite possibly) suppliers.
Fairness in health care — especially when its a life saving issue — should be a different story. If a gay couple is in a car accident and goes to the Catholic hospital then — until such time that they are fit to be moved — the hospistal would have to treat them fairely as an emergency. If a Catholic hospital does not want to hand our birth control, that is not as much of a problem — as long as their public health clinics and the like that will do so.
posted by Lori Heine on
As I have indeed stated in comments here — probably on more than one occasion — of course a Catholic or other religiously-affiliated hospital should have to fairly serve LGBT people. If they didn’t, especially if any harm came to them, that facility would be in serious legal jeopardy even if ENDA didn’t pass.
It’s nice that the fall-back position, from basically demanding that all bigots be driven out of business, is that those whose denial of service to us would kill us ought not be permitted to do so. What’s not being asked here is why a libertarian or a conservative has to be the one to force a reasonable fall-back position.
posted by Lori Heine on
This is in reply to John in CA. There is no “Reply” option showing after your comment, so I’m putting this wherever the system sticks it in.
If I understand your argument correctly, it amounts to the assertion that the murderous, lunatic anti-gay people you describe exist. As I never claimed they didn’t exist, we are in agreement there.
The further argument, at least as far as many Left-of-Center people are concerned, is that because (A) these whackos exist, and what they want to do is dangerous, (B) we must use government coercion to protect ourselves from them — usually by doing some form of (at least potential) violence to them before they can do it to us.
Please cite some proof — ANY proof at all — that these people’s very existence is so dangerous that we must resist them using force via the State. We already have the right to defend ourselves from them if any of them ever actually attempt to harm us. Or at least we will, until the Left succeeds in disarming everyone, gays included.
posted by JohnInCA on
Not really sure how you jumped form me pointing out the truth-value of your statement was nil to any sort of policy recommendations.
And I’m not sure sitting and former congressmen, religious leaders, highly-paid lobbyists and so-on constitute “whackos”, at least as the term is used to dismiss legitimate concerns.
Or to put it another way…
You said
“As conservatives do not believe in driving out or exterminating people with whom they disagree […] ” and my jaw hit the floor. Nothing more.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Again, I do not think that what I am suggesting is radical (libertarian or otherwise) when it comes to civil rights laws and exemptions. I am not a lawyer (just a lowly student) but that is how I read things and what I believe.
The problem is that the religious right-types who scream the loudest for ‘religious liberty’ would only apply it when all conservative Christian does not want to bake a cake (‘bake me a cake as fast as you can’) to a gay couple. But if a gay or liberal-minded person wants to refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple and imagine that outrage if that conservative baker or florist or photography had a hard time getting supplies because suppliers disliked his bigotry. So, its got to be consistent, limited to small businesses and they got to be upfront about religious or political objections.
Medical care is — often much more essential to life — then say, baking a cake. Same thing with housing. I can see a Catholic hospital not handing out birth control (or doing abortions), but such medical services should be legal (and someone else will provide them). Also, denying medical care — especially important — because someone is gay or gay married is clearly messing with a rather essential service. I see that differently then a wedding cake.
I am not sure what to think about this: What’s not being asked here is why a libertarian or a conservative has to be the one to force a reasonable fall-back position.
Frankly, Stephen says things that I find to be just nutty, but I know people on the left who said things I found to be nutty as well. Most (self-identified) libertarians and socialists I met are quite nice people, until you start talking about politics, in which case they seem to blast off to another planet.
Stephen — for example — He talks about how civil right laws interfere with the ‘right’ of a private business. This is standard right-libertarian/Ayn Rand talking points, but the idea that government cannot regulate the private sector (or support it) is something that the founding fathers probably would have found to be silly.
Yet, when people insist that they should force a small mom and pop operation to bake them a cake — I find that to be a bit silly as well.
