Religious Liberty Is Under Fire Once Again

Religious liberty laws are back in the news again, and I’m seeing a huge amount of misunderstanding out there, so here are a few posts (from previous flare-ups) explaining religious liberty laws:

• RFRA Reaction Is Driven by Agenda, Not Principle – If you only read one of these posts, read this one.
• How RFRA Works
• RFRA Is Not Jim Crow
• The Truth about Arizona’s Religious Freedom Bill
• Hobby Lobby Case: Are Religious Exemptions Unconstitutional?
• Refusing to Serve Individuals vs. Refusing to Participate in Events
• LGBT Activist Says We Should Be Allowed to Discriminate against Ideas
• Articles on the Religious Freedom Fiasco

What happened in Georgia (please read Ryan Anderson’s analysis of the situation) has proved it doesn’t matter how the law is watered down or what compromises are made by lawmakers; when a law protecting religious liberty is proposed, hysteria ensues (see the track record in the links above), religious liberty is called “religious liberty” by the press, and the law is mischaracterized as a license to discriminate—even though that doesn’t remotely describe how these laws work, and as I wrote last year, “One federal law and 19 state laws exist…and yet no one can point to a single instance where a RFRA was misused to create any of the Jim-Crow-type scenarios the media are warning us about.”

But that doesn’t matter, because the people throwing their full weight against these laws are opposed to diversity. They have no interest in working out a way for everyone to live together in peace. Their goal is to crush religious liberty and force everyone to actively agree with them in word and deed, and if achieving that goal requires stirring up a little hysteria, misinformation, and anti-religious bigotry, then clearly they have no problem with that. The strategy, after all, is effective.

And don’t think Christians are immune to this strategy. In a comment I saw today on Facebook, a Christian said this, closely mirroring what is endlessly repeated to us by the media: “I see most of the current conservative fights in states for ‘religious freedom’ as thinly veiled attempts to institutionalize the biases of a narrow religious perspective at the expense of those who don’t agree with them.” (Note the scare quotes.)

The irony of his statement is that the exact opposite is true. Upholding a person’s right to opt out of doing something that goes against his beliefs (e.g., performing a same-sex marriage ceremony) is in no way institutionalizing any perspective, but using the government to force a person to act according to some other group’s beliefs (and against his own) most certainly is. That’s the very definition of “institutionalizing the biases of one perspective at the expense of those who don’t agree with them.” How did everyone get so mixed up about this?

Comments

[Phillip A]

Now you're being intentionally obtuse. North Carolina just passed a "religious freedom" measure that nullified all local ordinances that protect against any kind of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. And take a look at part (Sec. 2) of the "religious freedom" bill (HB 1523) that just passed the Mississippi state legislature:

The sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions protected by this act are the belief or conviction that:

(a) Marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman;

(b) Sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage; and

(c) Male (man) or female (woman) refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.

This bill (along with several others in several other states) is modelled after the proposed "First Amendment Defense Act" currently in Federal Congress, which does the same thing. Ryan T. Anderson says these bills protect people's right to "live out the truth about marriage and gender", and he's not wrong - they explicitly name what the "truth" is, and then afford special protection to those who hold to the "truth". That's not liberty, that's privilege. When the law of my state says that you don't have to obey the same laws that I do, because you hold certain beliefs that are favored by the state legislature, then I'll put "religious liberty" in scare quotes all day long.

[Phillip A]

Oh, and I forgot to mention the barrage of legislation (including in my state) laying out an official governmental potty policy. very freedom. such amaze. wow.

[Make Fascism Great Again, 2016]

Phillip,

North Carolina just passed a "religious freedom" measure that nullified all local ordinances that protect against any kind of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

That looks like a blatantly false claim, according to this: http://governor.nc.gov/press-release/myths-vs-facts-what-new-york-times-huffington-post-and-other-media-outlets-arent

Ryan T. Anderson says these bills protect people's right to "live out the truth about marriage and gender", and he's not wrong - they explicitly name what the "truth" is, and then afford special protection to those who hold to the "truth". That's not liberty, that's privilege.

The bill which you quote doesn't identify these as truths but as religious beliefs and it's not privilege, it's liberty.

When the law of my state says that you don't have to obey the same laws that I do, because you hold certain beliefs that are favored by the state legislature, then I'll put "religious liberty" in scare quotes all day long.

That's a mischaracterization of the law. The law doesn't say that you don't have to obey the same laws that I do. Rather, the law says that anyone (you or me) who has religious beliefs x is allowed to live in accordance with that religious belief.

If you reject this, then you surely must reject any free exercise of religion.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the barrage of legislation (including in my state) laying out an official governmental potty policy. very freedom. such amaze. wow.

You can thank your transgender activist friends for that. They are the ones shoving it down our throats. For instance just a few months ago my county had transgender activists trying to get the county school board to institute county-wide public school bathroom policies--all because one student in one school complained about not being able to use the girls restroom (he was a man).

[brgulker]

But that doesn’t matter, because the people throwing their full weight against these laws are opposed to diversity. They have no interest in working out a way for everyone to live together in peace.

That is absolutely, utterly ridiculous.

[Goat Head 5]

Response in my area is more and more restaurants having one bathroom with common sinks and completely enclosed stalls with a locking door.

It's the only workable solution I can see mentally ill people insist we accommodate their strangeness.

Sexual predators everywhere are loving this....

[DGFischer]

>> That is absolutely, utterly ridiculous.

brgulker,

I've seen the reports on the network news. Monolithic. Solidified opinion. Incapable of allowing variance of thought. Ready to denounce religious liberty as an offense.

Reminds me of all the to-do circulating about Don Trump rallies.

One extreme, meet the other extreme.

It is as if the "PC-and proud" crowd have encountered the "PI-and okay with that" resistance and are locking horns.

Three possible resolutions:

Allow for a range of opinion to exist. (tolerance)

One group succeeds in eradicating the other. (Lack of diversity).

Have one group use political clout and governmental mechanisms to silence the other (fascism).

However we wish to solve the division in the country, let's start with on basic principle. Hate is a two-way street. Those denouncing religious liberty may be as endued with venom as those who refuse service.

It's only the baser principles we hold to which will destroy us.