Well, I swore I wasn’t going to do this. After taking on marriage equality in my first-ever blog post, and somehow coming out with most of my skin intact, I told myself the safest thing to do next would be to write a nice feel-good piece—something everybody could relate to and agree on, that wouldn’t offend anyone. Something involving a golden retriever puppy, perhaps, who teaches a crotchety but decent-hearted old widower how to live and love again—something that could be easily adapted into a one-hour Hallmark Channel special.
But then, this thing just kept popping up, this religious freedom thing. It was everywhere: memes flying around the internet bemoaning the demise of religious freedom; opinion pieces in newspapers denouncing marriage equality on religious freedom grounds; legislators proposing bills to exempt business owners and others from liability should they choose to discriminate against gay people—again, on the basis of “religious freedom.” Seeing it all, two things became abundantly clear: first, that there are a lot of people out there who seem to genuinely believe that their religious liberty is in jeopardy, and second, that we, as Americans, really need to have a meaningful discussion about what religious freedom is, and what it means within the framework of a Constitutional democracy.
Before I weigh in, though, I want to make perfectly clear that my opinion on this subject is not meant as a criticism of religion generally, or Christianity in particular. The last thing this nation—or this debate—needs is more people attacking each other, and that includes attacking anyone’s sincerely held religious beliefs. If I felt that a discussion of religious freedom couldn’t be had without such criticism, I would have avoided the topic altogether. Rather, it is precisely because I believe—strongly, in fact—that religious freedom and civil libertarianism are compatible, that I am even attempting to take this subject on.
My view starts with something we should all be able to agree upon: that America, at its best, stands for freedom. We are free because we chose as a people to be free— to break from a colonial power, to declare our independence as a sovereign nation, and to ratify a Constitution that guarantees certain enumerated freedoms. As a nation, we have fought against enemies who threatened our freedom and that of our allies—enemies that didn’t have constitutions like ours, who did not believe in freedom as we do. We defeated totalitarian dictators and regimes. We engaged in a half-century cold war opposing a social, political, and economic philosophy that we viewed as a threat to the ideals of freedom and liberty. Freedom is at the core of what we believe, of what makes America America.
Currently, we are involved in a conflict against “ISIS,” or “ISIL,” a movement of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, bent on defeating all who oppose their religious ideology. ISIS is religious, but does not believe in religious freedom. Rather, it executes men who don’t share their religious beliefs, and systematically rapes and enslaves their wives and daughters. Theirs is a war of pure religious ideology, with no room or tolerance for opposing viewpoints.
What separates America from the Islamic State, among other things, is the notion of freedom, including the freedom of religion. The first two letters of “ISIS” stand for “Islamic State,” referring to a people governed entirely by religious law. In such a state, there is no such thing as the free exercise of religion. Rather, the “state” and “religion” are one in the same. ISIS believes that god’s law eliminates the need for any other laws, liberties, or protections. They seek to practice and observe the exact opposite of what we and other civilized nations refer to as the separation of church and state.
And this is where people are getting lost, I think— the failure to recognize that the separation of church and state is a vital component of religious liberty. Too many are viewing the free exercise of religion and the separation of church and state as opposing concepts, when in actuality, they work hand in hand to guaranty and protect religious liberty. They are in fact accompanying clauses in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which provides “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .” These—the “establishment clause” and the “free exercise clause”—exist side by side in the same sentence, in our Bill of Rights. This was no accident. Our founding fathers recognized, correctly, that you can’t have true freedom of religion and state entanglement with religion at the same time.
Not convinced? Consider this:
According to a Pew Research Center study published earlier this year, the five nations among the world’s most populous countries with the highest levels of religious freedom are Brazil, South Africa, the Philippines, Japan, and the Congo. What do all these countries have in common? The separation of church and state. The countries with the least religious liberty on the same list are those with the greatest levels of state entanglement with religion: China, Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Burma/Myanmar, Russia, and Turkey.
Often, these latter countries run afoul of principles of religious freedom by allowing a religious majority to dictate and limit the rights of others who don’t share their same religious views. Their governments thus become an arm of religion, which is essentially what many in America have been attempting to do by legislating against the rights and privileges of others they disapprove of. While such may indeed be motivated by religion, it has nothing to do with religious freedom, and is in fact, quite its opposite.
