Gay Rights/Religious Liberty Train Crash

By Rod Dreher • December 3, 2012, 3:07 PM

Terry Mattingly’s most recent column speaks to an issue that few in the mainstream media want to talk about, and that many religious conservatives don’t even see coming. Excerpts:

Gay-rights advocates know the formula and so do their opponents: If gay marriage becomes a civil right, then religious believers who dare to defend ancient doctrines on marriage will become de facto segregationists and suffer the legal consequences.

The problem for the left is that this happens to be true.

“Before we shrug and reply, ‘So what if it’s religious? It’s still bigotry, it’s still intolerable,’ we need to remember that religious liberty is America’s founding principle. It is embedded in the country’s DNA, not to mention in the First Amendment,” argued gay commentator Jonathan Rauch, writing in The Advocate.

“If we pick a fight with it or, worse, let ourselves be maneuvered into a fight with it, our task will become vastly harder. … Even if you don’t happen to believe, as I do, that religious liberty is, like gay equality, a basic human right, the pragmatic case for religious accommodations is clear: Being seen as a threat to religious freedom is not in our interest.”

Rauch is right, but he’s not as right today as he was in 2010, when he wrote that piece for The Advocate. By which I mean that I don’t think it’s nearly as much of a liability to gay rights supporters to be seen as religious liberty opponents as it once was. That’s in part because the mainstream media have not explored the inherent clash between gay rights and religious liberty, and conservatives opposed to gay marriage have for some reason chosen not to make much of an issue of it. More from TMatt’s column:

Here is the parallel: In gay-marriage debates, almost everyone concedes that clergy must not be required to perform same-sex rites that violate their consciences.

The question is whether legislatures and courts will extend protection to religious hospitals, homeless shelters, summer camps, day-care centers, counseling facilities, adoption agencies and similar public ministries. What about religious colleges that rent married-student apartments or seek accreditation for their degrees in education, counseling or social work? What about the religious-liberty rights of individuals who work as florists, wedding photographers, wedding-cake bakers, counselors who do pre- or post-marital counseling and other similar forms of business?

He goes on to quote Douglas Laycock, a law professor and a gay marriage supporter, who contended in a 2009 letter that it is not in the interests of his side to “create religious martyrs” along the road to achieving gay marriage. Yes, I would think so too, but 2009 seems like a long time ago on this issue. I don’t know that creating religious martyrs around the issue would be nearly as harmful to the cause as advocates like Laycock and Rauch feared a few years ago.

TMatt quotes a prominent religious liberty activist saying a big question “is whether those on the cultural left will be willing, at this point, to settle for civil unions.” I could be wrong, but I don’t think it’s a question at all. Of course they won’t settle for that. The SSM folks had that in California, but it wasn’t enough for them. Compromise is what you seek if you know you can’t triumph outright, or you respect your opponents’ right to be wrong so much that you want to provide a way to soften the blow of their loss. I see no reason to believe at this point that the SSM side won’t triumph outright within the next 10 years, and by and large, the gay rights side is as sympathetic to the rights of religious organizations and institutions to discriminate against homosexuals as civil rights organizations would have been towards whites who wanted to discriminate against blacks. That is, with the exception of a few people like the honorable Jonathan Rauch, the issue is framed entirely in terms of the black civil rights struggle — which leaves no room for an appropriate consideration of how something as important as religious liberty to American life should factor into our deliberations.

Posted in Gay Marriage, Religion. Tagged gay marriage, Jonathan Rauch, religion, religious liberty, same-sex marriage, Terry Mattingly.

134 Responses to Gay Rights/Religious Liberty Train Crash

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Clamdigger says:

December 4, 2012 at 11:00 am

Rod –civil unions will not provide all the comforts and benefits of marriage as only married people are able to take advantage of state, or more importantly, federal benefits that accrue to married people.

Yes, a lot can be taken care of through reams of papers written by your lawyer, but not social security spousal benefits, VA benefits, and the like. (except there would be no ‘marriage penalty’ to the IRS!

But neither you, nor others have answered my basic question: why should the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, or any other church (or belief) have a veto over whether a state approves a civil marriage?

Two gay/lesbian couples recently got married in the chapel at West Point. They were able to bring in ministers who perform ssm. No clergy was force to perform the marriage.

Why should my Episcopal Church, or my partner’s United Church of Christ be subject to your [former] Catholic Church providing millions upon millions of dollars campaigning against various propositions? Or the Mormons, as in CA’s prop 8. Does not that impact the religious liberty of my church(es)?

