Wednesday, December 18, 2013

We're for religious freedom, except when we're not.

A federal judge in Utah has recently held that Utah's law prohiting cohabitation violates a polygamist family's rights to free exercise of religion and due process of law. The National Organization for Marriage and the Family Research Council are calling the decision "the next step along the path blazed by same-sex marriage advocates...." The NOM and the FRC are in effect opposing that family's freedom of religion.

I thought that opponents of marriage equality were simply trying to protect bakers' and photographers' free exercise of religion. It's almost as though their stated and actual reasons differed somewhat.

My first thought was that LGBT advocates should take every opportunity to point out the chicanery of groups like the NOM and the FRC. Then, however, I remembered how often our advocates have said that free exercise of religion should yield to anti-discrimination laws. We thus have two sides in the debate, both of which think that their preferred outcome should trump the First Amendment's free-exercise clause.

See also: The great big (non-zero-sum) game of life and Same-sex marriage and freedom of association (2)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, a person should be able to practice their religion unless it infringes on someone else's rights. Why should gay people lose a job or bee denied housing because of someone's religion? This does actual harm to them.Should we let people who believe in a religion that allows human sacrifice kill for their religion? Should Christians be allowed to put gays to death like Leviticus says, or should we not infringe on their "religious freedom"?

The Heterodox Homosexual said...

1. Do you really want a discussion on anti-discrimination laws?

2. As for human sacrifice and putting gays to death, once you actually understand the non-agression principle, you'll understand how wrong that argument is.