Gay Marriage and Religious Freedom

Ross Douthat has some thoughts, both optimistic and pessimistic, on the long-term prospects of balancing what now is the inevitable legalization of gay marriage across the country, on the one hand, and the freedom of religious institutions to refuse to marry gay couples, on the other:

Religious Liberty and the Gay Marriage Endgame (NYTimes):

From this point of view, continuing on the current gradualist, federalist path to same-sex marriage gives conservatives time and space to pivot, ”psychologically as well as legally,” from the fight against gay marriage itself to “the struggle to preserve religious liberty and ensure that this revolution already made doesn’t enter a more radical phase,” The American Conservative’s Dan McCarthy suggests today. Ben Domenech, editor of The Transom, who’s written eloquently on the stakes for religious liberty in these debates, offered a similar take in April:

...Churches and other religious groups will have to resolve their willingness to engage legal protections and prepare to lose their tax status (as we’ve already seen in New Jersey) in anticipation of the inevitable lawsuits, and may wish to incorporate their schools and attendant organizations in a different manner so as to create legal firewalls. It is a libertarian pipe dream that such clashes with churches and religious institutions are in any way avoidable.

(...)
I mostly agree with these sentiments, but I do have one flicker of doubt about them. Unless something dramatic changes in the drift of public opinion, the future of religious liberty on these issues is going to depend in part on the magnanimity of gay marriage supporters — the extent to which they are content with political, legal and cultural victories that leave the traditional view of marriage as a minority perspective with some modest purchase in civil society, versus the extent to which they decide to use every possible lever to make traditionalism as radioactive in the America of 2025 as white supremacism or anti-Semitism are today. And I can imagine a scenario in which a more drawn-out and federalist march to “marriage equality in 50 states,” with a large number of (mostly southern) states hewing to the older definition for much longer than the five years that gay marriage advocates currently anticipate, ends up encouraging a more scorched-earth approach to this battle, with less tolerance for the shrinking population of holdouts, and a more punitive, “they’re getting what they deserve” attitude toward traditionalist religious bodies in particular. If religious conservatives are, in effect, negotiating the terms of their surrender, it’s at least possible that those negotiations would go better if they were conducted right now, in the wake of a Roe v. Wade-style Supreme Court ruling, rather than in a future where the bloc of Americans opposed to gay marriage has shrunk from the current 44 percent to 30 percent or 25 percent, and the incentives for liberals to be magnanimous in victory have shrunk apace as well.

Are you optimistic that gay marriage supporters will also support the rights of religious institutions to continue to oppose gay marriage within their own walls?

Or are you pessimistic, and see it as inevitable that churches that refuse to marry gay people 50 years from now will be treated with the same contempt (and lawsuits) as those that try to enforce racial segregation are today?

Are you optimistic that Mormons will be allowed to practice polygamy and not have the government trample on their religious freedoms?

Or will they be treated with the same contempt (and felony charges) as those that practice it today face?

Does religious freedom mean freedom from contempt and/or lawsuits?

i'm optimistic that in 50 years churches that refuse to marry gay people will be treated with the same contempt (and lawsuits) as those that try to enforce racial segregation today.

Religious liberty in the country is not about whether state power will force priests to marry same-sex couples. Religious marriage is clearly connected to worship. The right of worship is not under attack.(1) On the contrary, it's the rump that's left after religious liberty is defined down. The argument isn't "let's force the Catholics to marry gays," but, "it's not like we're making you marry people you don't want to," as other aspects of religious liberty are curtailed.

I think it would be interesting to brainstorm just where this is going. Also, I suggest it as a sharing exercise—it's something people on both sides of the issue can largely collaborate on, with one side listing their fears and the other listing their goals.

Are you optimistic that Mormons will be allowed to practice polygamy and not have the government trample on their religious freedoms?

I know most equal-marriage proponents want to stand as far away from the polygamists as possible. But if it's about love, consent and equal protection under law, marriage laws should in fact offer legal protections to the second wives of fundamentalist mormons, muslims and so forth. If the gay and lesbian widow who stayed home to raise the children should get Social Security, I see no reason one of two wives in a plural marriage should get it all and the other nothing. Similarly, I see no reason that property division during divorce should be a justice issue when there's same-sex couple, but a total non-issue for a second wife to a muslim immigrant. Of course, responsible polygamists try to create contractual protections. But if that was sufficient, it would have been sufficient for same-sex couples.

And if you're going to edit, please do so in a timely fashion, Tim. You've added a whole 'nother paragraph there.

Can I time-travel?

---

1. The New Jersey case did not force the church to marry, but dealt with the tax status of a piece of land that was classified as "for public use," for which they refused to allow a marriage conducted by others.

"You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings." Pearl S Buck

Well, as much as I'm for sharing, I do feel that the OP is definitely a framing ploy...

And if you're going to edit, please do so in a timely fashion, Tim. You've added a whole 'nother paragraph there.

I know most equal-marriage proponents want to stand as far away from the polygamists as possible. But if it's about love, consent and equal protection under law, marriage laws should in fact offer legal protections to the second wives of fundamentalist mormons, muslims and so forth

Two things...

If so, why not?

And why do we assume (rightfully?) that this will necessarily be a matter of a second wife?

Can I time-travel?

1. The New Jersey case did not force the church to marry, but dealt with the tax status of a piece of land that was classified as "for public use," for which they refused to allow a marriage conducted by others.


I've decided Jeremy is right. You're not a very nice person.

I probably shouldn't joke like that. I'll end up getting someone fired. I have never spoken with Jeremy about what an un-nice person you are.

>1 nathanielcampbell: Are you optimistic that gay marriage supporters will also support the rights of religious institutions to continue to oppose gay marriage within their own walls?

Or are you pessimistic, and see it as inevitable that churches that refuse to marry gay people 50 years from now will be treated with the same contempt (and lawsuits) as those that try to enforce racial segregation are today?

That's @nathanielcampbell asking, right? Not part of the quote? Such a strange way to phrase that choice. I'm optimistic that religious communities will start to examine their doctrine and beliefs regarding homosexuality, and will revisit with more a open mind a topic that hasn't been given much in the way of serious consideration since Paul was writing letters to the Corinthians.

But I agree with Tim that nothing about the opposition to DOMA or the movement towards marriage equality is about religious freedom. I'm finding it hard to grasp where that notion comes from. After all, civil rights legislation was passed in 1964 that made it illegal to discriminate against women, and this has not noticeably impacted the Roman Catholic Church's male-only policy for the priesthood.

Nor do I see that changing because of external public pressure. If it happens, (hard to imagine) it will happen from within the Church, don't you think?

Likewise I'm not sensing some great pressure to make the SBC reverse its position on gay marriage (which I believe officially is "prostrate with horror"). I think the worst thing that will happen will be that some folks will have to endure some pretty uncomfortable moments when they are introduced to "Mr. and Mr. Jones-Smythe" at some society function.

>6 timspalding: I know most equal-marriage proponents want to stand as far away from the polygamists as possible. But if it's about love, consent and equal protection under law, marriage laws should in fact offer legal protections to the second wives of fundamentalist mormons, muslims and so forth.

There really isn't any reason not to offer legal protection to polygamists, if as you say, its about love, consent, and being equal under the law. But it's interesting that the cases we immediately think of apply to religious fundamentalist variants. Somehow, I don't think the local Mormon patriarch or Muslim head of family would be too thrilled with the proffered support of the gay rights crowd.

But I agree with Tim that nothing about the opposition to DOMA or the movement towards marriage equality is about religious freedom. I'm finding it hard to grasp where that notion comes from.

I'm not quite saying that. I support same-sex marriage, but I am conscious that these changes are part of a societal movement which does, in fact, threaten religious freedom. I don't think the state is going to require priests to marry gay people, but I suspect we'll see calls to force parochial schools to remove contract language that require employees to abide by Catholic values, etc. I think that sort of thing would be a grave violation of religious freedom.

Edited: I misunderstood SBL briefly, basically missing the "not." I have removed what I wrote. I apologize for the misunderstanding.

>14 southernbooklady: I also fail to see how same sex marriage has anything to do with religious freedom. The Church has always been free to offer Church marriage to whoever it wants and to exclude those it doesn't want, and still is.

>16 timspalding: these changes are part of a societal movement which does, in fact, threaten religious freedom

I'm really not sure about that. A societal movement which may displace religion from its privileged position in society or reduce its influence in your country, maybe, although since a majority of people in the US identify as religious I'm not even sure that that is really the case, although I know it is the perception of many US Christians.

I suspect we'll see calls to force parochial schools to remove contract language that require employees to abide by Catholic values

But that's a totally different issue. Oppose such contract language, but don't link it to same sex marriage.

Where I live polygamy is legal and relatively common.

If anyone can stop Ontario from taking my money to support Catholic schools, that would be much appreciated.

Where I live polygamy is legal and relatively common.

How do the ladies like it?

Or are you pessimistic, and see it as inevitable that churches that refuse to marry gay people 50 years from now will be treated with the same contempt (and lawsuits) as those that try to enforce racial segregation are today?

Churches that refuse to marry interracial couples today are treated with contempt. They are not, however, legally compelled to marry interracial couples. I predict that fifty years from now, churches that treat gay marriage the same way will be in the same boat. This is not an attack on religious liberty any more than society disapproving of churches that preach racism is an attack on religious liberty. Religious liberty is the freedom to practice your religion, not the freedom to do so to societal applause.

>20 StormRaven:

A religious school that refused to hire blacks (or, a better but weird analogy, "people who made their blackness public at school") would be sued and lose. An adoption agency that refused to place children in black households would be sued and lose. That's clearly where we're headed.

21: And that's not infringing on religious liberty. If a religious organization chooses to place itself into the field of commerce, then they have to follow the same commercial restrictions as everyone else. If you don't want to deal with the rules of business, then don't go into business.

>19 LolaWalser: A few years ago the Anglican bishops met and discussed taking a harder line against polygamy. Anglican women opposed it. "Many of our men have been killed in the war. If you outlaw polygamy, how we will get children?"

>22 StormRaven:

And that's going to be the argument, clearly. Also—and equally clearly—allowing private religious schools to operate within their faith is the absolute center of what people once meant as religious liberty. That's elementary history. Clearly your understanding of religious liberty is far smaller, but let's not pussyfoot around about it.

Incidentally, since ministers commonly require a payment for officiating at a wedding, they should be required to marry same-sex couples. Right?

#1: Are you optimistic that gay marriage supporters will also support the rights of religious institutions to continue to oppose gay marriage within their own walls?

Or are you pessimistic, and see it as inevitable that churches that refuse to marry gay people 50 years from now will be treated with the same contempt (and lawsuits) as those that try to enforce racial segregation are today?

What lawsuits? Churches have an absolute right not to marry black and white people together, and we have an absolute right to be contemptuous about that. Churches have absolutely no right to demand that we don't have contempt for their use of their religious liberties, even while they have the right to have us not use legal force to stop them.

#6: I know most equal-marriage proponents want to stand as far away from the polygamists as possible. But if it's about love, consent and equal protection under law, marriage laws should in fact offer legal protections to the second wives of fundamentalist mormons, muslims and so forth.

I've put a lot of weight on social good, and polygamy is not social good. Polygamy in modern occurrences much worse off to people. Wives are no longer loved partners, but the second and third and fourth property of older men; the fundamentalist mormons frequently drive out younger men so the older men can maintain their polygamous families.

http://www.islamswomen.com/marriage/islams_position_on_polygamy.php tells us that "For example, in Egypt, the permission of the first wife must first be obtained. This and similar conditions are a result of colonial domination. No woman in her right mind will give her husband permission to take a second wife. Such a condition, in fact, negates the permission given by God in the Quran." For an article arguing for polygamy, I find that quite the case against it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygyny_in_Islam gives us (uncited) numbers of 1-3% and points out that Turkey and Tunisia ban polygamy, and many other Islamic nations restrict it. It's surely not something I'd want to encourage.

More simply, gay marriage, polygyny and polyandry interact in hairy ways. If you're married to Fred, and Fred is married to Sally, are you married to Sally? Is marriage a non-exclusive contract between two people, or an exclusive contract between a group of people? If it's an exclusive contract between a group of people, if a man has two wives and dies, aren't his wives still married to each other?

#16: I suspect we'll see calls to force parochial schools to remove contract language that require employees to abide by Catholic values, etc. I think that sort of thing would be a grave violation of religious freedom.

You've banned people from LibraryThing. Does that violate their freedom of speech? People are free in their private capacities to demand parochial schools to stop doing whatever they want.