A majority using its collective will to deprive other people of rights is not an exercise in freedom. Rather, it is an exercise of power. Moreover, it is an abuse of power, precisely of the sort our Constitution was intended to prevent. A constitutional democracy requires that everybody be free, not merely those with a legislative majority in any given district.
Moreover, extending liberties to other people does not take liberties away from those who already enjoy them. Slave owners were not deprived of liberty when slavery was abolished. Men did not lose the right to vote when women were granted the same right. Likewise, Christians have not been deprived of religious liberty by virtue of the Supreme Court’s recent decision granting equal access to marriage to gay couples. Christians can still believe and worship freely, as before, to marry whomever they choose. The rights of Christians—and others—to exercise religion freely, as guaranteed by the First Amendment, have not been compromised in the least.
Each of the above examples constituted expansions of liberty, not restrictions, and each actually strengthened the rights of those who already enjoyed them—both Constitutionally and morally. Our nation, our freedom, is stronger whenever liberty is expanded.
In this sense, freedom should not be viewed like a pie with a limited number of slices to be divvied up, but like a stock market in which we all own shares. The larger the market expands, the more valuable all our shares become.
True religious liberty depends upon a people that recognizes the importance of the separation of church and state, and values the expansion of liberty to all of its citizens equally.
And with that, I will bid you adieu. Next time, I’ll write about that golden retriever puppy. I swear . . . 😉
Best to all,
T
Tim,
Good to see you writing. A couple of thoughts for you. Are we, the United States, a Republic or a Democracy? You state Democracy. How is the difference significant to your blog?
When courts decided that a crime was committed when a baker refused to bake a cake for a gay couples wedding because it was against the bakers religious beliefs? To me, this flies in the face of the first amendment and the so called “separation of church and state”. If I am correct, this violates the “expression of religion” article. I see, and agree that we should not be a Theocracy, having government endorse a particular religion, but freedoms have been eroding. How will “radical Islam” be addressed down the road? Will our government invade places of worship to find terrorists? Would this be justified? Would this be a “slippery slope” that others may use to attempt to eliminate a religion that a particular political group sees as “evil”? My personal belief, is that we need to return to a Constitution based in original intent.
Thanks for the platform of discussion.
Tracy
Tracy – ‘appreciate your thoughts and questions . To start, I’d say I suspect we’re not that far apart in certain respects. As a self-described civil libertarian, I agree that certain of our freedoms have been eroding, and also that any breach of liberty presents the danger of the type of “slippery slope” you describe.
I thought hard about addressing the wedding cake scenario in my post, but ultimately decided against it, mostly because I thought the piece was already too long, and it’s admittedly a difficult subject to address concisely. Some of the trickiest issues tend to involve what appear to be a competing set of rights – in this example, the rights of a store owner to exercise a religious belief versus the rights of gay people to avail themselves of public services. I recognize that there is more than one way to analyze it.
As for where I come at it – I see little difference between the wedding cake baker who refuses to cater to gays and the white lunch counter owner in the 1950’s who refused to cater to blacks. Both are/were discriminating against people based on their own beliefs and/or prejudices. I recognize there may be a distinction, in that the baker may have a bona fide religious objection, whereas the restaurant owner may have simply been a racist. But it’s important to remember that the Bible was used by many to justify slavery and segregation for 150 years, and it’s equally possible that the restaurant owner may have had a sincerely-held religious belief justifying his own views and actions.
Which brings us to a different kind of slippery slope; which is, if Christians (or Muslims, or Jews, or anyone else for that matter) can discriminate freely against others based on their religious beliefs, where does it end? Can a paramedic refuse to provide emergency care to gays? Can a white doctor refuse to treat black patients if he has a religious view that the races should be separate? Can a Muslim professor refuse to teach girls in his classroom who aren’t “properly” covered, or teach girls at all? A bill was recently introduced somewhere that would, if enacted, possibly allow employers to fire unwed women who became pregnant, based on a religious belief that sex outside of marriage is a sin. This is a serious pandora’s box when you really start considering the possibilities.
I guess my view is that freedom should not be a tool to deny freedom to others, even if your religious view is that those others are wrong. And in truth, I don’t see doing so as the Christian thing to do. Love thy neighbor, and leave the judging to God are the two biggest takeaways, to me, from the NT, although that’s neither here nor there (and please, don’t take offense – only mentioning that because I respect you enough to be forthright about where I’m coming from).