Plus, how lucky you are that the religious liberty provided by the United States allowed you to quit one church and join another. In a true theocracy (which some here seem to want to create) that would not be allowed. And you weren’t called a heretic or apostate and burned at the stake or stoned to death. Yet, in a metaphorical way, there are many who would like to do so to gays by denying us the same rights and privileges that others have.
BCaldwell says:

December 4, 2012 at 11:01 am

From the aspect of Catholic or any religiously affiliated hospital, etc. I’m not sure there is a big concern. I worry that the government will start telling clergy that they HAVE to marry same sex couples that profess to be openly gay and are registered as members of the parish. Now you are telling the church who they HAVE to administer sacraments to or they could be sued, lose their tax exempt status or not have the marriages recognized by civil authorities. Rod, is this something that you are trying to get at?

I look at the whole SSM push as an attempt to try and delegitimize organized religion. It is one thing to push and legalize and legitimate same sex couples in a legal sense ( benefits, etc.) it is another to have the government tell the churches and religious houses of worship that they have to accept SSM. Is it legitimate for the government to tell a Catholic priest that he must perform a marriage between two men or two women? If that is the case then you don’t have separation of church and state as many liberals love to crow about . You have the state interfering in the practice and dogma of the religion. But I assume for many on the left that is entirely acceptable.
Geoff Guth says:

December 4, 2012 at 11:10 am

Glaivester: “liberals imposing their will….”

You imposed your will on us, to the extent that you beat us, chased us out of our families and homes, and in some cases even killed us.

So now liberals are telling you that you need to be civil. And this is the mighty imposition on your civil rights that you cannot bear.

It’s no wonder conservatives are losing this argument.
Richard Johnson says:

December 4, 2012 at 11:11 am

“I worry that the government will start telling clergy that they HAVE to marry same sex couples that profess to be openly gay and are registered as members of the parish.”

Can you cite legal precedence for this in any state or territory in the US? Have Catholic clergy been forced by law to marry divorced individuals? Have clergy from churches that do not believe in interracial marriage been forced by law to marry an interracial couple?

This goes to the core of the disagreement here. You want SSM advocates to accede to something that most of us see as an unreasonable and irrational fear. Simply saying, “I think this will happen” is not good enough. Give us some evidence, under US jurisprudence, that this fear is based in reason and then we can deal with it.

Otherwise it sounds a lot like Chicken Little crying that the sky is falling.
Ann says:

December 4, 2012 at 11:13 am

Let the government take back the tax exemption, take back the social services contracts, take the hospitals and shut down the schools, seize the property, on and on. We are too attached to the things of this world, grown too comfortable in the halls of power and privilege. If we need to go up to the mountains and have Mass in secret, and that has happened in relatively recently in even Western history, how soon we forget, so be it.
JohnE_o says:

December 4, 2012 at 11:17 am

I worry that the government will start telling clergy that they HAVE to marry same sex couples that profess to be openly gay and are registered as members of the parish.

Please stop worrying about that, BCaldwell – case law does not support the idea that this will happen.
Public_Defender says:

December 4, 2012 at 11:48 am

Anti-SSM people — I’m thinking of Christians — take normative Christianity as the basis for their thinking about what religious liberty may permit.

Now we are getting somewhere. This is where you go wrong. Your interpretation of “normative Christianity” gets no privilege in the public square. None.

Your religious views deserve the same amount of public respect as those of liberal Episcopalians or those of native Americans seeking permission to use peyote. If you think this is some liberal plot, see Scalia’s opinion in the Smith case:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0494_0872_ZO.html

One thing that sticks in my craw is that liberals either fail or refuse to see that they are imposing their own views on those who do not share them in the same way that they accuse religious conservatives of doing — except that they consider their point of view neutral. It is no such thing.

I recognize that same-sex marriage imposes some burdens on people who disagree with it. You don’t get to do what you want to, and that, almost by definition, is a burden. The difficulty is that we must balance that burden against the burden that places on others by not letting them do what they want.

And maybe perfect neutrality is unattainable, but we should at least try. And “neutrality” toward people of different faiths is what Scalia required in Smith. Basically, self-defined “normative” Christians have no privileged position.

Finally, let me close with a quote from Scalia’s opinion about the limits on the constitutional rights of religious dissenters:

“Laws” we said, “are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. . . . Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”
Greenman says:

December 4, 2012 at 11:53 am

In what world is religious liberty only the freedom to believe what you wish, but not to act on it?

Supreme Court, 1879:

“”Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. . . . Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”

Supreme Court, 1940:

“Conscientious scruples have not, in the course of the long struggle for religious toleration, relieved the individual from obedience to a general law not aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious beliefs. The mere possession of religious convictions which contradict the relevant concerns of a political society does not relieve the citizen from the discharge of political responsibilities.”