I really hate talking about religious freedom in these contexts, as it is completely unjust for a Catholic school to demand what it wants from its teachers but a non-church private school not to be able to demand the same things. We should have to talk about freedom to associate, and how far we let that extend and both secular and non-secular organizations should be held to similar lines.

(Ultimately I think such schools would better off if their interpretation of Catholic values wasn't so bigoted; firing Teri James for being pregnant, nominally for premarital sex and offering a job to her fiance, is sexist.)

And that's going to be the argument, clearly.

That's not "going to be" the argument. That's how religious liberty has been interpreted for most of the existence of the United States.

Also—and equally clearly—allowing private religious schools to operate within their faith is the absolute center of what people once meant as religious liberty. That's elementary history. Clearly your understanding of religious liberty is far smaller, but let's not pussyfoot around about it.

Religious schools still have greater freedom to discriminate on the basis of their faith and that doesn't seem likely to go away any time soon, but it is not now, and never has been unbounded. The difficulty that religious schools have faced recently is that they have tried to throw their weight around and discriminate in ways that the public at large has thought unseemly. On the other hand, all of the recent cases I have seen that have come up regarding discriminatory actions by religious schools seem to have gone in favor of the schools being allowed to discriminate, so it seems like your posited shibboleth isn't really materializing.

But is allowing religiously affiliated organizations engaged in regular commerce to discriminate based upon their religious sensibilities really conducive to religious freedom? It seems to me that once you start going down that road in earnest you are essentially inviting the government to become intimately interested in making legal determinations of what is and is not part of a particular faith's doctrines in order to sort out when one particular group is allowed to discriminate and when they are not. You would functionally have multiple sets of laws that apply differently depending upon which type of religiously affiliated organization you are dealing with. I believe that in Malaysia the legal system is set up in such a way and there are literally different laws that apply to Muslims and Christians. Is this a road we'd want to go down?

How do you decide that an organization is religiously affiliated as well? It seems clear that a church is, and that a church related school probably is as well. On the other hand, suppose a religiously affiliated school argued that their church doctrine prohibited teaching the girls who were enrolled how to read and write. Would that be a permissible exercise of religious freedom? Is a company that is owned by people who have strong religious sentiment, such as Chik-fil-a, sufficient to invoke a religious freedom to discriminate exception?

The question is not whether there is a line, the question is where the line is. Where do you draw it? How much harm do you propose that religious organizations be allowed to inflict upon others in the name of religious freedom? Because harm is what you are talking about here. You seem to think that religious organizations should have carte blanche to injure those around them. How far do you think they should be allowed to go? Should we have separate laws for each religious organization? And what happens when one person's religious liberty conflicts with another? Whose law would prevail then?

Incidentally, since ministers commonly require a payment for officiating at a wedding, they should be required to marry same-sex couples. Right?

You seem unfamiliar with the minsterial exceptions to most commercial rules. Actually, I'm sure you are familiar with them, but you're just being disingenuous here, which probably explains why you think Scalia's dissent in the recent DOMA decision is so powerful and "crushing".

I don't think we have been able to address the root cause of religious freedom and why the church should or should not be checked as regards their freedom.

In the first place, the church of today is not the church Jesus Christ founded.Most of the churches we have are the fabrication of men. Christ true church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets and Christ is the chief corner stone. He is the means through which the church is governed and organized.

Unfortunately, our church of today of man-made.Only a very few is Christ-made. What is a church that had left the fundamentals shown to us by the apostles and prophets. The fundamentals of true church is membership by the Holy Spirit and obedience to the commandments of God.

It is on this basis the church shape his freedom. The laws of God is the perfect law of liberty.It is the perfect law of freedom. Any freedom that negates the laws of God is nothing but bondage.

We have missed it.We have thrown away that which is good and the enemy will definitely pursue us. One of the enemy is the issue of gay marriages.We need to get back to the laws of liberty-the word of God.

28: What you advocate is the very antithesis of religious liberty.

#23

So all women want is children, and the only reason there is polygamy, is because of the war depleting the male stock?

There's absolutely no way that the polygamous custom came into being and is supported by systemic misogyny and discrimination against women?

>30 LolaWalser: Did I say any of that? You asked what the ladies think. I gave you one real, practical, concrete example of what some of the ladies think. No more, no less.

Question - when gay marriage was accepted in some states in the USA was fidelity optional? I'd like to know because it is not gay combinations that I find confusing - just the redefinition of the actual word 'marriage.'

32: "Fidelity" has never been a legal requirement in any civil marriage law that I have seen.

#31

Ah, some ladies, this some one time.

>33 StormRaven:

Wikipedia reports that infidelity is a crime in 23 US states. In divorce proceedings some states recognize fault, and so it can affect the distribution of assets, etc.

>35 LolaWalser:

You may need a bigger sample. I say all the single ladies, all the single ladies put your hands up!

36: That is true, however not particularly relevant. First, almost no prosecutions for criminal infidelity have happened since the 19th century. As a matter of practice, such laws are generally invoked to add an extra charge to throw at prostitutes and their customers. As an offense prosecuted on its own, almost never. In Virginia, for example, if I recall correctly, the last prosecution for adultery by itself was in the 1850s.

But the point is that fidelity is generally not required by the statutes that enact civil laws. Look at, for example, Virginia law. It doesn't mention fidelity anywhere in the laws concerning getting a marriage license and solemnizing a marriage. If a spouse doesn't care about their partner's fidelity, there is nothing that makes their marriage any less valid than a marriage in which both partners are faithful. If you and your spouse wanted to spend every weekend cruising bars for bedmates, your marriage would remain valid despite the infidelity.

As to your last point, most states that recognize fault divorces don't have infidelity change the distribution of assets except to the extent that the infidelity depleted the marital assets. Usually fault simply reduces the time periods required to obtain a divorce.

(My use of the terms "optimistic" and "pessimistic" were to encapsulate the two scenarios that Douthat painted in his piece, viz.:

...the future of religious liberty on these issues is going to depend in part on the magnanimity of gay marriage supporters — the extent to which they are content with political, legal and cultural victories that leave the traditional view of marriage as a minority perspective with some modest purchase in civil society, versus the extent to which they decide to use every possible lever to make traditionalism as radioactive in the America of 2025 as white supremacism or anti-Semitism are today.

I was not trying to skew the discussion with a "framing ploy", as per 8.)

But to go back to the question in 32, why does it matter? Is there some assumption here that people involved in gay marriages will somehow be unable to remain faithful to their partner with any more regularity than people involved in straight marriages?

39: What encroachments on religious liberty do you (or Douthat) anticipate? Talking in vague terms about how religious liberty may be infringed doesn't really lead to a useful discussion. Do you think religious organizations will be forced to marry people they don't want to? Do you think that religious organizations will be looked down upon? Do you think they will have to treat same sex married couples as actually being legally married? What is the limitation you think will be imposed on religious liberty here?

>18 LolaWalser: If anyone can stop Ontario from taking my money to support Catholic schools, that would be much appreciated.

For Ontario property taxes, we had to choose which school system we wished to support. We have two lots and designated property taxes from one lot go to support Catholic schools--and the other supports the regular school system.

#42

No such choice for me. You can bet I'd have taken it.

Anyway, not to hijack the thread, but regardless of property taxes allocation, everyone's tax money goes to the Catholic school board: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/davide-mastracci/ontario-catholic-school-funding_b_...

#39: ...the future of religious liberty on these issues is going to depend in part on the magnanimity of gay marriage supporters — the extent to which they are content with political, legal and cultural victories that leave the traditional view of marriage as a minority perspective with some modest purchase in civil society, versus the extent to which they decide to use every possible lever to make traditionalism as radioactive in the America of 2025 as white supremacism or anti-Semitism are today.

Religious liberty is not a right to not be called on your opinions.

I don't remotely understand why he thinks gay marriage supporters could or would be what he calls "magnanimous". You want this? It's called terms of surrender in warfare, and depends on someone having the power to compel the troops on their side to stop fighting. We will fight until we've solidly lost everywhere, and make no promises to stop fighting then? We will continue to be a thorn in your side, but you should be magnanimous and not pluck us out? Not going to work, ever.

Zangasta posted a very relevant article here (on beliefs, "right" to believe etc.):

http://www.librarything.com/topic/155805

Actually that article was more on the right to teach, not the right to believe. As it pertained to teaching, it was right on almost everything.

But as it pertained to religious belief outside the classroom, the author seemed to have confused personal rights with pedagogical rights and the right of free speech. Someone has the right, within certain contexts, to question my beliefs. But that does not diminish my rights to believe what I want.

The practice of faith is a different animal altogether. If I believe in killing infidel, or that property is theft, or that I can walk in traffic protected by my deity, I do not have the right to freedom from consequences. If I speak up for my faith in a class, I do not have the right to NOT have my faith challenged. But I still have the right to that belief.

>41 StormRaven:: " What encroachments on religious liberty do you (or Douthat) anticipate?"

Not presuming to speak for Douthat, I envision any of the following as possible problems:

(1) A minister (and/or their church) is sued for refusing to marry a gay couple. We've already seen, I believe, photographers and cake bakers sued for making such a refusal. While for the moment, I am quite sure that the courts would squash such a suit on First Amendment grounds, the point of a nuisance suit is, well, to be a nuisance. At what point do smaller churches that have razor-thin budgets get bankrupted by the legal costs of fighting this?

(2) I can easily envision an IRS decision at some point in the future that the refusal in (1) qualifies as sufficiently discriminatory to revoke tax-exempt status. On the other hand, we are overdue for a serious discussion about what tax-exemption really means, both in relation to religious bodies and in view of the recent "watchlist" debacle. Should, for example, religious bodies be moved from the more restrictive boundaries of 501(c)(3) to the more permissive ones of 501(c)(4)?

(3) A minister preaches a sermon on the sinfulness of homosexuality, and is now liable for "hate speech", whether civilly or criminally.

As it is, none of these three scenarios obtains today. But with the move towards an increasing intolerance of those who voice negative opinions about homosexuality, are we really sure that, three or four decades from now, these won't commonplace?

Edited to clarify a rough spot in the language.

> 47

(1) They'll have to get in line behind all the people suing churches for refusing to marry interracial and interfaith couples. Oh, wait, there aren't any such suits.

(2) See (1)

(3) There is no such crime, or civil tort, as "hate speech", at least not in the U.S.

But with the move towards an increasing intolerance of those who oppose homosexuality...

Why would anyone oppose homosexuality apart from bigotry? Isn't intolerance towards bigotry a good thing?

>49 theoria:: I've edited my comment to clarify: " those who voice negative opinions about homosexuality."

And we've been over this in the other thread: by what moral authority do you declare traditional sexual ethics to be "bigotry"?

Is it bigoted to say, "homosexual acts are sinful"? Is it likewise bigoted to say, "Sex outside marriage is sinful," or "Masturbation is sinful", or "Adultery is sinful"?

50> I understand that you reject the idea that "traditional sexual ethics" regarding homosexuality can be bigoted.

>51 theoria:: "can be bigoted."

One must be careful how one uses language. Can a person be bigoted against homosexuals? Certainly -- I've never denied that.

But is a traditional morality necessarily bigoted? That has yet to be established.

I doubt churches will be forced to conduct same-sex marriages. Their charities may well, however, have to consider whether to fold or to place kids for adoption with same-sex couples or to allow same-sex spouses equality in hospital decisions or access.

Here in Michigan, I was disappointed that RCs funded referendum on same-sex marriage, even going so far as to force denial of benefits to less formal domestic partners. Sounds like there may be a pushback referendum in the works--I'm wondering how RC hierarchy will participate this time.

ETA: Wow, even as I typed: "A federal judge Friday issued a ruling that declares a law signed into effect by Gov. Rick Snyder in December 2011 is unconstitutional. The Public Employee Domestic Partner Benefit Restriction Act previously banned all institutions funded by public tax dollars from extending benefits to non-related adults living under the same roof as the insurance policyholder."

The US Supreme Court overturned CA ruling on same-sex marriage because those appealing had no standing--wonder who would have standing to appeal MI law? RCs who funded the 2004 referendum?

"According to the Associated Press, another judge is considering whether to strike down Michigan's nearly 9-year-old ban on same-sex marriage. It is not known when U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman will make a decision, the AP reported."

http://www.annarbor.com/news/education/federal-judge-strikes-down-michigan-law-b...

> 53

Their charities may well, however, have to consider whether to fold or to place kids for adoption with same-sex couples

Only if they take government funding. And that issue has already arisen, even in the absence of same-sex marriage, in some states with anti-discrimination laws.

(1) A minister (and/or their church) is sued for refusing to marry a gay couple.