I do not identify as being ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’ or ‘libertarian’. I do not see what I written about this to be a ‘fall-back position’. I suspect much of this is going to be moot, because the ‘religious liberty’ proponents generally oppose equal government treatment for gays — i.e. gay marriage — which pretty much puts a hole in their ‘I’m a libertarian’ argument.
I am not going to waste time supporting any exemptions, when the religious right — the group demanding them — cannot get behind equal government treatment and is still seems happy to let a hospital deny care to a gay man.
posted by Lori Heine on
If you’re going to walk like a duck, quack like a duck and swim like a duck, people are going to think you’re a duck. There’s an awful lot of pearl-clutching going on in these comments about how unjust and unfair it is to confuse people with Leftists. Yet the people who complain tend, very often, to use boilerplate Left-Wing cant.
There’s nothing wrong with being a liberal, or — according to the gratuitous, circular-argument, head-wank label — a “progressive.” It’s nice to hear somebody admit they are, instead of delicately circling around it.
Even if conservatives initiated immediate change, you would look at your stopwatches and complain that they took too many seconds. Nothing will ever be enough for you.
Study American history, and you’ll find out how controversial it was when government began interfering in private business. Only someone totally unaware of our own history as a nation could claim that the founders would have all been okay with that. A couple of them would, indeed, but as for the rest the claim is laughable.
posted by Dale of the Desert on
Andrew Sullivan recently quoted Churchill as having described Edmund Burke (and implicitly therefore “all” conservatives) as on the one hand “a foremost apostle of Liberty, on the other as the redoubtable champion of Authority. ”
Despite the conservative entreaties for “smaller government,” that description strikes me as pretty spot on. However, the same description could be applied to liberals. It’s all a matter of which liberties you want and which you don’t, whom you want government to exercise authority over and whom not.
The problem I have with religious liberty, however, is the position of the Catholic and certain other religious bodies that their liberty is God given and therefore should trump all other liberties, particularly civil. As that relates to marriage, a mistake was made historically when the states began licensing clergy to act as agents of the state to establish legal civil marriages, simultaneously with the performance of a matrimonial religious rite, which I will call Holy Matrimony (as distinct from legal Marriage). The simplest answer to that is to return authority to certify legal Marriages solely to the states. Religious organizations would then be at liberty to create or not create states of Holy Matrimony as and how they choose, separate from and having no authority over state-established Marriage.
posted by Jorge on
As that relates to marriage, a mistake was made historically when the states began licensing clergy to act as agents of the state to establish legal civil marriages, simultaneously with the performance of a matrimonial religious rite, which I will call Holy Matrimony (as distinct from legal Marriage).
The idea that holy matrimony is distinct from legal marriage is a fairly new and radical one in the history of marriage, at least in Christiandom. The action that took place was their division, not their unification. It took place because of an action that determined–to this day in only a partial fashion–that this is not a Christian nation.
Because the action that took place was to divide what you call holy matrimony and legal marriage, I see religious exemptions to churches on gay marriage laws as first irrelevant, and second as preserving the separation.
posted by JohnInCA on
Depends on what point in history you look at.
There was a time and marriages took place wholey outside of churches, the newly-wed couples only *later* going to the church to having their union blessed by the preist *on the steps of the church*. Moving the marriage itself inside the church, performed by a priest, came much later. Not to mention that marriage has been around the world in all cultures, including ones that never heard of Abraham or Christ. But even when Christians first met these people, they didn’t say “you’re all living in sin!” they said “oh, that’s what marriage looks like here”.
Further, it’s not a “recent” thing to separate legal marriage from the religious angle. It’s relatively recent in America, but other places did it a long time ago, even places in Europe which used to be much more monolithic in their religion then the US ever was.
posted by Doug on
“Even if conservatives initiated immediate change, you would look at your stopwatches and complain that they took too many seconds. Nothing will ever be enough for you.”
With all due respect, that statement is just BS.
posted by Lori Heine on
“With all due respect, that statement is just BS.”