In what world doers your religious belief give you a ‘get out of jail free card”?
Thomas Andrews says:

December 4, 2012 at 12:15 pm

Seriously, honestly, I understand that granting gay people full civil rights in the US troubles you enormously. You oppose gay marriage with every fiber of your being.

I get that.

What I don’t understand is the basis of your fear. You are one of the few genuine conservative thinkers in the public square and, otherwise, quite rational in approaching the culture wars.

You’re willingness to point out nonsense on ‘your’ side of the culture wars is, in fact, exemplary of how a Christian should embrace the truth, to be set free. On any other issue.

Every week sees at least one dead gay child in Utah. Something like 40% of homeless children are gay.
More than two rapes, beatings, murders every week.

And, today, a good chance that a bill mandating the death penalty for gays will pass in Uganda. A bill sponsored by and funded through American conservative Christian efforts.

Rod, one reason you are losing this front in the culture wars is, quite simply the total misalignment between the threat you perceive should gays be granted full civil rights in the US and the reality which gays face in the US.

Too many other Christians, and by no means only those of us who are liberal Christians, look at the rapes, the beatings, the murders, the suicides, those homeless children and simply can not find it in their hearts to hang their entire faith in Christ’s redemptive love for us upon keeping gays down.

You say you want a negotiated peace. Great. Begin by standing up and taking a firm position against the violence towards gays, here and that sponsored by other conservative Christians abroad.

Many sane people here have pointed out to you that ‘civil unions’ don’t work in the American system. Research the matter. It won’t take long. Then present a workable solution. As things stand right now, what you are offering is either poorly explained (or a great number of us have failed to grasp your point) or just plain unworkable.

Use your public voice and the brains which have led many liberal Christians such as myself to respect you: Speak out against Christian parents throwing their children out onto the street. For whatever reason.

[Note from Rod: I was trying to decide whether or not to approve this post, which has about it a "When did you stop beating your wife?" quality. I chose to approve it because it demonstrates the emotionalism of your side's way of thinking about this. I have said again and again when this issue comes up that bullying against gay people is absolutely wrong and must be opposed. What happens, though, is folks like GLAAD -- and you, it would seem -- take the position that if one rejects bullying against gay people, then one must embrace same-sex marriage. Hey, I reject bullying against fundamentalist Christians, but I reject fundamentalist Christianity. One does not require the other. Nor, speaking within Christian ethics, does treating gay people with the love and respect with which they are due require you to abandon 2,000 years of consistent Christian teaching about the moral impermissibility of gay sex. I recognize that you and many others within contemporary American Christianity think that way, but it is irrational and unsupportable, from a Christian point of view. -- RD]
Church Lady says:

December 4, 2012 at 12:22 pm

Rod, I’m reading and understanding everything you’ve written, and others on this thread also, and I’m still not getting it. Discrimination is discrimination regardless of what the motive is, even if one thinks it is a laudable motive of conscience, and a fight against some existential evil. That’s certainly what many segregationists thought of their cause. It’s what most of the religious warriors of the past thought of their cause. And there’s no end to it, literally, unless the law steps in puts an end to.

That’s the only way it did come to anything remotely like an end. The law stepped in and said, in the public sphere, you simply can’t discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, ethnicity, nationality, etc. You can still hold whatever feelings you have about these people, but you can’t discriminate on that basis. Even religious organizations can’t do that in the public sphere. Religious adoption agencies can’t refuse to place children in the homes of people of different religions or races, even if that goes against their own religion. Hospitals can’t refuse services to people on that basis. They can’t refuse employment to people on that basis. And they have to abide by all the health and safety laws. and tax and health insurance laws, that every other hospital has to abide by.

From what I gather, all of that was pretty much acceptable to you, even something you support, until the issue of gay rights came into the picture. What I don’t understand is why gay rights is such a huge issue, when so many other similar matters have been accepted as part of the public bargain over religion in the public sphere, and the rights of individuals not to be discriminated against. As others have pointed out, Catholic hospitals have no problem employing divorced people, or covering non-sanctified marriage spouses under their health insurance plans. It’s not that anyone interprets that as meaning the Catholic Church has changed their views on divorce.

You seem supportive of most gay rights, say in employment or housing (if not, speak up). But it seems that something about gay rights in marriage is simply such an anathema to you that you are now willing to throw out virtually all anti-discrimination laws, wherever they violate anyone’s personal sense of conscience, just to prevent – what exactly?