A fear that will never materialize. Do you see any ministers being sued for refusing to marry interracial coupled? Do you see Catholic priests sued for refusing to marry two non-Catholics? No, you don't. This "fear' is entirely unfounded, and I think you know that.

We've already seen, I believe, photographers and cake bakers sued for making such a refusal.

Yes, because they are engaged in regular commerce. Cake bakers can also be sued for refusing to provide service to Jews, African-Americans, and Hispanics, no matter their personal religious convictions. Preventing people engaged in commerce from discriminating against others when they do so is no more of an infringement on religious liberty than there is already.

(2) I can easily envision an IRS decision at some point in the future that the refusal in (1) qualifies as sufficiently discriminatory to revoke tax-exempt status. On the other hand, we are overdue for a serious discussion about what tax-exemption really means, both in relation to religious bodies and in view of the recent "watchlist" debacle. Should, for example, religious bodies be moved from the more restrictive boundaries of 501(c)(3) to the more permissive ones of 501(c)(4)?

I don't see any of the churches that discriminate on racial grounds losing their tax-exempt status. There is no requirement in 501(c)(3) that an organization be non-discriminatory in order to qualify for tax-exempt status. You're imagining a scenario that can't happen without a substantive change in the law, and that would require action by Congress.

(3) A minister preaches a sermon on the sinfulness of homosexuality, and is now liable for "hate speech", whether civilly or criminally.

Please point to a hate speech law that exists in the United States. If you imagine one could pass in the future, explain how such a law could pass muster under the First Amendment. Given that the Aryan Nation and the KKK are permitted to operate websites within the United States in which they openly call for a host of discriminatory (and often violent) actions, your fear of a preacher saying that homosexuality is sinful being sued for hate speech is not only far-fetched, it is farcical.

And we've been over this in the other thread: by what moral authority do you declare traditional sexual ethics to be "bigotry"?

By what moral authority do you declare traditional racial ethics to be "bigotry"? Because the Christian Nationalist Movement called and they want you to explain that to them.

When one eliminates the unlikely doomsday scenarios, all that is left is dislike of the fact that "those who oppose homosexuality" "those who voice negative opinions about homosexuality" will encounter criticism.

I'm all for traditional morality. Bring on the blood sacrifice and polygamy!

#47: (3) A minister preaches a sermon on the sinfulness of homosexuality, and is now liable for "hate speech", whether civilly or criminally.

The ACLU fought heavily at high costs to themselves for the right for Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois. You get the civil liberties you afford to your enemies. If, in those parts of the world that have hate speech laws, you get prosecuted under them, maybe you should have stood up for those who were being prosecuted under them earlier.

#1: Ross Douthat has some thoughts...

Ya lost me already. In just five words....

> 60

Me too! But I skipped to the end of #1, and I have a response to Nathaniel's question, despite my profound disinterest in any of Douthat's opinions.

The church I serve has been happy to perform same-sex marriages for some time, and I'm optimistic that these will have an increasing chance of recognition by secular authorities. I will be only too pleased if "mainstream" churches that condemn same-sex marriage are eventually as marginal as my church is today, whether or not it involves my church's greater popularity.

The consistent response on this thread to the fears voiced in the OP was, "Don't worry -- we're not going to trample religious freedom to force churches that don't want to to perform gay marriages."

But in the wake of Britain's legalization of gay marriage last week, one its more famous gay couples have announced that they are taking the church to court, because, "I am still not getting what I want."

According to The Essex Chronicle, Barrie Dewitt-Barlow, who was civilly-partnered with Tony in 2006, thinks the recognition of gay marriage "is actually a small step because it is something we still cannot actually do. ... It upsets me because I want it so much – a big lavish ceremony, the whole works, I just don't think it is going to happen straight away."

He continues: "The only way forward for us now is to make a challenge in the courts against the church. It is a shame that we are forced to take Christians into a court to get them to recognise us."

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ETA: I am fully aware that the United States has more robust constitutional protections for religious freedom than the UK. But is this response from gay couples--to sue Christian churches to force them to perform gay weddings--a harbinger of things to come? How many churches will be forced to undergo the expensive and time-consuming process of litigation?

This would be the "Church of England" that's getting sued?

How many churches will be forced to undergo the expensive and time-consuming process of litigation?

None.

> 62. The consistent response on this thread to the fears voiced in the OP was, "Don't worry -- we're not going to trample religious freedom to force churches that don't want to to perform gay marriages."

It seems to me that the consistent response, if there is such a thing on one of these LT threads, is that those who trample on some people are hardly in a position to object to being trampled on themselves.

How many churches will be forced to undergo the expensive and time-consuming process of litigation?

Zero.

I'm not really seeing any trampling here, although I do read a lot of hurt feelings.

Churches that refused to marry same-sex couples will continue to do so.

Churches that ARE willing to marry same-sex couples can now do so with the added benefit of having those marriages being legal in the eyes of the Law.

How does expanding a right trample anyone?

Lawsuits? Churches, like everyone else, can be sued at any time, for any reason or no reason at all. They could happen, I suppose; but I suspect the most common reaction will to be merely shrug and find another venue for a wedding. The only people with real standing would be members of that congregation, trying to force changes on their church. I don't this being a major issue.

Contempt and mockery? This is even less of a problem. Christians used to pride themselves on being steadfast in their faith when faced with lions, burning aliver, and similar torments; I'm sure modern Christians can survive a bit of social odium. If they genuinely believe they are right, why should the opinions of mere mortals upset them?

None. ... Zero

You are assuming, I think, a full frontal attack--marry us or we'll sue you. I don't see that--not so long as the Constitution means anything like what it means now.

But surely there are a thousand ways marriage can touch something not actually the religious service itself. Should a church that won't marry everyone be eligible to apply for the wedding-related parking exemptions others get? Should a church that won't marry everyone be eligible to perform their service in a public park, as many do? Should they be allowed to rent a city facility if they won't marry everyone? (See New York's decision to forbid churches from renting school facilities.) Should a church that won't marry everyone get the standard tax exemption available to charitable endeavors? My church has Sunday parking through a deal with a social-services department--they're not open on Sunday. Should cities prevent all such deals with churches that don't abide by city anti-discrimination regulations? Lots of churches host social services; they have large public spaces that are often free. Should city-sponsored AA meetings, literacy groups and so forth be withdrawn from churches that won't marry everyone? Should children in non-complying church schools get public services, like free lunch programs? We're getting some small city grant available to anyone who fixes up a historic building. Should that be cut off for offending churches?

Sooo.... a Church that is to some degree an arm of the state is being sued to comply with the the state's law?

This is not moving my outrage-o-meter.

But surely there are a thousand ways marriage can touch something not actually the religious service itself.

Most of your "thousand ways" have already been dealt with by the legislatures and the courts when dealing with churches that discriminate in other ways. Was the Mormon church denied these sorts of rights when they were openly racist? Are openly racist churches that won't marry mixed race couples (and some of those churches exist) denied, for example, the ability to get the standard tax exemption available to charitable endeavors? No, they are not.

And pretending that this will somehow change because the subject isn't racially based religious discrimination and is instead sexuality based religious discrimination is simply silly. You're scared of a threat that simply isn't there.

We need to change the laws so that Church wedding are no longer legal weddings.

>69 AsYouKnow_Bob:

Right. But the trick is that almost everything is an arm of the state now. Take something like Georgetown University, where I went to school, and all of the ways it touches the state. No doubt its science and engineering departments are like their peers in non-religiously-backed institutions--sustained by dozens of federal grants for researching this and that. Take that away and you'd cut the school in two. You would shut the rest of it down if Georgetown students were no longer eligible for internships on the Hill or at various other government departments, or if people who consult for government agencies were forbidden to visit campus, teach, etc. Or take the students. Half the Foreign Service school is making ends meet through FLAS grants--grants for studying under-represented languages. Others are doing ROTC, or getting their degrees having signed away a few years in the army, lawyering for a government program for the indigent or doctoring for an indian tribe on behalf of a government entity. And almost everyone is on some form of federal or federally-guaranteed student aid.

Well, the specific example was the Church of England. You know, a case can certainly be made that if you have a State Religion, it needs to comply with the laws of the State.

Not sure how Georgetown's involvement in the larger (American) society pertains.

>72 timspalding: But the trick is that almost everything is an arm of the state now.

I'm not sure where you are going with this, but if church and state have really become so entangled, then aren't the courts exactly where conflicts between one person's civil right not to be discriminated against and another's right to religious freedom would be worked out? How is that interpreted as an "attack" on religious freedom?

Civil marriage and religious marriage are related but different. As a clergyperson, I have always seen the signing of a marriage license as an add-on to the primary event: the religious rite. My decision to officiate a marriage is a personal one. Generally, I expect a couple to meet with me several times and talk about their relationship, in effect convincing me that they are serious about the marriage and aware of its responsibilities, before I will agree to officiate. I have officiated at many marriages where there was no marriage license but a valid marriage occurred as far as the church was concerned. Most cases were of same-gender couples but there have also been cases of elderly couples who would have adverse financial consequences if they had a civil marriage, perhaps because of pension considerations or situations with their heirs

The Roman Catholic Church does not marry divorced people, even though divorce is perfectly legal and socially acceptable, because it goes against their teachings. When a parishioner is allowed to marry a non-Catholic, they are usually made to promise that any children will be raised as Roman Catholics. It is their right to impose these rules and that right has always been respected.

I have several clergy friends from mainline churches that refused to sign any marriage license until all couples were issued them. No one tried to force them do it; it is a matter of religious conviction. I never went that far but I respect my friends who did.

BTW, my husband and I are both gay clergy, now retired. We have been together 16 years and were civilly married as soon as our state law allowed it. We have 2 adult children from a previous marriage and two young sons at home.

Not sure how Georgetown's involvement in the larger (American) society pertains.

See Bob Jones v. United States. Bob Jones University lost its tax-exempt status over a rule forbidding interracial dating. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_University_v._United_States ). The Supreme Court agreed with the logic. Racist institutions are regularly stripped of their tax exempt status, not to mention being ineligible for all manner of government programs. Single-sex schools have a statutory carve-out, but if you open a racist school you're not going to get tax exempt status or federal grants. I'm not sure if your students can get student loans. I suspect you wouldn't get accredited, and the loans depend upon the accreditation.

I see no reason whatsoever that won't be eventually applied to Catholic universities and other religious institutions over discrimination against gays. Do you?

76: As usual, you misstate the law. The Bob Jones ruling applied to the university, but not to "churches or other purely religious institutions". If a church wants to sponsor a hospital, or university, or other commercial operation, then they have to play by the rules the rest of the players in commerce do. But to pretend that this ruling somehow means that churches that discriminate on racial or sexual orientation grounds will lose their tax exempt status is to grossly mischaracterize the state of the law.

As StormRaven points out, colleges are not actually churches.
Believe whatever you want, knock yourself out. But (...with minor exceptions...) religions have to obey the same laws as the rest of society. LDS were forced to give up polygamy, Bob Jones had to allow interracial dating.

I see no reason whatsoever that won't be eventually applied to Catholic universities and other religious institutions over discrimination against gays. Do you?

One can only hope.

IF it comes to pass, maybe the poor, persecuted schools who are legally forbidden to be bigots will eventually put pressure on the church to not be bigots.

> 78. LDS were forced to give up polygamy, Bob Jones had to allow interracial dating.

That's just for the time being. In the eternities, Mormon men will have multiple wives. Even now, Mormon widowers are sealed for eternity to their subsequent wives as well as their first.

There probably won't be interracial dating in the afterlife, as well.

I'm sorry you think I misstate the law. I think you don't read posts. See above where I go on at length about Georgetown University.

I think you're right in general, however. "Freedom of religion" will be more and more be constricted to freedom of worship and in a clearly demarcated building of religious worship, perhaps with a nod to freedom of belief, restricted to an even smaller space--your cranium. But whether in 1978 or today, Christians have never understood their religion to be something they "exercised" within a small building for an hour or two one day of the week. That completely distorts what religion is and was when the First Amendment was written. That's not what "religion" is at all, so it can hardly be what the First Amendment protects. One might as well say that freedom of speech only applied on the premises of a newspaper.

Since the founding Americans have understood that hospitals, universities, schools and other such institutions founded in furtherance of a religious goal were religious institutions, not commercial venues. Georgetown, for example, was founded by a Jesuit priest appointed by the Pope and has been run by the Jesuits, a religious order, continuously since then. Every student is required to take a year of theology. Every classroom has a cross. The whole purpose of the place is explicitly religious. Is it really exempt from making free-exercise grounds because it's not a church building?

