A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Religious liberty and SSM

Not sure I agree with all the conclusions, but this article from The Christian Century provides a lucid overview of potential conflicts between religious liberty and same-sex marriage, and how a reasonable balance might be struck. I do agree that treating people with religious objections to SSM as bigots pure and simple misses the mark; even though I think they’re wrong, many of these folks are moved by sincerely held religious beliefs, not animus against gay and lesbian people. The analogies to racial discrimination have some force, but I think they break down at this point, at least in many cases. Plus, there’s a limit to how much a free society can expect to extirpate attitudes the majority (if that) considers to be wrong.

On the other hand, I do worry about enshrining into law a protected zone for discrimination. Assuming, perhaps optimistically, that attitudes toward gay and lesbian people continue to shift as radically in the coming years as they have been, do we really want embedded in law the right to discriminate against gay couples, even under carefully circumscribed circumstances? I guess it all comes down to the particulars. I’d be interested in hearing what actual GLBT folks think about these kinds of religious liberty provisions–after all, it’s easier for me say they’re OK since they’re not going to directly affect my marriage.

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4 responses to “Religious liberty and SSM”

  1. Camassia

    Well, if society does continue that way, it wouldn’t hugely matter if there’s a legal right to discriminate. Sort of the way most Americans aren’t pacifists but don’t mind all that much that the Amish are, since there aren’t enough of them to make much impact.

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  2. bls

    Prohibition was once the law of the land, too.

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  3. bls

    (I’ll have to read the article, but from my point of view, the “right to discriminate” exists already, I’m sorry to say. And the right to marry does not. So, this is a net gain, IMO – and as I say, many laws have been enacted that were later repealed.

    I just don’t care about the ideology of this very much.)

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  4. Gaius Sempronius Gracchus

    Sincerely held religious beliefs condemning all Jews, even the living, for deicide were once common among Christians.

    For a very long time such beliefs justified all manner of discriminatory legislation in Europe, excluding Jews from professions, requiring the wearing of the Star of David, and even forcing them into ghettos.

    Any number of people on the Christian right today sincerely believe we need to attack Iran to defend Israel and, with any luck, bring on the End.

    Some people today sincerely hold as a religious belief that people of different races ought not to marry, and ought not to be permitted by the state to marry.

    I cannot see that discrimination based in sincere religious belief deserves one whit more indulgence than discrimination with less respectable ideological cover.

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