I’m still not getting what you, personally, find so utterly offensive about SSM, that it’s worth destroying the entire fabric of civil rights protection in the public sphere over, if SSM is afforded the same protection that all other groups, including your own I might add, are given. It seems as if you are now willing to trade even your own protections, and also those of virtually everyone out there, just so that you can reserve the right for some (does this include you?) to discriminate against SSM partners, or maybe gays in general, in the public sphere. I’m really not clear about your actual, personal position on this, and what your motive is.

Did the issue just put you over the edge, so that now you think that all civil rights in the public sphere should essentially be placed at the mercy of our individual religious/moral conscience, which then becomes sacrosanct under the law, and exempts everyone from all civil rights anti-discrimination laws? Or do you just want this one exception for SSM?

Now, obviously if SSM and sexual orientation become protected classes, just as religion, sex, race, ethnicity, etc., already are, it’s not going to be permissible to discriminate against that. And it’s well within your rights to fight against that ever happening. There’s been a long fight for each of those classifications to become protected. But let’s be clear, it’s not that SSM will be given some special status above religion. You still can’t discriminate on the basis of religion. It is neutral in that respect. It just means that you can’t discriminate on the basis of religion either. The basis for one’s discrimination is irrelevant under the law. SSM couples won’t be able to discriminate against Catholic priests either, not in the public sphere at least.

Everyone has to compromise. I’ve pointed this out before. Sure, to you it seems like you and your religious cohort are having to compromise more than others when it comes to SSM, and perhaps that’s true. But segregationists had to compromise even more than that, and had their whole communities torn apart in the process. And secular atheists have to compromise all the time also. In fact, everyone has to, because the law really is neutral on this issue. You may think otherwise, but the plain fact is that it’s neutral. No one thinks that just because you have to eat at the same restaurants or stay in the same hotel rooms as interacial couples, that you have to think of them as your equals. And the same goes for SSM couples. You can continue to think whatever you like about them. And so can the Church. They just can’t be discriminated against.

I have a hard time seeing how that’s a violation of religious liberty. Religious liberty only extends to your own personal behavior. It doesn’t extend to how you treat other people in the public sphere. A Catholic wedding photographer who has no problem doing Jewish or Muslim or Hindu weddings, but shows up to do a SSM wedding, not realizing that’s what he was booked for, can’t refuse to honor his contract. Just as he couldn’t refuse to honor his contract if he found out it was the marriage of an interracial couple, and that violated his conscience. Technically, he can’t even refuse to enter into such a contract, but in reality, people can find ways to weasel out of such things, saying they’re booked, etc. It’s not as if these laws are actually foolproof. They get broken all the time. But they can’t be flagrantly violated.

Anyway, not to distract with so much detail, but a lot of us here really still aren’t getting your position here. It seems clouded over by emotions we can’t seem to penetrate. You’ve stated a thousand times that you aren’t a bigot about these issues, and I’ll take your word for that, but it sure does seem that a lot of emotion comes out on your part around the SSM issue and religious liberty, that is never a factor in so many other similar issues that seem much bigger. You’re hardly alone there, of course. But on the practical level, it just doesn’t make sense. Maybe you could make some sort of sincere effort to explain it to us, on a personal level.
JohnE_o says:

December 4, 2012 at 12:52 pm

Nor, speaking within Christian ethics, does treating gay people with the love and respect with which they are due require you to abandon 2,000 years of consistent Christian teaching about the moral impermissibility of gay sex. I recognize that you and many others within contemporary American Christianity think that way, but it is irrational and unsupportable, from a Christian point of view. — RD]

And, yet, almost all Christian owned businesses and social services manage to serve the divorced-and-remarried.

Is one more morally impermissible than the other?
Clamdigger says:

December 4, 2012 at 1:06 pm

BCaldwell: “I look at the whole SSM push as an attempt to try and delegitimize organized religion”.

So, in religious denominations where gay and lesbian clergy are ordained, unions /marriages are solemnized before the alter of God, they are delegitimizing themselves?

Now, really. One can only be ‘organized’ if one is Catholic, Mormon, Baptist (southern-style), or Orthodox?

I’d take a guess some of the oldest and most ‘organized’ denominations from our earliest days as colonies would be looking a tad askance at that statement. Even the Methodists almost approved gay marriage at their synod this year, and were only defeated by their international branches (primarily Africans).

No
Rod Dreher says:

December 4, 2012 at 1:10 pm

P.S.: You oppose gay marriage with every fiber of your being.

I get that.

No, you don’t get that. You are hysterically overstating the case to create an emotional straw man. If I opposed gay marriage with every fiber of my being, I would write very differently about it, and would write about it far more often.
Thomas Andrews says:

December 4, 2012 at 1:14 pm

Guilty as charged.
I apologize.
My comment did equate your objection to equal rights for gays in America with support for those Christians who kick their children out into the streets, tolerate or even, themselves, perpetrate violence against gay people.