As you know, there are relatively few cases on this topic. Oregon's effort to make parochial schools illegal was stopped on Due Process grounds, the First Amendment not being deemed to apply to the states yet.(1) Most of the rest of the free-exercise cases have involved individuals in marginal, hated groups—Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, acting without an institutional structure. Since Smith it may well be that the court would allow the government to do almost anything to a religious institution, so long as the law was said to be neutral.

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1. Now that substantive due process is largely dead and the First Amendment applies to the states, would you agree that the state may not pass a law requiring all students to attend state schools, on free-exercise grounds?

Is it really exempt from making free-exercise grounds because it's not a church building?

It depends (of course) on how relevant to the larger society it wants to be.

Does it want accreditation? Does it want its students to qualify for federal loans? Or would it rather remain "pure"?

The very shape of the argument is interesting: "Why, if this goes on, the very same thing that happened to {one set of bigots} might someday happen to {another set of bigots}!"

(Department of Full Disclosure: one of my siblings' kids has a graduate degree from Georgetown.)

As the nations premiere Catholic college, Georgetown favors Catholic professors and for Catholic students in admission. (It's slight; I got in somehow anyway.) Can Georgetown favor Catholics, Brandeis favor Jews, etc? Does doing so make them bigots?

As a matter of law, yes, they can, at least as far as it's been tested. The 1964 Civil Rights law has exemptions for religious schools, same-sex schools, etc. But I want to know what you think the law should be.

#80: But whether in 1978 or today, Christians have never understood their religion to be something they "exercised" within a small building for an hour or two one day of the week.

But they've frequently understood other religions to be such. It's hard to be really sympathetic to a majority position that's becoming a minority position and being forced to go from lording their privilege over everyone else to loudly protesting their rights as a minority. Polygamy is illegal, and the US strongarmed the Mormons into giving it up. There is some recognition of Native American religion, but it's as a quaint ethnic thing; both peyote and eagle features are restricted to certified Native Americans. Now people are complaining about the mere possibility that someone could sue churches to be married, because that's more important then letting them get married.

Since Smith it may well be that the court would allow the government to do almost anything to a religious institution, so long as the law was said to be neutral.

Smith is not the most helpful way to refer to a court case; I suspect the first citable case involving Smith was shortly after the Magna Carta. I don't believe the implication that Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990) was a turning point; I don't think the court would have said that peyote smoking was an acceptable religious practice at any point in its history.

Is it really exempt from making free-exercise grounds because it's not a church building?

This is exactly why I'm so uncomfortable with the expansive use of religious freedom. You can have a university built however firmly around whatever principles you want, and it doesn't matter, but a religious university suddenly gets exemption from all this stuff. Human convictions and beliefs, both secular and religious, deserve some respect, and the mere invocation of God shouldn't completely change the rules. It shouldn't matter if a racist university is religious or not.

(Or see City of Boerne v. Flores, where the Catholic Church claimed rules about buildings in a historic district was a significant limitation on their religious freedom. Bull; it sucked for them in the same way it sucked for all their neighbors, and was appropriately measured that way.)

Religious freedom acts as a proxy for this more general freedom in many small ways, but once you start spreading it all over the place, I think it gives completely unfair value to certain beliefs over others.

>82 timspalding: As the nations premiere Catholic college

Would all Catholics in the USA agree that it is the premiere college?!

>80 timspalding: Is it really exempt from making free-exercise grounds because it's not a church building?

If you turn that question around, then is it really okay to let a hospital (or school) ignore a person's civil rights on free-exercise grounds because a church owns it?

The more you operate in the world, the more you have to compromise with it. I don't see how that restricts freedom of religion. It merely negotiates that freedom with all the other rights of citizens when they might come into conflict. (Nor is the religious lobby overly concerned with encroaching on the freedoms of other groups--consider the fact that Planned Parenthood, although it receives money from the government as a nonprofit health organization, is specifically barred from using government funds for abortion services).

Here in North Carolina it is now legal to bring concealed weapons into school gymnasiums and amphitheaters (and bars...because nothing goes better with alcohol than guns). What will happen when people start bringing guns onto the grounds of your religious school? Or to an event hosted in your school's auditorium? Which gets primacy? Your first amendment rights or their second amendment rights?

The truth is, all our civil rights constantly come into conflict with each other--your religious freedom with my freedom of expression, your right to carry a gun with my right to due process. If you don't want to compromise, you have to stay out of arenas where conflicts might happen.

>85 southernbooklady:: "Here in North Carolina it is now legal to bring concealed weapons into school gymnasiums and amphitheaters (and bars...because nothing goes better with alcohol than guns)."

An aside: I'd like it to be remembered in the future that it was the supposedly "pro-life" Republican Party that enacted that one. In other words, the Republican Party has revealed that its "pro-life" positions are shams, hypocritical perversions of what the culture of life actually advocates.

Religious freedom acts as a proxy for this more general freedom in many small ways, but once you start spreading it all over the place, I think it gives completely unfair value to certain beliefs over others.

And here's the problem—if religious freedom is just a subset of a more general freedom, why the heck does the Constitution have an amendment about it?

Consider how you could shrink it. If it's not about religion, but the real principle is that you can't single groups out--that your law needs to be neutral in intent--the equal protection clause would be enough. And if the First Amendment's free-speech protection applies to nude dancing, as the court has ruled, why not worship? It can hardly be that silently dancing around a pole is free speech, but all the kneeling and standing and circling the altar--all the while talking, or at least singing--is not.(1) Choice of minister? Ministers are basically paid talkers, so free speech. Freedom of assembly would cover the rest.

But the Constitution has a special amendment about religion. It's clear the Founders considered it an absolutely central right. From your perspectives, it's hard to see why they included it in the first place. Maybe you advocate for its removal.

I don't think the court would have said that peyote smoking was an acceptable religious practice at any point in its history.

The significance of Smith is not peyote but that it cast doubt(2) on the "compelling interest" standard in favor of a fairness standard. That is, before Smith the court would test whether a neutral law impinged on free exercise by whether it served a "compelling state interest." After Smith it seemed the law merely needed to be a "generally applicable and otherwise valid provision." Also, inasmuch as peyote is closely analogous to communion wine--used in the actual worship--it opens the door to forbiding the central religious act of large numbers of Americans. I simply can't believe that we have a Constitution that specifically establishes "free exercise of religion" as a preeminent trumping right, but that the government can shut down the central act of Christian worship.

the mere invocation of God shouldn't completely change the rules

No, I agree. You need some sort of standard against which to weigh things, and then do it. In the Yoder case the court weighed the state's interest in educating Amish children against the Amish's religious rights, the right to school their own children, the right to their culture and the fact that Amish children were in fact doing rather better than other public school children despite skipping two grades, and ruled that the state had no Constitutional right to force older Amish children into school.

In the hypothetical US vs. Georgetown case, the court would consider to what degree a Catholic school run by a celibate religious order with crucifixes on every wall and a church at the center of the campus its is a religious institution, the degree to which a restriction impacted the school's religious mission, the parental right to send your child to an institution that teaches your religion, the free speech and free assembly rights to gather among co-religionists and hear your faith taught, etc. Such a weighing would hardly allow Georgetown to build a nuclear weapon because the Bible says Christians should be prepared. But I would hope that--if the legal exemptions were removed--the court would still allow Georgetown to favor Catholics in hiring and admission, deny money to student groups that it feels conflict with its mission, etc.(3)

Would all Catholics in the USA agree that it is the premiere college?!

We should submit the question to the Supreme Court. It might result in a tie--Scalia went to Georgetown and Thomas went to Holy Cross. You may decide for yourself who is the sharper justice.

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1. I am going to Hell for that comparison.
2. Stricly speaking, only 4/9 embraced this idea; O'Connor's affirmed that "religious liberty is an independent liberty, that it occupies a preferred position."
3. The humor in this case is, of course, that Georgetown is often attacked as the least "Catholic" Catholic school. If there's ever going to be a court case like this, it won't be against Georgetown. And, of course, I'll add in a footnote that I support marriage equality and other such civil measures. But I also support the First Amendment.

Since the founding Americans have understood that hospitals, universities, schools and other such institutions founded in furtherance of a religious goal were religious institutions, not commercial venues.

Just saying that you are engaged in religious goals does not change the commercial nature of the operation. You are competing in a commercial venue with commercial competitors. Do you get to evade the laws that apply to others just because you hang a cross on the wall and say prayers every day?

No one makes a religious organization start a school or a university. They can if they want to, but then they are subject to the laws that apply to everyone else. Entering into the commercial world is entirely optional for a religious organization, but once they choose to do so, following the rules that apply generally to that form of commerce is not.

Now that substantive due process is largely dead and the First Amendment applies to the states, would you agree that the state may not pass a law requiring all students to attend state schools, on free-exercise grounds?

No. In fact, I think a state could pass such a law and it would easily pass Constitutional muster.

No. In fact, I think a state could pass such a law and it would easily pass Constitutional muster.

We had such a case— Pierce v. Society of Sisters—in 1922. The Supreme Court ruled that forcing students into state-run schools was not a "proper power" granted to the state. It is the law of the land.

Easily pass? Kennedy (who's on the court) has noted that the case could today be grounded on Freedom of Religion grounds. I think it unlikely "easily pass Constitutional muster" would involve a standoff between your legal tanks and the wishy-washy-swing-voter Kennedy cast as the "shopping bag guy" in Tienanmen Square.

> 87 if religious freedom is just a subset of a more general freedom, why the heck does the Constitution have an amendment about it?

Because at that time all precedents held that a nation-state should advocate for a specific religion, rather than maintaining secular neutrality.

>89 timspalding:

You're confusing the free-exercise with the establishment clause. The free-exercise clause does not require neutrality. There's another clause for that.

>90 paradoxosalpha: (paradoxosalpha): Should the free-exercise and establishment clauses be removed then? (And while we're at it, can we chuck the 2nd Amendment, too?)

No, no, we need to keep the establishment clause, to prevent government from treating religions like any other entity when its to their benefit. (See NYC's decision to forbid churches from renting rooms when non-religious clubs could do it.) The real principle behind the Constitution is that religion is a suspect category.

Have you learned nothing?

The Supreme Court ruled that forcing students into state-run schools was not a "proper power" granted to the state. It is the law of the land.

The views on the state role concerning public education were very different in 1922. If a state passed a law requiring attendance at public schools I seriously doubt religious objections to attending such schools would be sufficient to overturn it.

What I find amusing here is that the state of the law regarding religious institutions have, for most of the existence of the United States, been cheered on by Christians who have operated under the assumption that these rules would never, never apply to them. And now, when the general laws that have evolved in this area are applied to them, they are squealing like a stuck pig.

To put it bluntly: Christians making these protests are all acting like asses. This is the way the law works. This is the way religious liberty works in this country. You wanted it this way when it was applied to those outside the mainstream. Well, now it applies to you. Shut up and quit whining.

>94 StormRaven:: Not all private schools are religious. Therefore, wouldn't secular private schools (e.g. the many wealthy New England prep schools) have a legal argument against such a state monopoly, which would effectively force them to close?

the parental right to send your child to an institution that teaches your religion

I don't understand, why would an institution of higher education teach religion? I mean, it's an university, it's not a school of theology. If a Catholic wanted a degree in maths or art history, what relevance would his religion have for the choice of the university?

To me it smacks simply of wanting to hang out with "people like me". Not necessarily wrong, but easily gets into the neigbourhood of all kinds of discrimination.

Not all private schools are religious. Therefore, wouldn't secular private schools (e.g. the many wealthy New England prep schools) have a legal argument against such a state monopoly, which would effectively force them to close?

States can create a state monopoly if they want to. States do it all the time.

If a state passed a law requiring attendance at public schools I seriously doubt religious objections to attending such schools would be sufficient to overturn it.

Um, that one was decided in Wisconsin v. Yoder in 1972, where Wisconsin required Amish students to attend public schools. It was struck down on Free Exercise grounds. The case is even stronger inasmuch as the Amish kids weren't going to ANY school—they left it entirely.

Is it your contention that views on public education have changed since 1972, or are you just making shit up you want the law to say?

I don't understand, why would an institution of higher education teach religion? I mean, it's an university, it's not a school of theology.

I dunno. Where did universities come from in the first place? How do religions see education? Look, a year of theology and another of philosophy is standard at Catholic colleges and universities. I know you aren't religious, but I can understand ideas I disagree with. Surely you can understand that Catholic colleges see theology as a key part of their educative mission.

As for the hang-out part, there's some truth to that. Irish Catholics drink like fishes. As a more abstemious WASP, I felt a bit left out.