As for original intent, it’d be fair to say that I believe in a living Constitution, and like to think that the Constitution and our legal system was intended to be flexible enough to adapt to changing times and circumstances (although I know this can be and has been seriously debated). Two things I do know, is that slavery itself was very intentionally left out of the Constitution, and that if we had to trade in the rights we have that resulted from judicial decisions interpreting the Constitution, millions of Americans would be considerably less free than they are today.
‘Hope that wasn’t too long! (You may have noticed, brevity isn’t exactly my strong suit, lol). Thanks again for your thoughts!
Best, T
Thank you for the reply Tim. A good debate/discussion on a “taboo” topic should never be seen as offensive. I think that may be the biggest problem we face as a country, our lack of communication with others who may or may not agree with each other. We seemed to have lost the ability to persuade and be persuaded.
While I do agree that “freedom should not be a tool to deny freedom to others”, the idea of passing a law to declare that a belief of any type could be deemed illegal is appalling. It would do exactly what we don’t want, limit someones freedom. To use the scenario we have already, if I was the Christian baker I would not want to make a cake for a Muslim ceremony either and would refuse service. I believe that most restaurants(a business you and I know all to well) have posted a sign that states something to the effect of “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone”. This being said, I see a distinct difference in Selma and our bakers. While the motives may be the same and the feelings of “we must overcome” may be the same, ultimately, the perceived “wrongs” are quite different. On the side of gay rights, no law of the land has deemed them “separate but equal”. If I refuse service to a black couple because they are black, I am legally wrong according to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. If I refuse service based on my beliefs, I have the right to do so. Giving rights to groups that don’t exist in our laws just because it’s politically correct is exactly what we don’t want. My freedom of religion is set firmly by the Constitution, the right to buy a cake from anyone I please is not.
This is not to confuse the issue with equality of services under the law. If a gay man is in the hospital, by all means his spouse should be given access to him and be legally able to make decisions on his behalf if that is what they have agreed to. To be legally married, although I believe this is a misnomer, and to have the legal benefits as such, is basic equality under the law. If we leave this argument in the legal arena, I don’t see another outcome. The problems come about when we interject faith. I do believe the two need to be separate arguments. A proponent of separation powers, I would think, should agree.
I could continue, but I will end this here. I too, never learned brevity! I hope all is well with you and hope to see a video of you playing your guitar! I truly hope that our friendship is intact, if not made stronger by the free and open exchange of ideas. More so the rest of America.
Peace,
Tracy
Tracy – great discussion! And of course our friendship is intact. I agree wholeheartedly with what you wrote about communication and our willingness to persuade and be persuaded. Really, it’s the whole reason I started putting these things out there — to put my views to the test, and to hopefully generate some interesting, meaningful discussion.
You raise a good point about the issue of marriage equality being distinct from the issue presented by the bakery example. I agree — these can, and perhaps should, be viewed as separate issues, even if they do overlap.
Where it seems we may differ revolves around the question of whether requiring a private business owner or corporation to cater to people he/she/it doesn’t wish to cater to constitutes an infringement on the owner’s Constitutionally-protected liberty. I’m struggling to see it as such. I base this on what I see as a distinction between regulating someone’s thoughts and beliefs versus regulating someone’s actions.
In the bakery scenario, nobody is denying the baker’s right to personally believe that gay marriage is wrong, or to continue to worship as he wishes, or to freely express his views on the subject. What he is being asked to do is to simply do what he does every day – to bake a cake – again, in the same way that the lunch counter owner was asked to do nothing more than serve a bowl a soup to a black man as he would a white man. Again, in my view, he is not being asked to condone or participate or believe this way or that; rather, simply not to discriminate.
It’s true that liberties had already been recognized and extended to blacks by the time the Civil Rights Act came around, but this was only through judicial action and the extension of Constitutional protections to racial minorities through judicial interpretation. As I alluded in my earlier comment, slaves were intentionally omitted in the original Constitution, due to insistence from the southern states. Recent recognition by the courts that Constitutional liberties should likewise apply to gays, came about not dissimilarly to how they arose during the civil rights movement.
We could probably debate whether the government has any proper legal basis upon which to regulate the actions of private business owners at all, when it comes to who they must cater to, although that is a cat that’s long been out of the bag.