I do, however, wonder about your position:
….I recognize that you and many others within contemporary American Christianity think that way, but it is irrational and unsupportable, from a Christian point of view. — RD]

Until quite recently, at least from the perspective of two thousand years, the Christian point of view was, quite clearly that slavery was acceptable.
I won’t cite chapter and verse as you are not a fundamentalist. Still, this was a valid Christian point of view and one which could be defended with many of the same arguments you bring to bear against equal rights for gays.

We disagree on the matter of equal rights for gays. That does not make either of us the ‘better’ Christian. To the extent I equated your opposition to such equality with the actions of those Christians who do not demonstrate love towards gays, again, I apologize.

The situation remains, however. Either we shall have a theocracy, one in which your firmly held beliefs in what is truly Christian rules or we shall not. Right now, your version is the law of the land.

This can not stand and, regardless of whether the sitting Justices remedy the matter or those soon to follow do so, it will not stand.

I will leave it up to God to judge which of us is acting in a Christian manner on this issue. Both of us are following the dictates of our belief.

What remains is for reasonable people on your side – and you are one of only a very small number capable of rational thought, to find a means of living with this change. I echo Church Lady (and quite a few others who, as do I, value your work): What, exactly, has you so riled up on this particular matter?
BCaldwell says:

December 4, 2012 at 1:43 pm

This goes to the core of the disagreement here. You want SSM advocates to accede to something that most of us see as an unreasonable and irrational fear. Simply saying, “I think this will happen” is not good enough. Give us some evidence, under US jurisprudence, that this fear is based in reason and then we can deal with it.

Otherwise it sounds a lot like Chicken Little crying that the sky is falling.

Pooh pooh it all you want but it is what you guys want, correct?

It’s the end game for the cultural left on this issue and when you look at Jones v. U.S.(1983) , if the Court says that churches are not protected against racial discrimination, then the church will not be protected when it comes to discrimination against same sex couples. Because if homosexuality is as many contend , not a choice but a state of being that just is, then it becomes no different than being black or white or whatever. It’s not Chicken Littleish, it’s that someone has called you guys out on your next move, because it is the next logical move. It’s not that you want tolerance for SSM, it’s not even that you want grudging acceptance, it is that you want total embrace of SSM. All institutions whether private or public must embrace SSM and if the dogma of the particular church does not do it ( for sound ethical reasons) then that institution is to be ground down, attacked, discredited, etc. It’s not enough for many who are pro SSM to have it accepted on the civic level. There can be no discernment in belief or practice between civil secular institutions and private or religious institutions. It’s become an all or nothing proposition.
JohnE_o says:

December 4, 2012 at 1:56 pm

Pooh pooh it all you want but it is what you guys want, correct?

No, BCaldwell, it is not what I want.

I want my lesbian cousin to be able to marry her long time partner and have the same legal protections and obligations that my Traditionally Married wife and I have.

It’s the end game for the cultural left on this issue and when you look at Jones v. U.S.(1983) , if the Court says that churches are not protected against racial discrimination, then the church will not be protected when it comes to discrimination against same sex couples.

Bob Jones University v. US has nothing to do with the issues you cited. Furthermore, BJU is not a church, it is a church sponsored university.

It’s become an all or nothing proposition.

Your assertion does not make it so – as I said above, you are worried about things that are not going to happen.
Richard Johnson says:

December 4, 2012 at 2:09 pm

BCaldwell, you would do well to actually read the decision itself. Had you done so you would find the following in footnote #29.

“We deal here only with religious schools – not with churches or other purely religious institutions; here, the governmental interest is in denying public support to racial discrimination in education. As noted earlier, racially discriminatory schools “exer[t] a pervasive influence on the entire educational process,” outweighing any public benefit that they might otherwise provide, Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U.S. 455, 469 (1973). See generally Simon 495-496.”
Rod Dreher says:

December 4, 2012 at 2:11 pm

Lord have mercy, JohnE, we keep going round and round about this! You are using a semantical error in the post to which you respond to dismiss our entire claim. Bob Jones U vs. US has everything to do with this situation. You identify as a secularist, so perhaps you don’t fully understand that religious life in the US is not strictly limited to churches, mosques, and synagogues. Church-affiliated universities are religious institutions. Charities are. Church daycares are. And so forth. If a religious institution can lose its tax-exempt status because it violates federal anti-discrimination law — and the SCOTUS ruling in BJU vs. US says it can — and many religious institutions in the US could not afford to keep their doors open if not for privileged tax status, then there is a clear and present danger to religious liberty, including the existence of these institutions.