>96 LolaWalser:: "I don't understand, why would an institution of higher education teach religion? I mean, it's an university, it's not a school of theology. If a Catholic wanted a degree in maths or art history, what relevance would his religion have for the choice of the university?"

It's called a core curriculum / a broad-based liberal arts education. Most religiously-affiliated universities include some type of religious studies / theology within those core requirements.

Your argument amounts to, if a person wants a degree in biology, why should they have to study English, history, or philosophy?

>98 timspalding:

It's more than that, though. A Catholic college would justify the theology requirement on different grounds from a language requirement. Religiously-founded institutions have generally thought they had a commitment to "veritas," not just knowing about the topic of veritas to be well-rounded.

>100 timspalding:: That's quite true. On the other hand, it's precisely the university's commitment to veritas that animates the notion of a broad-based liberal arts education. The reduction of the philosophy of liberal education to "well-rounded" is part of what has hurt it so in the modern educational economy. We've lost sight of the fact that studying all forms of knowledge is in itself the model of pursuing the Good, for its truth subsists in all of the scientiae.

The unbridgeable divide here is that Lola is convinced that veritas excludes God (who doesn't exist), and so it's just a terrible sham that any institution of higher education would peddle such nonsense ("indoctrination") to its students.

Your argument amounts to, if a person wants a degree in biology, why should they have to study English, history, or philosophy?

No, it doesn't. For one thing, what study of English is useful for studying biology ought to have been accomplished long before university. History and philosophy are completely unnecessary for turning out competent biologists.

So--you're telling me these Georgetown students--mathematicians or art historians or whatever--are also taking in theology? That's what makes this a religious school?

How exactly does theology help them to become mathematicians and art historians or engineers or linguists etc.?

98: Yoder is much more limited than you seem to realize. First, the decision only applies to schooling beyond the 8th grade. Prior to that, the decision is silent. Second, to make the decision, the Court got into the question of what was and was not a "legitimate" religious belief.

Leaving aside the question of whether you really want the Courts deciding what is and is not "legitimate" religious expression, do you really think that someone who sends their children to a non-state school that covers the full range will have a "legitimate" religious objection to education via a religiously neutral public school?

And so on. The Yoder decision is so extraordinarily limited in so many ways that to think it would bar a state from requiring public education is simply foolish.

#100

"Well-roundedness" isn't a religious invention or feature.

Tim at #82 But I want to know what you think the law should be.

In the abstract, I'm a huge fan of pluralism - in brief, because "competing centers of power" is usually a good thing, in that it's a factor in keeping governments from turning totalitarian.

But this whole sub-thread of "the poor beleaguered colleges FORCED to compromise with heathens!" is pretty much of a distraction from the original question of marriage equality.

>101 nathanielcampbell:: "History and philosophy are completely unnecessary for turning out competent biologists."

There's a line about those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.

When a "competent biologist" hits upon the stupendous idea of using human test subjects--since we could learn so much more if we just experimented on humans directly rather than using animal analogues--without a grounding in history and ethics, he will have no way of knowing that we went down that path in the first half of the twentieth century, with disastrous results.

This is what's so perversely wrong about notions of compartmentalization in the information economy. All knowledge is connected in intimate and fundamental ways, and the person who thinks that they only need to know that tiny subset that applies to their job is the person who is doomed to a life of ignorance and unfulfilled human potential.

>104 LolaWalser:: "Well-roundedness" isn't a religious invention or feature."

I didn't say that it was. What I said is that the human commitment to the truth exceeds simplistic and economical notions of "well-roundedness" and drives to the very heart of what all forms of knowledge (all sciences, in the classical sense of the term) really are. We seek the truth as much for its own sake as for externally tangible economic benefits.

If you are content to say that all forms of knowledge that don't interest you are therefore useless, then I mourn for your callous disregard for the vitality of the human quest.

The other thing I find interesting here is that the religious individuals in this thread are arguing in favor of discrimination. They want the ability to, say, have a Catholic hospital turn away a gay patient at their doors because they would have to recognize his same sex spouse's right to visit him in the hospital and make medical decisions for him if he is incapacitated. They want the ability to hire someone to teach math and then fire them if they find out they are gay, or deny their same sex spouse's benefits as a spouse.

In short, they are demanding the ability to act like assholes. Religious organizations don't need anyone who isn't nonreligious to work to make them seem like a collection of complete assholes. Religious organizations do it themselves completely voluntarily.

If one ever wonders why religious adherence is declining in the U.S., then consider that maybe acting like a collection of complete assholes is a significant contributing factor.

>105 AsYouKnow_Bob:: "is pretty much of a distraction from the original question of marriage equality."

We're not going down this road again, are we? "No posts in a thread with title X are allowed to explore anything other than topic X, strictly defined!"

It completely misconstrues the nature of conversation and discourse, which grows organically with the infusion of new analogies and new ideas, and the response to those new ideas in turn.

Tim's introduction of the Georgetown example in post 72 was intended to explore the complex ways in which the state and nominally religious institutions are intertwined. It was a way of engaging the question of how the similarly entwined practical relationships between state and churches might be worked out in terms of gay marriage.

It's a natural evolution of the discussion about how to parse the thorny entanglements of state laws and religious institutions -- and I'm getting really tired of this cloying tactic, used earlier by Jesse_wiedinmyer on gay marriage and the sub-conversation on pornography, and now here by you, to shut down those natural evolutions in discussion.

It's disingenuous and its own distraction, focusing on "tactics" in a "debate" rather than on actually listening, learning, and exploring in a conversation. Why are you afraid of an evolving, organic conversation?

Tim's introduction of the Georgetown example in post 72 was intended to explore the complex ways in which the state and nominally religious institutions are intertwined.

And its a red herring, because "nominally religious organizations" generally have to abide by the general laws of the land, meaning that they are entirely outside the original question.

It isn't some sort of mystery here. Churches won't be required to marry same-sex couples, and can discriminate all they want, because there's nothing more important than allowing clergymen to be assholes. Religiously affiliated organizations will be required to abide by the general laws concerning nondiscrimination except to the extent that the legislature agrees to carve out an exemption for them. if Georgetown hires a gay man, or has a gay student, then they will have to treat them and their spouse like they treat any other teacher, student, or opposite sex spouse.

>107 StormRaven: I find interesting here is that the religious individuals in this thread are arguing in favor of discrimination

Well, it's more that they are arguing in favor of discrimination without consequences.

I find the whole argument very strange, probably because I've been in and out of Catholic schools most of my life and I'm an alumni of Boston College--a Jesuit college, I think Cardinal Law actually handed out our diplomas one year--and I ended up with a fantastically philosophically diverse education that included four years of classes in philosophy and feminism from none other than the radical feminist Mary Daly, who had tenure there--actually because when she published a book that ran counter to Catholic doctrine (Church and the Second Sex) the administration tried to fire her and the ALL MALE student body protested. There was a battle every year around her courses because she always insisted that at least one be open only to women, and there was always a fight about it from either a male student or the administration. She eventually ended up retiring when the administration put its foot down.

All of which is to say that when it came to my Catholic-run education, it wasn't exactly conservative or monolithic. At least at the time, Boston College was very proactive about academic excellence and tended to encourage diversity in its curriculum.

#106

I think we are talking from two different experiences of education. In mine, people aspiring to higher education received a solid "well-rounded" background by the end of high school, which left university free for deep and more focussed study of a chosen field of study. The US seems increasingly incapable of producing such individuals in high school.

If you are content to say that all forms of knowledge that don't interest you are therefore useless, then I mourn for your callous disregard for the vitality of the human quest.

Well, golly gee, isn't it surprising I have never said nor implied anything of the sort!

108> What I've learned from reading your posts is that the integrity of a religious organization in the USA (presumably the Catholic Church) would be undermined by the constitutional protection of same-sex marriage. I just don't see it and projections of rampant lawsuits are also not convincing. If the Church isn't in the business of discrimination, then it has nothing to fear. If it is in the business of discrimination, then it should mend its ways.

>111 LolaWalser:: "Well, golly gee, isn't it surprising I have never said nor implied anything of the sort!"

How else am I supposed to interpret your statement in 101? "History and philosophy are completely unnecessary for turning out competent biologists."

To me, at least, that says that if you want to be a biologist, you don't need to care about any other form of study or knowledge about the world except biology. You can simply ignore history and philosophy, as they are "unnecessary".

114> You have every right to try to established these phenomena are discriminatory in court. Good luck!

#113

How else am I supposed to interpret your statement in 101? "History and philosophy are completely unnecessary for turning out competent biologists."

It's just a fact.

To me, at least, that says that if you want to be a biologist, you don't need to care about any other form of study or knowledge about the world except biology. You can simply ignore history and philosophy, as they are "unnecessary".

They are unnecessary for achieving competence (even excellence) in biology, yes, as they are unnecessary for excellence in any natural science or technical field.

It's a different discussion if you want to argue what education and being educated "means" or ought to mean, or what makes a well-rounded person or some such.

But if we are talking about making good biologists/any-number-of-other-specialists, history and philosophy are about as important as figure skating.

All of which is to say that when it came to my Catholic-run education, it wasn't exactly conservative or monolithic. At least at the time, Boston College was very proactive about academic excellence and tended to encourage diversity in its curriculum.

No, that's completely true. Georgetown too—Georgetown is generally regarded as even more liberal than Boston college, although we're both on the list of colleges that conservative Catholics oppose. Georgetown has an active, sponsored gays-and-allies group, has all the gay-rights events of other schools. The president shows up at the gay-rights ball. ( See the NYT article "How Georgetown Became a Gay-Friendly Campus" http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/education/edlife/how-georgetown-became-a-gay-f.... )

But there are limits. Georgetown and Boston College don't have morals clause, like some podunk Catholic colleges too. But BC has always been lead by a Jesuit priest, which inherently means it's discriminated against women, who can't be Jesuit priests. If SR is right, then Boston College is in violation of the law. Indeed, all Catholic universities are in violation of the law if they give preference to a Catholic as president.

And there's how I think I can explain this. I'm sure both of us would be offended if a donut shop advertised "Now Hiring. No Jews." Someone should sue those guys. But, when you went to BC, did you feel that the university was bigoted because they had a policy about hiring a Catholic as their president? Do you feel that now?

Personally, I wouldn't. And whether I'd be offended or not, I think it's pretty clear that Free Exercise allows a Catholic college to hire a Catholic president, or it's not worth the paper it's written on.

I'm sure both of us would be offended if a donut shop advertised "Now Hiring. No Jews." Someone should sue those guys.

What if they were affiliated with a Christian identity church and as a result had a religious reason for their bigotry? Would that be okay then?

>118 StormRaven:

It relates to the depth of their mission. If this donut shop had a clear religious mission--if, for example, the shop was started by the religious group and their religion required their sacramental donuts to be made by Christians--then yes. If they were just a donut shop owned by someone with a religious opinion, not. There is no bright line between "church building" and other organizations. Catholic colleges are just as "religious" as Catholic churches.

119: And with that, you have just destroyed your arguments that Catholic affiliated hospitals and universities should be allowed to discriminate.

Catholic colleges are just as "religious" as Catholic churches.

They can claim their donut shop is just as religious as your college. You seem to be making the argument that your religiously inspired bigotry is fine, but the religiously inspired bigotry you don't like is suspect.

>120 StormRaven:: No, he's making a distinction between wholly commercial enterprises run by lay people (your discriminatory donut shop), on the one hand; and educational institutions (which have historically deep ties to religious institutions) that are run by priests.

>120 StormRaven:

On the contrary, if an activity is intimately related to the exercise of religion, it is protected by the clause that—holy fuck, reading words is fun!—protects the free exercise of religion! If it isn't intimately related to the exercise of religion, it is not. A Catholic college is a religious institution in a deep sense. It is itself an exercise of religion.

Now it's true that test like this involve the government in assessing how religious something is. That "entanglement" is dangerous. But at some point it has to be done. The IRS grants tax-exempt status to a church, but not to your house which you simply declare to be a church. Even if free-exercise was restricted to worship, it would still have to say that the eucharist is a good example of "worship" but robbing banks is not, even if I claim I worship Mammon.

Obviously you need to weigh things—the state interest, the religious interest, the degree of accommodation, etc. Prohibiting circumcision—the central thing that makes you a Jew and the first obligation of every Jewish father—is unconstitutional, even if you have a "neutral" rule about doing so. Ditto the wine-drinking at the eucharist. Ditto wearing a veil. But every government snack stand doesn't need to carry kosher food and every government elevator doesn't need a Shabbat setting just because a Jew might happen by there.

