Are religious freedoms under attack? Gays have the right to marry. The U.S. Supreme Court has left open the question whether a baker must decorate a wedding cake and a florist must provide floral arrangements to be used at gay weddings, and the court is now deciding whether employers can discriminate against LGBTQ employees.
Can society mandate equal treatment for LGBTQ people while respecting the beliefs of those who say their religion precludes them doing anything that condones what they see as sinful?
Let’s look at our social contract. We established as a fundamental truth nearly 250 years ago that we are all created equal, with the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To make this work, we agreed to live under a set of rules, and those rules have evolved over time. Slavery was once permissible, women couldn’t vote, and interracial marriage was illegal.
Certain religious groups demand they should be free to deny goods and services, even employment, to gays, not because of their sexual identity—that would be judgmental and wrong, they say. It’s that they don’t want to do anything that might be construed as condoning sexual mores they find to be objectionable.
So it is, that a baker objects to decorating a cake, and a florist objects to creating flower arrangements for a gay wedding. Similarly, the owner of a funeral home believes he would be endorsing a transgender employee’s denial of his gender at birth—and disobeying God’s law—by continuing to employ the employee during his sex transition.
But would that same florist and baker object to selling their goods to an adulterer who is purchasing gifts for his mistress? Likely not, for how would they know of the customer’s adultery. But what if the adultery were exposed, what then? By selling to the adulterer, wouldn’t the baker and florist be condoning the customer’s extramarital affair?
If homosexuality and adultery are a sin, then the baker and florist should inquire of all their customers as to how those cakes and flowers will be used. And perhaps employers should ask job applicants about pending sex transitions.
But this is all so silly, you say, and too intrusive. No one has the right to ask those kinds of questions.
And that’s precisely the point: how does anyone have the right to inquire of another’s personal life, no matter how objectionable it may be to the one asking? As part of the social contract, equality has to be the overriding principle.
But religious groups counter they are being penalized for their beliefs. The decision not to engage in commerce with gays is based on the inviolate freedom of religion granted by the First Amendment.
Or maybe what we’re dealing with is a matter of perspective? When a city grants a permit for the KKK to conduct a demonstration on public grounds, is the city condoning the racial hate the KKK advocates? Hardly. The city is just giving the KKK the opportunity to express itself, a right also granted by the First Amendment.
If the city is not condoning the KKK mission, why is it religious groups (not all groups, I know) see selling flowers for a gay wedding to be condoning gay marriage? There’s a big difference between selling flowers and officiating at a wedding ceremony, and there’s a big difference between paying an employee a clothing allowance and endorsing sex transition.
Perhaps religious groups should look to Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) for guidance. He was opposed to same-sex marriage—until his college son announced he was gay. Suddenly, Portman saw things differently: “The overriding message of love and compassion that I take from the Bible, and certainly the Golden Rule, and the fact that I believe we are all created by our maker, that has all influenced me in terms of my change on this issue.”
Interesting how the personal element can be so important in guiding our perspective.
[This post was previously published as an op-ed in the Columbus Dispatch on November 26, 2019.]
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Jack D’Aurora writes for Considerthisbyjd.com
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