It’s there! Legal scholars who support gay civil rights in this case admit that it’s there. It is not a phantom. One reason I try not to get sucked into these comments threads is I feel as if we all end up saying the same thing again and again.
Rod Dreher says:

December 4, 2012 at 2:13 pm

Richard, I appreciate the clarification you make, but I don’t feel the least bit comfortable in the distinction SCOTUS made walling off religious schools from other religious institutions in this way. I don’t understand why they did so — by which I mean, their drawing a line around religious schools seems completely arbitrary. It may not have done so back in the 1980s, when the decision was made, but it sure does now.
Mike says:

December 4, 2012 at 2:16 pm

” if the Court says that churches are not protected against racial discrimination, then the church will not be protected when it comes to discrimination against same sex couples.”

Despite alll evidence to the contrary. The reason that Bob Jones has been so limited in terms of impact is because it is so limited in scope, to race-based discrimination. It may be helpful to have actually read Bob Jones and studied a little bit about equal protection law before deciding that same-sex marriage will be treated the same as race-based discrimination.
JohnE_o says:

December 4, 2012 at 2:27 pm

You identify as a secularist, so perhaps you don’t fully understand that religious life in the US is not strictly limited to churches, mosques, and synagogues. Church-affiliated universities are religious institutions. Charities are. Church daycares are. And so forth.

Are those universities, charities, and daycares only open to and staffed by ministers of that religious faith?

If so, then it gets to play by the Religious Institutions rules.

If they serve the general public and the staff is not limited to ministers of that religion, then they play by the secular rules.
Richard Johnson says:

December 4, 2012 at 2:36 pm

Rod, once again the Court’s decision explains the why in this case. The holding does not prohibit the religious practice by Bob Jones University. It simply acknowledges that the IRS was within the law in withdrawing the 501(c)3 status of the University. It stated that it did not see that this would prevent the University from exercising its religious belief, and that compelling interest in promoting racial desegregation outweighed the provision of tax exempt status.

In fact, the University continued holding to this teaching until 2000, when it finally abandoned it after public moral suasion during the Presidential campaign of that year. For 17 years it operated without the benefit of tax exemption. But it still operated.
Richard Johnson says:

December 4, 2012 at 2:43 pm

“…and many religious institutions in the US could not afford to keep their doors open if not for privileged tax status, then there is a clear and present danger to religious liberty, including the existence of these institutions.”

Some might suggest that if a church has fallen to the point that it requires a privileged tax status to stay open then it should close and move on. Others might go so far as to suggest that if the church were doing God’s will in the community, He would provide for it in spite of government opposition.

We have a tenuous relationship between church and state. The church wants as little control from the state as possible, yet still lines up to receive its benefits from the state (in the form of tax exemptions). <a href="http://www.religionnewsblog.com/7303/texas-official-says-unitarian-church-not-a-tax-exempt-religion"The state gets to decide what churches are legitimate for purposes of these tax exemptions, and forces the church to dance to its tune in order to receive them.

Is it possible, Rod, that the church universal needs to stop depending on government for support?
Richard Johnson says:

December 4, 2012 at 3:03 pm

I think I see where Rod is coming from in his posts, at least in part. If I read him correctly he fears that society is changing to the point that he is putting himself and his family at risk by adhering to his sincerely held religious beliefs. He sees the coming storm and is trying to get others to acknowledge the clouds before the storm arrives and it’s too late to do anything about it.

May people have been in these shoes throughout history in the US. Many people live in this storm from day to day. For example, a city in Albany County, NY recently won a court decision against a Pagan worship center regarding its tax exempt status. The center faces foreclosure over back taxes and court fees.

http://www.watershedpost.com/2012/palenville%E2%80%99s-pagans-lose-religious-tax-exemption-case

As I posted earlier, the state of Texas tried to deny similar tax exempt status to a Unitarian-Universalist congregation back in 2004. Thankfully the state backed down on that case.

Rod fears that he and his fellow believers will find themselves in the same position that these two groups (and many others like them) are finding themselves. Popular opinion turning against them, they fear that the government will view their beliefs as unworthy of protection, and they will lose their rights.

It is a thorny issue, but honestly I think that there is also a bit of a last ditch effort being used here to try to slow the inexorable progress towards marriage equality. Their objection may well be legitimate (though, in my opinion, a bit oversold), but I don’t see it as reason to withhold rights from GLBT persons with regards to marriage, any more than objections raised by Christian slaveholders regarding their rights was a reason to withhold granting slaves their freedom.