122: A Catholic college is a religious institution in a deep sense.

Only because they say it is. Why is the Catholic church's insistence that their colleges are "religious institutions in a deep sense" valid but the Christian identity church's insistence that their donut shops are also religious institutions in a deep sense not valid? You're picking and choosing what is religious based on pedigree.

I suspect that this is because you realize that allowing any religious institution to decide what laws it will follow would lead to an absurd result that would make civil society untenable, but you still want the religious bigotry you like to be protected. So you engage in the duplicitous practice of saying that your religious bigotry is "real" religion, but religious bigotry you don't like is somehow not. Who are you to say that running donut shops isn't part of their "real" religious practice? And if you can make them rub shoulders with Jews against their will, why are you still able to discriminate against same sex couples?

The IRS grants tax-exempt status to a church, but not to your house which you simply declare to be a church. Even if free-exercise was restricted to worship, it would still have to say that the eucharist is a good example of "worship" but robbing banks is not, even if I claim I worship Mammon.

What if I perform the eucharist in my house? Or, like many protestant denominations I merely offer communion services that don't meet the Catholic definition of eucharist? Can my house be a religious institution then? Suppose the Christian identity donut shop offered communion services there, would they get to discriminate against Jews then?

Only because they say it is.

Can we agree that the IRS can distinguish between St. Patrick's Cathedral as a religious institution and a guy who declares himself a church to avoid paying taxes?

If yes, then you've conceded my point. It is possible to draw distinctions. Courts do it all the time.

"Well, if quoting a sentence from a book is Fair Use, why isn't selling pirated copies of the whole book?!" "If hospitals get a special tax credit, why can't I get one for cutting my nails in the shower?" This form of argument is beneath you. Half of law is making these distinctions.

124: Can we agree that the IRS can distinguish between St. Patrick's Cathedral as a religious institution and a guy who declares himself a church to avoid paying taxes?

But we aren't talking about houses of worship. We are talking about whether a university is somehow a "religious institution in a deep sense". At this point I'm beginning to think that not only are you saying "my religious bigotry is fine, but other religious bigotry isn't", but that you are dishonestly shifting from one type of institution to another to cloud the question.

No one is saying that St. Patrick's Cathedral is not a religious institution. We are talking about affiliated institutions that aren't houses of worship.

>125 StormRaven:

So, to be clear, nothing is covered by free-exercise of religion other than the activities that happen within the confines of a house of worship?

Is there no test of what's religious or not? If the church opened a donut shop in the sacristy, would that be covered? If the Archdioceses of Washington took over Georgetown, would that make make it covered? Do religions that have no house of worship cease to be covered? If Tabor had been about a religious school not an organization that legally both church and school, would that change things?

I dunno. It seems to me that if the Constitution means "free exercise of religion within a house of worship" it could say that.

Incidentally, this whole absurd notion is flatly rejected in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, which acknowledge the right of any group with an "expressive intent" to pick its leaders, so they don't conflict with that intent.That was decided on Free Association grounds. Dale is then picked up by Tabor which argued that "Religious groups are the archetype of associations formed for expressive purposes" and linked it to Free Exercise. In light of this, while you may have fun talking about how Georgetown can't discriminate against non-Catholics, it's not a conversation about the law as it actually is.

In the '80s the Crystal Cathedral had a grand opening that included Frank Sinatra singing, and tickets were outrageously expensive. The IRS fined them (I believe) for that because that concert had nothing to do with any religious activity by the organization. On the other hand, the Christmas pageant they do, with flying angels and real camels is related to the worship of Jesus, and the IRS never had a problem with that. It is about the free exercise of religion, and not buildings. Selling doughnuts is not religious, even by a church group. Educating people can be. Sacrificing a chicken to the coyote God definitely is, as is apparently, wearing a colander on your head for your driver's license if you are a pastafarian.

Yes, reading the actual words before inserting opinion can be fun. And educational!

So, to be clear, nothing is covered by free-exercise of religion other than the activities that happen within the confines of a house of worship?

No. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that when a religious organization enters a commercial arena, it should expect to follow the general rules of commerce. Which is a position that the courts have consistently taken. As you yourself stated "It is possible to draw distinctions. Courts do it all the time". Courts have drawn distinctions. And the distinction that they have consistently drawn is that religiously affiliated organizations have to follow the general laws of society. Now that this law might be applied to your preferred religion's bigotry, you've started screaming like a stuck pig.

Is there no test of what's religious or not? If the church opened a donut shop in the sacristy, would that be covered?

According to the test you seem to want to apply, it would. I'm not saying that the Christian identity donut shop should be exempt from the law, you are the one taking the hypocritical position that your religious bigotry should be sacrosanct, but theirs should be punished.

Selling doughnuts is not religious, even by a church group.

What if they say it is? Suppose a group of Ayn Rand fanatics start a church based upon the worship of Saint Rand, and one of the tenets of their church is that taxes are theft and should not be paid. Assume their religious devotion is sincere. Do they have to pay taxes?

nathaniel at #108, I'm a BIG FAN of thread drift: but when we spend the entire thread talking instead about tangentially-related hypotheticals, I also feel free to point out that we're not talking about the actual issue at hand.

Yes, religious colleges have to comply with the law of the land.
No, it's hard to see how in an American context in the foreseeable future American churches are going to be forced to solemnize marriages they disapprove of.
No, the British experience with their ESTABLISHED CHURCH has little relevance to the American legal system.

Wake me up when the American RCs are FORCED to marry divorced people; THEN we can start worrying about the hypothetical future impact of marriage equality.

If a church is making money off of doughnuts they sell, that are in danger of losing their tax exempt status.

Through a snafu, we had a woman who harvest basil and made pesto renting our kitchen. It was a for profit business, and although the rent we charged her was not much, we were informed we were in danger of losing our tax exempt status because we had a for profit in our facilities. (The making of pesto was not essential to any of our worship activities, although for a time I enjoyed the pesto she would often leave on my desk!)

This is not a simple matter, and when different variations of the stress between church and state appear, it is not like you can take one incident and extrapolate to all possible situations. The Historic Preservation Society wanted to make our sanctuary a historical landmark, and we almost did it, until we read of a case in Houston a Catholic church was so designated, and when they wanted to expand their facilities because they were growing their permit was denied because they were a historical landmark. That meant they had to turn people away on Sundays (fire code) but the local municipality had the right to stop their development.

Does that pertain directly to the subject at hand? Yes and no. Yes because it shows who churches can be limited, even in worship, but no because this is just one case. Church/State issues tend to be worked out case by case, and while precedent is important, it does not always point to how the next case will be decided.

What if they say it is? Suppose a group of Ayn Rand fanatics start a church based upon the worship of Saint Rand, and one of the tenets of their church is that taxes are theft and should not be paid. Assume their religious devotion is sincere. Do they have to pay taxes?

And we can assume that Pittsburgh is really in California! Can we keep to actual cases instead of crazy theoreticals. I don't know who said it, but bad cases make bad law.

131: And everything you just said is consistent with what I've been saying, and entirely inconsistent with Tim's position that religiously affiliated organizations that engage in commerce should get some sort of free pass from the law.

No it is not.

I can assert things too.

132: So your position is that just because someone claims a religious reason, they don't necessarily have a legitimate religious reason. Welcome to being on the opposite side of the fence from Tim on this issue. Universities, even religiously affiliated universities, don't get a free pass to evade the laws against non-discrimination. The Bob Jones case tells us that. It doesn't matter how integral you think your bigotry is to your religion, if you are in the regular world of commerce, even educational commerce, you're going to have to follow the law.

134: It doesn't matter what you assert. The reality is that you are on the opposite side of the fence from Tim on this.

>133 StormRaven:: But the law has long understood that not-for-profit universities are a different socio-economic-legal animal than "organizations that engage in commerce."

136: Which means that religiously affiliated schools are compared, not to GM or Ford, but rather to other non-religiously affiliated schools to see what standards they have to abide by.

No. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that when a religious organization enters a commercial arena, it should expect to follow the general rules of commerce.

So, to be clear, you believe that a non-profit Catholic university is "commerce" and therefore they cannot discriminate in favor of having Catholics presidents. But the Boy Scouts can, because, well, you can't very well contradict a recent Supreme Court decision. What separates the two? Is Georgetown commerce and scouting not? How? Because Georgetown costs more? Oh, and do you find the word "commerce" anywhere in either Dale or Tabor? No, I didn't think so.

By the way, sometimes I need to pin you down. Am I right that it's your contention that:

1. Georgetown can't discriminate against non-Catholics in hiring and admission.
2. The only people who can do that are actual churches. Religious affiliation and mission has no legal standing.
3. Thousands of religious universities, schools and institutions are all in violation of the law.

136: Which means that religiously affiliated schools are compared, not to GM or Ford, but rather to other non-religiously affiliated schools to see what standards they have to abide by.

And churches should be required to abide by the laws required of secular meeting houses. If they have to have a liquor license, so should a Catholic church.

Please talk about things you know about.

In the Presbyterian church we see Bible study, and relating faith to life as an essential part of our religious core. You cannot be an uneducated Presbyterian minister, and while you can be an uneducated Presbyterian, we want to remedy that ASAP. We are the last Protestant denomination to require our pastors to learn Greek and Hebrew, and ...oh this is lost on you.

Try this. SOME activities are religious in nature. SOME activities are not. IF there is abiding case they are religious in nature, and they are an essential part of a denominations core understanding of who they are, they are a part of the activity of the organization, and may be tax exempt, depending on a hundred other things. Generally education has been accepted as an overall mission of a religious organization. (Educational facilities are tax exempt in most states anyway.)

You want to make this a simple case of either/or, and I am saying you are dead wrong to do so. It is a complicated field, and so far I have not seen any evidence that you realize the complications. You are wrong. Period. You have a half a verb and you are trying to make a novel out of it. (And the half verb you have is in a language you do not even speak.)

I don't fully agree with Tim, but you have not said much of anything that is right.

So, to be clear, you believe that a non-profit Catholic university is "commerce" and therefore they cannot discriminate in favor of having Catholics presidents.

They have to follow the same laws in the same way that other universities have to. Given that universities have flexibility in hiring decisions, pretending that this is an issue is simply disingenuous of you.

But the question at hand is how religious organizations will deal with same-sex marriage. The Catholic church doesn't perform marriages for people who have been divorced because of its religious principles. Should Georgetown be allowed to deny spousal benefits to the spouses of professors who have been divorced and remarried? If not, why would they be able to do the same thing if the spouse was of the same sex?

And churches should be required to abide by the laws required of secular meeting houses. If they have to have a liquor license, so should a Catholic church.

As has been stated time and again, religious houses of worship are not part of the conversation. The fact that you keep bringing them up indicates to me that you are being entirely dishonest.

Try this. SOME activities are religious in nature. SOME activities are not.

Sure. And the courts have consistently stated that for universities discriminating for racial reasons (and by analogy sexual orientation reasons) is not a protected expression of religion. Tim seems to think it is, or at least should be.

>117 timspalding: But, when you went to BC, did you feel that the university was bigoted because they had a policy about hiring a Catholic as their president? Do you feel that now?

Well, at the time the "no women" thing was more on my mind than the "no non-Catholics" thing. And in this the fault was not with the college, but the structure of the religion itself....which, since I wasn't Catholic, wasn't uppermost in my list of social wrongs to be righted at the time. Nor, for that matter, is it now.

I've been trying to think how to respond to your question in greater depth, and I confess that I am having trouble dissecting my experience of the education I received there. I was less concerned with the college as an institution, and more concerned with the people who were doing the actual teaching. I gravitated towards a couple of stellar and challenging teachers (Mary Daly being one of several) and rather than follow "tracks" I followed them--took every course they offered, no matter what it was. So I want to say that BC could have been the most misogynistic and repressive institution in the Greater Boston Area, but if so, I was insulated from this fact by the spirit of open academic inquiry within those classrooms. And I suspect that I could have enrolled in the most free-wheeling and experimental liberal arts school in the country, and if I couldn't connect with the teacher, it would have done no good.

This is part of the reason why I tend to balk at consigning religious educational institutions as de facto repressive environments, even though personally I tend to be very antagonistic to organized religion as a political entity. It just never appears as cut-and-dry as all that to me. Perhaps because being female and gay, I've lived most of my life "making do" under institutions that were either hostile, repressive, or unfair, and thus learning to maintain an identity that would never be reflected in the social institutions around me.

All of which is very far from addressing the notion of religious freedom as expressed in religious institutions like schools, I realize. But I am having trouble comprehending how enforcing non-discrimination policies could be seen as an attack on religious freedom.