One issue you hit upon I find particularly interesting is another one we seem to be split on—i.e., the notion of the rule of law versus majority will, which I think you were getting at in your first comment (questioning the difference between a democracy and a republic). What’s interesting is that I think we both agree, yet seem to view it from opposite angles. I.e., you express concern that Constitutional liberties are being fabricated in response to public opinion supporting gays, whereas I view it as the exact opposite — i.e., that Constitutional liberties were denied to gays for too long, due to public opinion opposing them. What I suspect we could agree on is that Constitutional liberties, however they are defined, should not be left to the whims of a majority.
Anyway, ‘not trying to get the last word here, so please feel free to respond however you wish. It’s good to chat with you, and I’ve enjoyed the dialogue thus far. As for the guitar – after my finger injury, I really hadn’t played much, although I did break it out recently, and despite a little rust, things seem to be working. I’ll see if I can’t work something up sometime soon 🙂
Best regards,
T
Cedar Cove is on tonight!
Ok, so I had to look that up, but it was funny!
Tim,
While I would agree that Freedoms should not be made on a whim. It is the majority that does have the right to make such decisions following the law as pertaining to a granting of such new found freedoms. I would think the process should start with the majority of voters deciding if a group is worthy of the distinction of the term minority. I am a white male with brown hair and green eyes. Does this qualify me as a minority? I have a daughter with red hair. Is she a member of a minority? What qualifications does a group need to be considered for minority status under the law? I could legally change my status to be a qualified Native American( I have the traceable ancestry to do so.). Does this now make me a legal minority? It is the Courts, Congress and the President who don’t have the legal authority to make Constitutional laws on their own. Our system of checks and balances has been severely damaged by those in such positions abusing powers not granted to them and not being held accountable. It is “We the People” that are to hold the majority of power. We are the modern day designers( if such a designation actually exists)and interpreters of the Constitution. Courts have taken the role of law maker, law makers have taken the role of juror and so such. Such is, in my opinion, the determining of minority status become. Any group that feels slighted, complains that it is being discriminated against and can file a law suit now seems to have the legal right to be considered a minority. This is not to say that certain groups do not need protection, merely stating that how these groups are defined as minority should come about.
What role does Government have in determining what marriage is? Marriage by tradition is a concept of religion. Only as census needs arose did government find its way into the concept of marriage. I myself see that as a government that writes law pertaining to whom and whom may not have access to any benefits provided by the government, that that government must also determine what constitutes a union of entities. Our government does not yet recognize a union between three or more people or people and inanimate objects. I myself was married in a church and the pastor stated that it was legal due to powers vested to him by the state. My divorce however, had no representation from the church, only the court of law. If the two are to be separate as you suggest, why does the word marriage need to be defined in a court of law if it is of a religious nature? A civil union is what each of us that have joined together has in the law regardless of any religious ceremony. A contract of blending two individuals into one entity of lawful intent. In this way a court can arbitrate the state of said union. By this, I see “gay rights” having an issue with discrimination. In this respect I agree with separation of church and state. I again could continue but will refrain. Have a wonderful day Tim.
Tracy
Tracy, I see a difference between bestowing minority status upon a group – i.e., affording them some extra benefit or protection under the law – and simply treating minorities equally under the law. If I understand you correctly, you recognize that distinction, too, by agreeing that gays should be able to avail themselves of marriage, since the state indeed recognizes and regulates such (even if you don’t think it should).
I also see marriage equality in this way – i.e., not the creation of a new minority status and a special set of laws or privileges for gay people, but rather simply affording gay people the same rights and privileges to which other people are legally entitled.
I don’t have a strong or well-formed opinion about whether the state should have an interest in regulating marriage in the first place. I could see how it might be viewed as an overreach, although I can also see the state’s interest in regulating at least certain aspects of it (for example, the age of consent).
I do wish we could spend a couple hours chatting over these and other issues, perhaps over a cold brew. It would be great to hang with you after all these years, and I’m sure we could both benefit from each other’s experiences and perspectives, and, if nothing else, have a good time catching up 🙂
Thanks again for reading and for the great discussion.
Cheers!
– T
Well Tim, next time you’re in Florida the beer is on me. I would love to spend some time just hanging out with you. Thanks for putting yourself out there with this blog. I will continue to read and comment. I hope others that know us will join in as well.
Peace,
Tracy
Thanks, Tracy! ‘Will do. And you do the same if you’re ever in this neck of the woods. ‘Some nice breweries here in Boise :). ‘Appreciate your kind words and thoughtful comments!