Having identified the problem, Rod, what do you suggest as a way forward towards some sort of resolution that recognizes the rights you and others who share your views wish to protect as well as the rights I and other SSM advocates wish to protect? Where do we start?
BCaldwell says:

December 4, 2012 at 3:17 pm

“I want my lesbian cousin to be able to marry her long time partner and have the same legal protections and obligations that my Traditionally Married wife and I have.”

OK, I wouldn’t care if it happened in a civil ceremony with a judge or a justice of the peace- knock yourself out.

I’m looking at the next move because the normalization of gay marriage in the secular civil sense is not enough given the uber libertine expectations of today. For many in the pro SSM camp all institutions whether they be public, private or religious should just accept and embrace the idea, after all it really is not all that threatening and the sun will rise in the East tomorrow just like it has always done. The key word is embrace in an all encompassing sense.

Bob Jones V. U.S. does indeed apply only to religiously affiliated schools, but if you looked at the genesis of the problem it was that because the school discriminated, the IRS felt as though it was OK to remove the tax exempt status Jones had as a religious institution. The next move is to try the same thing out as it applies to sexual preference or orientation. To paraphrase the Court on this , does the government have an overriding interest in eradicating marriage discrimination that substantially outweighs whatever burden denial of tax benefits places on their religious beliefs, just eliminate the prepositional phrase ” in education” and you can see where I am going and where I think Rod originally was headed. Jones actually establishes a precedent that uses the tax exemption as a carrot attached to a switch.

“So, in religious denominations where gay and lesbian clergy are ordained, unions /marriages are solemnized before the alter of God, they are delegitimizing themselves?”

Clamdigger, they are. Show me one religion where their canon, talmudic or even sharia law allows for the marriage between members of the same sex. In those churches where homosexuality has been treated as no big deal and that openly gay priests are ordained and same sex union solemnified, I will show you a church and a denomination that is in its death throes such as the Episcopal Church in America. When people start to see their religious institutions as not standing up for something or against an evolving societal norm, then they realize that their church essentially stands for nothing and will just drift with the current like a rudderless boat.
BN says:

December 4, 2012 at 4:26 pm

“As to civil unions, I could accept them because — assuming my understanding of law is correct, which it may not be — it provides the legal benefits of marriage without calling it marriage. Calling it “marriage” invokes a host of obligations throughout the civil law, obligations that traditional Christians, Orthodox Jews, and Muslims believe deeply violates our moral code. I do not believe that this struggle is, from the pro-SSM side, about giving relief to unjustly burdened same-sex couples while figuring out a way to give the substantial number of anti-SSM people some space to live out their beliefs (which, please note, are waning). I believe it is at a deep level about punishing religious and conservative people for thoughtcrime.”

This seems quite muddled. If civil unions “provide(s) the legal benefits of marriage”, then it doesn’t matter what it’s called. All the “host of obligations throughout the civil law” apply, even without the word.

You’re right that, from the pro-SSM side, we’re not particularly working to carve out some space to live out your beliefs. You’re not exactly knocking yourselves out to figure out a way to give us equal rights. Nevertheless, I’ve repeatedly said on here and in real life that I think the decision against Bob Jones U was wrong and I’ve asked, repeatedly, what the exemptions you seek would look like. I might go along with more than you think, but I will not accept them if the only group imposed upon is gay people. You want “religious liberty”, then you grant “religious liberty” to others to discriminate against you. So far, you don’t seem to accept that condition.

The bit about “thoughtcrime” is ridiculous.
BN says:

December 4, 2012 at 4:28 pm

People are wrong when they think that the IRS doesn’t treat SSM and CU couples as married. In any community property state, even though the feds don’t recognize our legal relationships for purposes of inheritance, for example, they do consider us married and require us to split incomes, etc. We still have to file separately, though. It’s a mess.
Richard Johnson says:

December 4, 2012 at 4:39 pm

“OK, I wouldn’t care if it happened in a civil ceremony with a judge or a justice of the peace- knock yourself out.”

What about a Unitarian-Universalist lay minister such as myself, BCaldwell? Do you have a problem with me performing same-sex marriages?

“Show me one religion where their canon, talmudic or even sharia law allows for the marriage between members of the same sex. In those churches where homosexuality has been treated as no big deal and that openly gay priests are ordained and same sex union solemnified, I will show you a church and a denomination that is in its death throes such as the Episcopal Church in America.”

http://www.uua.org/documents/trinitycollege/uus_1998-2008_rpt.pdf

On the contrary, I think you will find that my denomination is doing rather well. As mentioned above we experienced a growth of around 27% from 1990 to 2008.

http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/asset_upload_file791_183484.jpg

In the second graphic you can see state-by-state breakdowns on the totals. We experienced growth in 33 states and the District of Columbia. We even grew in the south!