>143 southernbooklady:: I've got to back up Nicki's description of education at B.C., because I followed something similar to her. In my case, it was in the hands of the Chair of the German Department, Michael Resler, who was a singularly brilliant teacher and outstanding friend.

He was also extremely liberal in his politics, and a gay man who married his longtime partner when Massachusetts legalized it in 2003. (Of course, I didn't even know that he was gay until I was a junior, precisely because he didn't wear it on his sleeve or trumpet it at the start of every class.)

The magic with Resler was his deep and abiding respect for the intellectual curiosity of his students. I was a well-known political conservative around Boston College's campus, and yet our genuine mutual respect allowed us to have a wonderful and abiding friendship, which included spending the Easter holiday my senior year with him and his partner and a few other students at their New Hampshire cabin.

In my experience at Boston College, such intellectual respect was the normal atmosphere, and it fostered an educational experience that was full of discovery and enthusiasm. Importantly, that intellectual respect extended across the spectrum, from the deep religious traditions on which the school was founded to the radical politics of the leftwing.

You have named one case, and Bob Jones had many other issues at the time, least of which was a proclivity to be involved in political matters, and while they did not endorse candidates, they certainly went after them in a very public way. (I believe it was Alexander Haig they said should be "smote thigh and joint.")

Again reality is not as simple as you say it is, and I know it is tempting, but just saying it is simple does not make it simple.

Mary Daly being one of several

Wait, what? Mary Daly famously didn't support gender equality, but actually though women should govern men. She advocated that the earth needed "a drastic reduction of the population of males." She didn't allow men to attend her classes. Like a sandwich shop that closes up when required to sit blacks, she retired rather than allow men into her classes. I'm not seeing a good model for an anti-discrimination stance here!

But I am having trouble comprehending how enforcing non-discrimination policies could be seen as an attack on religious freedom.

Well, because Catholic institutions think they have the right to appoint a Catholic president.

Davidson college had a tradition of only tenuring Christian professors. The Christian student union protested when a Marxist economics professor was denied tenure because he was Jewish. They eventually convinced the administration that Red Ernie should get tenure, and he did.

But that was an internal change, not one forced by church and state issues.

>87 timspalding: the parental right to send your child to an institution that teaches your religion

Isn't that rather irrelevant for a third level educational institution where the students are over 18 and are thus adults making their own choices? Although in practice they may be influenced by their parents, surely in law they are consenting adults who are responsible for themselves?

>146 timspalding: That was not discrimination?

Mary Daly chose to retire in 1999 rather than be forced to open up some of her advanced classes to male students. Her policy was certainly discrimination according to the policies of the college. She fought it for years but eventually lost her case. Her claim was that having men in the room changed the dynamic of the conversation, and as social experiments it is probably true--there are catholic groups right here on LT that prefer to stay closed rather than have an atheist derail the conversation. But she was using school resources and on school time, and thus it was a violation of the non-discrimination policy. A struggle in microcosm, that might be played out in macrocosm by your apparent fear that Catholics might be forced to appoint a non Catholic president of BC. Although I can't say I see that being the big burning issue.

And I get that Daly is a radical and controversial figure, but she was also one of the most intelligent, complicated, challenging and academically rigorous people I ever met. When I was in her classes she never once let her students get away with sloppy thinking or parroted rhetoric--left or right leaning. And when students disagreed with her, she applauded their ability to hold their own in a debate and never faulted them for simply not conforming. She's not a cookie cutter role model, but then who really is?

the students are over 18

Most are. Some aren't. Some students enter college at 17. Applications and admission are done when you're 17.

catholic groups right here on LT that prefer to stay closed rather than have an atheist derail the conversation

Not Catholic than I'm aware of.

>149 southernbooklady: southernbooklady, thanks for this and earlier posts. I think you are highlighting the diversity and openness of the Catholic education system. While there are tensions related to the institution as a whole, nevertheless the actual opportunities offered are diametrically opposed to indoctrination and are often as well-rounded as you will find anywhere.

I recall a Muslim professor teaching Islamic studies at Notre Dame, where I was earlier this year. I think he still could hardly believe that a Christian institution was giving him the free hand and the support that they were, even when they disagreed with him.

>152 John5918:: Before he passed away, Rabbi Michael Signer was one of the most beloved members of Notre Dame's theology department.

Well, because Catholic institutions think they have the right to appoint a Catholic president.

Which is an entire red herring in this conversation. What stances related to same-sex marriages do you think that Catholic affiliated institutions will be forced to give up that they should not be forced to give up? Let's hear some specifics. You raised the shibboleth of nondiscrimination laws infringing on the religious freedoms of Catholic universities and hospitals. What specific kinds of things do you think they will be forced to do under the law?

You have named one case, and Bob Jones had many other issues at the time

But the issue that the Supreme Court heard and ruled on was whether Bob Jones University could be denied tax exempt status because it had a religiously inspired prohibition on interracial dating. The Supreme Court said that revoking the exemption on that basis was not an unconstitutional infringement of their religious liberty. They may have had "other issues", but those weren't the issues before the Court.

>1 nathanielcampbell: Are you optimistic that gay marriage supporters will also support the rights of religious institutions to continue to oppose gay marriage within their own walls?

>Or are you pessimistic, and see it as inevitable that churches that refuse to marry gay people 50 years from now will be treated with the same contempt (and lawsuits) as those that try to enforce racial segregation are today?

A false dichotomy? I doubt that most unchurched gay marriage supporters will have any more forceful influence on the church than they deserve, and no contempt they can summon against the church will be anything new. Even heterosexual couples in well-run congregations must jump through a few hoops before they can get married in the church (if only not showing up too drunk at the rehearsal to understand a few basic instructions ;-). Until someone shows us an example of an American clergyman being compelled against his will by the state to solemnize an ordinary marriage, I am confident that any fears about same-sex couples are sheer alarmism, and properly labeled homophobic in that they are an appeal to fear.

At least ten years ago, I predicted that "the preachers will come around when stem-winding sermons against sodomy no longer fill the collection plate." It's happening. For example, after believing for years that the main fomenters of the brouhaha over gay Boy Scouts came from the Mormons, who now have so much influence in that organization, it astonished me that they no longer oppose accepting gay boys. For another example-- perhaps out of desperation, when placed in charge of the financially beleaguered Crystal Cathedral, Robert Schueller's daughter tried making anti-gay noises (over her father's protest), and we know how that turned out. Any church's decision to go so far as to bless same-sex marriages have been made internally, by active members, as they should be, and I see no reason for fears that their hands will be forced in the future.

While favoring same-sex marriage in the secular realm, if only because experience has shown that nothing less will provide them rights too long denied, I have no strong opinion on the matter as to the church. My hope would be for a rite before God better tailored to the circumstances of a same-sex couple than one contemplating a man and a woman. To shoehorn oneself into the latter is a capitulation, implying that the gender of one's partner can be interchangeable or were a matter of indifference-- emphatically not the case, be one either gay or straight! I suspect that this is the real, seldom articulated, ground for opposition to same-sex marriage. How can anyone who has sometimes suffered for being gay, and had to fight for it like most in my generation, not understand this discomfort and sense of incongruity? It would have been so much simpler and more expedient for a gay man just to go with the heterosexist flow, and to the altar with a female. But it would have been false.

As it happens, exactly such quasi-marital rites for same-sex commitments were available for centuries in some of the most traditional parts of the church, and they should be recovered. (Boswell may have overstated his case, but objections that they were actually used only for "platonic friendships" are even less convincing IMHO).

>156 Alogon:: "My hope would be for a rite before God better tailored to the circumstances of a same-sex couple than one contemplating a man and a woman. To shoehorn oneself into the latter implies that the gender of one's partner can be interchangeable or were a matter of indifference-- emphatically not the case, be one either gay or straight!"

Well said! And as a theologian, this is precisely the direction I believe the Church will go in. As I've suggested elsewhere, "Ultimately, I do not believe that the Church will simply determine that the sacrament of marriage can be effected between heterosexual and homosexual couples alike. Rather, I believe that the best theological way forward will be to recapture from the history of the early Church a broader notion of the orders within the Body of Christ, in which each has its own place and function, and in which the committed and life-long bond of love that unites two people of the same gender can form one of those orders."

(I'm building here off of the great research--despite its own interpretative flaws--of Gary Macy, himself drawing on Yves Congar and Henri de Lubac, into first-millennium notions of ordines and ordination.)

(Though I do take issue with the claims you support from Boswell: not only did he overstate his case, but he fundamentally misconstrued the notion of same-sex relationships as a transhistorical category. The idea of homosexuality as a sexual orientation and identity is a modern invention, and so medieval categories of relationship simply can't contain it.)

Thank you! I'd like to find the time to look into those authors you have mentioned. And I apologize for editing my post (just tweaking, I think) before seeing that you have already replied.

Incidentally, you would probably be interested in meeting Fr. Pat Twomey (no relation to the Senator from Pennsylvania!), the rector of my hometown parish of All Saints, Appleton, Wis. He is a scholar so fluent in Latin that he often writes sermon notes in that language, and he and the church secretary (who also happens to know Latin) enjoy exchanging memos in Latin. According to him, many sources significant for the understanding of medieval church history and theology have never been translated into English, and he is glad to be able to read them anyway.

#87: And here's the problem—if religious freedom is just a subset of a more general freedom, why the heck does the Constitution have an amendment about it?

The question indicates you didn't understand what I was trying to communicate. Why does what any one document says affect what our basic rights are? We have an amendment about it because it's an obvious (particularly for the time) subset of this basic right that I'm trying to articulate, because it went to central conflicts in early American society.

The significance of Smith is not peyote but that it cast doubt(2) on the "compelling interest" standard in favor of a fairness standard.

As always in jurisprudence you can not separate those layers as cleanly as one would like.

Also, inasmuch as peyote is closely analogous to communion wine--used in the actual worship--it opens the door to forbiding the central religious act of large numbers of Americans. I simply can't believe that we have a Constitution that specifically establishes "free exercise of religion" as a preeminent trumping right, but that the government can shut down the central act of Christian worship.

We have a government that declares that peyote, the central act of worship in the Native American Church, is limited to those officially connected to an official Indian tribe. I have no problem believing that if our Founding Fathers had been mediating between Shia and Sunni, with a small admixture of Jews, and that Christianity was a small religion of Malta, that with the exact same constitution your central act of Christian worship would not be at least as fraught with problems as peyote still is.

the mere invocation of God shouldn't completely change the rules

No, I agree. You need some sort of standard against which to weigh things, and then do it.

No, you don't agree. A university that arrives at a policy from deeply held secular principles doesn't deserve to be treated fundamentally different from a university that arrives at a policy from deeply held religious principles. Religion is sometimes a sign the principles are more deeply set, but it should only be the only thing examined. A university formed around deep environment principles should have the right to disfavor students who believe that Jesus is coming back in their lifetime.

{Edit: Let me back off on that. Let me merely say that it should treated in the same way that religious discrimination by a religious school is. As per Bob Jones, our society, our largely-Christian society, has no problem enforcing anti-racial discrimination laws against a religious university; why not religious discrimination laws?}

ruled that the state had no Constitutional right to force older Amish children into school.

And I think that's a much more valid question if we don't treat it as simple religious freedom and look on it as cultural freedom, as personal freedom. Certainly I think it questionable that a Baptist or atheist who believed that high school would inculcate bad principles from the larger culture would be treated differently from an Amish who believed the same thing, just because of Amish religion.

Likewise with Yoder, if I wanted to put my child in a school where the language of all instruction was Esperanto, why is my right to do that less then someone who wants to put their child in a school based around Catholic principles?

The question can be addressed in two ways:

1. First point of view is that there should be freedom of choice ; in a democratic society the notion of right & wrong / legal or illegal is dependent on majority's will . Its a numbers game. Morality is judged by number of opinions in favor or otherwise.

2. Second opinion is that in fact morality doctrine has been revealed by the Divine. Now if that is the case , homosexuality & gay marriages go out of the window

>160 syedhuz: Second opinion is that in fact morality doctrine has been revealed by the Divine. Now if that is the case , homosexuality & gay marriages go out of the window

Not necessarily. Even within religious institutions there is disagreement as to exactly what divine morality actually demands with regard to homosexuality. Our understanding of divine morality has developed over the millennia on many issues.

>160 syedhuz: Its a numbers game. Morality is judged by number of opinions in favor or otherwise.


and Second opinion is that in fact morality doctrine has been revealed by the Divine.

In other words, morality is based on a relative set of values, or an absolute one (the latter not being, necessarily, "divine").