With all due respect, Doug, your retort is childish. It is about as mature and reasoned as “Yeah, well you’re two of ’em,” or “I’m rubber and you’re glue.”
Grow up.
posted by Doug on
Wrong again. What is childish and immature is making wild, sweeping, all encompassing statements that are simply untrue.
posted by Dale of the Desert on
For most of the history of western civilization the roles of religion and state have been separate, with religion playing very little role at all.
A marriage among the ancient Jews was established by sexual intercourse, thereby gaining recognition by the kings and elders, but without involvement of priests or temples. Sometimes, the king would exercise “le doight du roi” in order to verify the virginity of the bride to authenticate the Marriage, which pertained to property and inheritance rights, not godly spiritual mandate.
Similarly throughout more than half of Christian history, the Church left Marriage entirely up to the secular states. The Church didn’t start participating in weddings until the 12th century, even then primarily to protect property rights in the face of the crumbled Roman empire and unstable secular authority. Marriage before a priest in a church and the declaration of marriage as a sacrament was not instituted until the 16th century, after the Council of Trent, and then primarily in reaction against the Reformation.
So the role of the Church in defining and regulating Marriage is relatively recent, and the practice of licensing clergy to act as state agents licensed to establish secular state contracts of Marriage is limited to relatively few countries today. Taking France as example, legal marriage requires a civil ceremony. Religious ceremonies are
optional and may be subject to church authority but not that of the state.
Removing the licenses of clergy to establish secular contracts of Marriage would fulfill Jesus’ admonition to render what is Caesar’s unto Caesar, and what is God’s unto God. The Church would retain full authority over covenants if Holy Matrimony, free of interference or
conflict with the states.
posted by Dale of the Desert on
Correction: the opening sentence if my last post should read “…the roles of religion and state in the institution of marriage have been separate.” Sorry, this old computer keeps dropping more things than the old man trying to operate it.
posted by Lori Heine on
That’s all very nice. But this country was founded by big corporations backed (as such always area) by big government. Which we fought a revolution to get away from.
The founders would laugh at the gullible idiocy of believing a legislative magic wand could make all business owners behave wonderfully. That would have been seen as falling squarely under the heading of personal conscience — and would have been (quite rightly) left to remediation by others, of better conscience, in the free arena of ideas.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
–If you’re going to walk like a duck, quack like a duck and swim like a duck, people are going to think you’re a duck.
Well, if a human being does this someone might suggest mental illness (or a comedy routine) as opposed to some sort of ‘Howard The Duck’-like miracle.
Lori: There’s an awful lot of pearl-clutching going on in these comments about how unjust and unfair it is to confuse people with Leftists.
Well, actually the complaint is how conservative and libertarians (a) frame an issue and (b) tend to depict all opposition or dissent as disloyal socialism and (c) run with silly ideas like, “Well, clearly liberals hate religious freedom”.
Lori: Even if conservatives initiated immediate change, you would look at your stopwatches and complain
Conservative or Libertarian (again these are not actually the same thing, unless you are talking about the Cult of Ayn Rand and the Looneytarian Party)? Also, if these were good changes — in terms of say, gay rights, I would not complain. In fact quite a few people here I said how we think that more gay conservatives need to get active in the GOP in order to fix the party’s homophobia…just as liberals and center-left crowd had to do so with the Democratic Party. The Libertarian Party positions on gay rights has not changed since the early 1970s and probably never will.
Lori: Study American history, and you’ll find out how controversial it was when government began interfering in private business.
Well, certainly people objected and their were political debates about it. We do live in a representative government and in a two-party system chances are their is almost nothing proposed that is not going to get an opposition.
However, FROM THE START, The Federal government NEVER acted as if the private business should not be ‘helped’ by the government (which is certainly not a libertarian idea), and regulating the private sector was generally seen as something that the government could do (which is also not a libertarian idea).