Not only do the principles of our denomination allow for same-sex marriage, we celebrate it. And we are growing in large part because of it.
Public_Defender says:

December 4, 2012 at 7:07 pm

Your position actually strengthens the argument of those on the left who want (improperly, in my view) to offer no accomodation to religious conservatives.

You say that “normative” Christian rules should determine which accomodations you get because those are your beliefs and any attempt at neutrality will violate those norms. But your argument does nothing to persuade anybody who doesn’t already agree with you. And if a minority wants an accomodation from the majority, the minority needs to be able to frame its request in terms the majority can accept.

If you don’t, you area left with a rule that essentially says that everyone gets to apply their own first principles without regard to the first principles of the anyone else. And since we liberals are on the winning side, that means that under your rule, we can totally ignore your first principles.

You propose no rule to deal with the reality the reality that different people have different first principles. When does one group get to impose its will on the other?

One way to resolve the issue is to look at the founding rules of our country. They were designed to peacefully resolve competing moral claims. We have a basic constitutional framework, but beyond that, we have only elections to resolve issues. As Scalia frequently says, if you don’t like something, “pass a law.” (As you can tell from my posts, I am one liberal who has a lot of respect for this generally conservative justice.)

That’s hard when you are in the minority, but minorities have three choices: 1) acquiese, 2) persuade enough people to become a majority, or 3) persuade the majority that the minority merits an exception from majority rule in a given situation. As you basically concede, you are stuck with option 3, but you make no attempt to frame your arguments in a way that would be persuasive to those of us in the majority. Until you can do that, you will continue to lose. You will still be able to complain, but you will lose.
Public_Defender says:

December 4, 2012 at 7:51 pm

On a lighter note, your argument makes me think of the Black Knight bellowing “NONE SHALL PASS” while standing at the door of a Catholic hospital’s HR office and facing a gay employee with a health insurance form.
BCaldwell says:

December 4, 2012 at 8:00 pm

OK Richard Johnson, so the Unitarian Universalists have about 150,000 registered members. The UU also has no discernible creed . I’m not going to compare which belief system is superior only that I find the ones that have a tradition of a thought out theology and creed seem to be more coherent and stable. If your denomination wants to recognize same sex marriage and you are authorized to perform a marriage in your state, go ahead.

My point is that there is going to be a push beyond the secular on SSM and that advocates of SSM want a total embrace of the lifestyle and equate it as the same as the traditional form…something which I personally reject ( I don’t care if I’m the only person in the world who does not accept it as equal in a moral sense ). The gay and Lesbian lobby has done quite well over the years in removing statutory discrimination in a legal sense ( something I actually welcome) but advocates want to remove it institutionally as well not just public institutions but even private institutions that come into contact with the secular world. Want your tax exemption, better allow men to marry men and women to marry women .
Geoff Guth says:

December 4, 2012 at 10:28 pm

Let me take a step back here.

We all know freedom of thought or speech is off the table here. Much as this blog likes to discuss how hate speech in other countries has been shut down, no country on Earth has as robust protections of free speech. Moreover, liberal groups are the very first ones to jump out and defend the free speech of unpopular groups. So let’s set those aside.

Likewise, let’s also stipulate that religious conservatives will be able to speak freely on the subject, as this post suggests.

I would like a list of the freedoms that Mr. Dreher wants to have. Let’s get some specifics about what he wants to do or refuse to do. We may very well find that there’s more common ground than we think. So can we get some specific freedoms being infringed instead of simply saying that we’re killing religious freedom?
J DeSales says:

December 4, 2012 at 11:12 pm

I also don’t understand why mainstream Christians are so afraid of persecution and martyrdom. Doesn’t suffering cleanse the soul and allow the faithful to be more Christ-like? Isn’t martyrdom virtuous and noble? Why is it that modern Christians are so afraid to die for the Christ and to suffer for their creed? I would say that there is more to fear within Christendom if the faithful of living out the model of the saints and of the Christ himself.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

December 4, 2012 at 11:59 pm

And, yet, almost all Christian owned businesses and social services manage to serve the divorced-and-remarried.

Is one more morally impermissible than the other?

John E. has an interesting point here. Dr. Lewis B. Anthony posed a question at a church retreat once, noting that homosexuality is not part of God’s plan, but neither is booty call every five minutes. So, he posed to the often-strayed men of the church, what makes you any better?

Churches do manage to preach against divorce, although it is legal, ditto for abortion, ditto for drinking alcohol.

BCaldwell: If we look to first principles, Unitarians are freewill Baptists who believe God is one, not three. Thus, Unitarian, rather than Trinitarian.