In either case, our own perspective and ability to interpret and comprehend morality is limited, because we are limited. So it is impossible to say for sure when something should "go out the window" -- especially something that seems to afford so much more good than bad, like acknowledging the reality of homosexuality.

>162 southernbooklady: our own perspective and ability to interpret and comprehend morality is limited, because we are limited

Well said, Nicki.

Church sues North Carolina, claims same-sex marriage ban violates their religious freedom:

http://news.yahoo.com/religious-group-files-beautifully-trolly-lawsuit-against-n...

>164 southernbooklady:

Nice.

I like seeing religious freedom being presented to the legal system as more than the freedom to impose limitations on other people. There are any number of religions (including some sects of Christianity) that believe marriage is a sacred ritual between two people, regardless of their gender.

It seems to me it's only nice from the perspective of a football game, not principle. It seems to me the universal call of those in favor of gay marriage* has been that churches should have no business telling the state what to do with marriage. While it might be entertaining to see your general principles violated in the service of helping the "side" you like, that isn't a very appealing or consistent position.

*Among which I number myself.

>166 timspalding: It seems to me it's only nice from the perspective of a football game, not principle.

Do you think the church is being frivolous in its challenge?

It seems to me the universal call of those in favor of gay marriage* has been that churches should have no business telling the state what to do with marriage.

And vice versa, right? Isn't that the position being taken in this case? I'm not following how it is an inconsistent stance, unless I missed something about the details of the case.

>167 southernbooklady:

I have no idea of their motives. I suspect they're honest. But I do think the claim is a frivolous one. More importantly, even if the argument is correct, it undermines and contradicts the principles used by most pro-gay-marriage advocates. So for those advocates to trumpet is strikes me as opportunistic and unprincipled.

I'm not following how it is an inconsistent stance

The argument has been that religions should not be able to impose their understanding of marriage on a secular state. In this case a religion is seeking to impose its understanding of marriage on a secular state.

>167 southernbooklady: "And vice versa, right?"

Except that the state law in North Carolina doesn't forbid a religious group from performing a same-sex religious marriage. It's just that the state doesn't recognize it as a marriage. (What's next -- a church suing to get the state to recognize baptisms, the Eucharist, and the canonization of saints?)

Edited: as per >172 southernbooklady:, I realize that the North Carolina statute might just in fact forbid a religious group from performing a same-sex religious marriage.

Edited again: 'Tis complicated, the law!

One gets the impression that the problem isn't theocracy, but religious rule they disagree with. If the unitarians were in charge, well, caesaropapism would be just peachy.

Of course this is nonsense. It's just opportunism.

the problem isn't theocracy, but religious rule they disagree with

Would you care to explain the difference?

>169 nathanielcampbell: Well, this is from the article:

In other words, a North Carolina law that makes it a misdemeanor to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony violates the religious freedom of clergy members who believe those unions are an expression of faith.

And the law cited is as follows:

§ 51-7. Penalty for solemnizing without license.
Every minister, officer, or any other person authorized to solemnize a marriage under the laws of this State, who marries any couple without a license being first delivered to that person, as required by law, or after the expiration of such license, or who fails to return such license to the register of deeds within 10 days after any marriage celebrated by virtue thereof, with the certificate appended thereto duly filled up and signed, shall forfeit and pay two hundred dollars ($200.00) to any person who sues therefore, and shall also be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. (R.C., c. 68, ss. 6, 13; 1871-2, c. 193, s. 8; Code, s. 1817; Rev., ss. 2087, 3372; C.S., s. 2499; 1953, c. 638, s. 1; 1967, c. 957, s. 5; 1993, c. 539, s. 415; 1994, Ex. Sess., c. 24, s. 14(c); 2001-62, s. 7.)

http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/PDF/BySection/Chapter_51...

Now I don't know if church officials fall under the category of "Every minister, officer, or any other person authorized to solemnize a marriage under the laws of this State" but I think the church bringing the suit is saying that's the implication.

>172 southernbooklady: My apologies (I should have read the article, oughtn't I've?). You are right -- the way that seems phrased does appear to infringe even upon the performance of a religious ceremony.

Looks like a clear cut case of a law "prohibiting the free exercise (of religion)."

I also plead some ignorance. But it doesn't look to me that it does. The marriage would and could not be a marriage under state law, so it is not accurate to say that the law prohibits same-sex marriages. Also, in such cases one generally needs an aggrieved party--someone whom the law was used against. Until the court sees evidence that this records-keeping provision has been used against ministers who seek a religious solemnization, I don't think they'll strike it down.

>173 nathanielcampbell: Mind you, Tim might be right. That law might only apply to state officials. I don't know who is "authorized" to solemnize marriages in this context. It is obviously in place as a protection against fraud, among other things.

But it does give one pause.

I think my interpretation is supported by the provision before, explicitly denying the legal validity of same-sex marriage, and case law that solemnizing a marriage without proper documentation is illegal ( http://books.google.com/books?id=ASVOAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA1097&lpg=PA1097&d... ), but does not affect the legal validity of the marriage.

The question is what sort of ceremony counts a solemnizing a marriage. Gay people have long held commitment ceremonies that look much like marriage ceremonies but are understood to have no legal force if state prohibits same-sex marriage. Would these ceremonies run afoul of the law? Can a church say we consider you married regardless of what the state thinks? Is it sufficient for the minister to state that this is not an official state marriage? Must that be stated as part of the ceremony, or would it be good enough if it is made clear in a meeting with the couple beforehand?

I can understand why the church in this case would want to get a ruling immediately, but it is difficult to know the reach of the law until it has been put to use. It might be that as long as churches are clear about what they are doing in a legal sense, they could hold whatever ceremonies they like for same-sex couples and never run afoul of the law.

Thinking about that language a bit more, it likely comes from two competing concerns. First, someone should not be able to get out of the responsibilities of a marriage just because, unbeknownst to the couple at the time, the marriage was performed without the proper paperwork. Second, the state wants to ensure that paperwork is filed and fees are paid. But with the first principle established and no other regulation, why would anyone bother with the time and expense of getting a marriage license. So the state puts the responsibility on the people authorized to perform marriages to ensure that the paperwork is filed and fees are paid.

It's not clear that any of this impinges on gay marriage as long as gay marriage is illegal.

This is clearly a law aimed at making sure that ministers follow appropriate guidelines when doing marriages. (I once put the wrong date when I signed the license, and had to pay a fine. I did one wedding without a license because the couple insisted that they had it, but had left it at home. They did not have one, and only applied for one AFTER the wedding, which I would not sign.)

However I can see how this could be interpreted as a way of disallowing pastors to do same sex weddings. The pastor IS a representative of the state for the ceremony....is in fact THE SOLE representative of the State, and by performing a ceremony that is not an official marriage could very well be in violation of this act.

At first I agreed with Tim. The church seemed to be asking their theology become state policy, but after reading the statute, I can easily see how performing a same sex wedding is considered, in North Carolina, a misdemeanor, and in fact the rights of the church to "marry" whom it will is being violated.

This goes back to my old saw-why are ministers representative of the State? Let them marry (or not marry) whoever they choose, and let the State decide, legally, who can marry.

>180 Arctic-Stranger:

Your last paragraph says it all. State marriage should be performed by the state and apply to things like health insurance, taxes, etc, and should be held to the standard of equality that the State strives to achieve.

Religious marriage should be performed by practitioners of the religion in whatever manner the religion prescribes and should apply to things like fulfilling the principles of the religion or following god(s)' laws or whatever. Religious marriages could include or exclude anyone they wished.

>180 Arctic-Stranger:, >181 Helcura:

Do we know why religious practitioners are also civil registrars, and is it the same in every country? I always thought it was just a matter of convenience, to save people having to have two weddings (one religious, one civil) and to save the civil registrar from having to pitch up at churches just to do the legal bit. I have certainly seen weddings done in Britain where the Catholic priest was not a civil registrar and so a registrar had to come from the town hall for that bit of the religious wedding service. In some countries in Europe you still have to have two separate weddings, one religious, one civil. My wife and I actually had two weddings in South Africa, both performed by the same Catholic bishop who was also a civil registrar. The paperwork for the civil wedding was not ready by the time we had the religious service, so we went ahead with that one and then had the civil thing done by him later when the paperwork was ready. In a country like South Sudan the religious wedding is recognised as a civil wedding, as are traditional marriages, probably because the state doesn't have the infrastructure to issue certificates. For the same reason a baptism certificate carries the same official weight as a birth certificate.

>182 John5918:

My sister married her first husband three times in three weeks. Once in a Mormon temple. Once in my home town because our father couldn't set foot in a Mormon temple. Once in a place in Hawaii because the groom's father couldn't set foot in a Mormon temple.

Only needed one divorce, though.

>183 jburlinson:

I shouldn't laugh, but I did.

As did I.

>182 John5918:: Do we know why religious practitioners are also civil registrars, and is it the same in every country?

Remember that the notion of central registration of births, marriages, and deaths (and the necessary bureaucracy) is rather recent — second quarter of the nineteenth century in England; and not until sometime in the 1950's for Quebec.

Prior to that the parish record was the register and an uncontested public reading of banns was the licence to marry (and still may be so, here and there).

In North America, in newly or sparsely settled regions, clergy were in better supply and more mobile than judges or postmasters, and so, I expect, the older ways continued to be the most effective method of marrying. In similar fashion, ship captains were authorized to conduct marriages in the days of lengthy voyages.

A blogger asks whether conservative Christians are the "new queers":

"Yesterday I wrote about the decline of anti-gay religion. The context was the recent Faith Angle conference at which speakers and participants discussed the shifting views of Catholics and evangelical Protestants on homosexuality. The one speaker who clearly reaffirmed his belief in the sinfulness of homosexual behavior was Russell Moore, the president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Even he acknowledged that his brethren were becoming more realistic and modest in their approach to the issue.

One thing I didn’t write about was Moore’s cultural view of the anti-gay resistance. I’m using the term anti-gay here to mean opposition to homosexual behavior, not to homosexual inclination, since Moore would certainly say that he loves the sinner, gay or straight. What’s striking about Moore’s perspective is that he no longer sees gay people as the deviant minority. The deviants, in his view, are Christians. . . .

That’s how you operate when you’re a minority. You look for sympathy, tolerance, and the freedom to be different. It’s what gays have been asking for all along. Now conservative Christians will learn what that’s like." http://www.slate.com/blogs/saletan/2014/05/02/religion_and_gay_marriage_are_cons...

I wish people who say they want the freedom to be different would stop trying to be the same.

>188 oldstick:

i am not sure how to take this statement. can you say a little more about what you mean so i understand you and don't respond inappropriately?

The College of Arms, which governors heraldry in England, Wales, Northern Island and some Commonwealth territories, has made their ruling:
http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&...

>190 timspalding: From the link: "may impale the arms of his husband with his own on a shield or banner"

That's an unfortunate intersection of heraldry terminology (which I was forced to learn, to my benefit, by an expert in it in grad school) and double entendre.

From now on all accusations that gays are sinister or rampant shall be interpreted by their heraldic meaning.

I gotta say, there is some seriously dirty heraldic language. Trussed? And I'm sure there's porn somewhere that uses "glissant" and "urinant," the latter--incredibly--having nothing to do with pee.

Thank you, Tim, for that ineffably important news.

A ruling may be forthcoming to deal with a man who contracts a marriage with a drag queen -- all of whom, without a doubt, are heraldic heiresses.

And throughout the centuries, how many gay men have married and placed the arms of their wives in pretence?

It has happened in so many areas . We used to have different schools for different aptitudes and now all children are lumped into comprehensives. We used to have different regiments for the separate sexes and now women are allowed on submarines. We used to have policemen and policewomen with different specialist skills, actors and actresses, heroes and heroines. Now, it seems, we have to treat everyone the same or it isn't considered fair-so exams have to be dumbed down so that everyone can take them and marriage has to be redefined so that
everyone can be included. It is all part of the same thinking. Whatever happened to 'vive la difference!'

Now, it seems, we have to treat everyone the same or it isn't considered fair-so exams have to be dumbed down so that everyone can take them and marriage has to be redefined so that
everyone can be included.

Probably because of this:

AMENDMENT XIV

SECTION 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Individuals and groups are still "different" from each other (and have never ceased to be so). What has changed is that "difference" is no longer an automatic legal justification for different treatment.

>195 oldstick:: Whatever happened to 'vive la difference!

The funny thing is, when people say it's the day for 'vive la difference' to put black females in charge, white males get real huffy. Somehow that makes it feel more 'vive my dominance' then 'vive la difference'.

Notre Dame signals welcome to gay athletes in new campaign (NCR)