In terms of American history; one has to remember that (POINT 1) — initially — adult, white, Christian men generally could not vote or hold office in America until they had a certain level of ‘class’ (i.e. money/property). Post Civil War ‘literacy tests’ and ‘poll taxes’ used against non-white citizens, had their roots in efforts to restrict political rights to a certain class of folk.
By the end of President Jackson’s term, most adult (21+) Christian white men could vote and, in if elected, hold office. Where as the government ‘hand’ in the private sector had originally been based on what (mostly) prosperous men felt was best (or could agree on after argument and debate)…the expansion of the elective franchise/candidacy, meant that what working class or lower middle class white men thought could actually matter.
Yes, their were certainly disputes and debate about this or that policy. However, the government always had its hand on or in the private sector.
POINT2 – Along with the changes in election law, the economy structure (especially post Civil War) was quite different then it had been before. Early on, white men generally did not go to work for someone else and if they did, it was probably a very small business (where some sort of apprentship or guild was involved).
Initially, most white men would have worked on a small family farm or a small family business. So many issues about factory conditions or the power of corporations did not even register with folks until large numbers of white men actually went to work for someone else in factories.
posted by Lori Heine on
Tom J III, I am puzzled. You respond to my comments with more Leftist boilerplate, detours from the subject at hand and more juvenilia about “Looneytarians.”
I suppose, incredibly, you actually believe you’ve dealt with what I said.
Amazing.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
—I disagree in the strongest possible terms with your assumption that legal recognition of marriage is a basic civil right.
Well, that is certainly your right. However, good luck trying to argue that point in terms of civil (secular law), and not get laughed at.
—The basic civil right is to marry, to perform a traditional, personal, or religious act of free will and conscience about how one chooses to form a family and solidify a romantic relationship, without state interference.
Well, their are NO rights that exist “without state interference”. Something gun owners (or some gun owners) seem to have forgotten about. Also, their is no requirement in civil marriage law that a person be able to willing to procreate (doing so would almost certainly exclude the elderly and physically impaired).
—State approval of private acts is another matter entirely.
Also, sexual conduct is also not really a requirement for a civil marriage. It is assumed that married people will have sex with each other (although their are quite a bit of jokes about one partner or the other with holding sex). If civil marriage law is really going to insist on procreation and that a woman ‘put out’ for her husband a minimum number of times, then the laws will need to be rewritten.
The Catholic Church (I believe) took the position in the late 1950s or 1960s that private homosexual acts between consenting adults should not be illegal. It was in response to the efforts going on the Britain at the time with that Wolfen…something or other…report..
Although they have not — to my knowledge — publicly attacked a nation for having such criminal laws (Russia would probably be a good example) and this was during the Church’s flirtation with compassion, kindness, social justice and sanity – Vatican II.
Yes, the Catholic Church has backed initiatives to ban gay marriage — ban any sort of legal recognition of same-sex couples.
That does mean that they are trying to make gay couples unequal to straight couples. If they were trying to ban marriages involving the elderly or disabled or unattractive, they might be able to argue (at least) consistency.
posted by Chase Neal on
Youth groups: The city of Berkeley, Calif., requested that the Sea Scouts (affiliated with the Boy Scouts) formally agree to not discriminate against gay men in exchange for free use of berths in the city’s marina. The Sea Scouts sued, claiming this violated their beliefs and First Amendment right to the freedom to associate with other like-minded people. In 2006, the California Supreme Court ruled against the youth group. In San Diego, the Boy Scouts lost access to the city-owned aquatic center for the same reason. While these cases do not directly involve same-sex unions, they presage future conflicts about whether religiously oriented or parachurch organizations may prohibit, for example, gay couples from teaching at summer camp. In June 2008, the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals asked the California Supreme Court to review the Boy Scouts’ leases. Meanwhile, the mayor’s office in Philadelphia revoked the Boy Scouts’ $1-a-year lease for a city building.