Religious Convictions, Public Behavior, and the Mythical Quest for Purity

In the wake of the US Supreme Court's decision legalizing gay marriage across the country, a number of quite-predictable rearguard actions have sprung up. Many of these revolve around "religious conviction" exceptions, based on the argument that no one (public employee or otherwise) should be required by law to engage in behavior which violates their sincerely-held religious beliefs. As one lawmaker put it in North Carolina, "Just because someone takes a job with the government does not mean they give up their First Amendment rights." A cake baker has apparently also decided to take his case to court, lest he be sanctioned for discriminating against gay couples in the making of wedding cakes.

I find this argument deeply troubling on many fronts. It strikes me as a species of other arguments people make which use the trappings of commonly-held values (in this case, the language about rights and freedom) to advance the opposite. I'm not 100% sure that's what's happening here in all cases, so I'll leave that broader issue aside and focus on a number of more specific ones:

• While the Supreme Court was arguing the Obergefell case, a number of parallels were made to Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 Supreme Court decision which struck down laws outlawing interracial marriage. Across American society today there is very little opposition (at least in public) to interracial marriage, and we tend to chalk the history of such opposition up to the blatant racism which once ruled much of white society. We forget, to our peril, that much of that racism had a very sincerely-held religious dimension to it:

In this counter-protest photo from the civil rights era, in between the "race mixing is Communism" signs is one equating "race mixing" with the "march of the Antichrist". It's a pretty safe bet that for folks making that argument, this was a sincerely held religious belief. Were public and private individuals excused from following the law in the wake of the Loving decision? Was racism OK because it was cloaked in theology?

• There are a great many other legal parallels related to the broader argument. The core of that argument is that it would violate someone's First Amendment rights to religious liberty to pressure or force them by law to participate in some activity of which they personally disapprove on religious or theological grounds. This was part of the argument behind the recent Hobby Lobby decision, although that decision also created the somewhat novel conclusion that corporations have religious beliefs.

During the Civil Rights era, we had a very different view. At the time many businesses (restaurants, hotels, and all manner of other places) routinely discriminated against blacks. Many of those businesses' owners undoubtedly held strong religious convictions about the "mixing of races". And yet, none were allowed to use those convictions as a shield against the law. The legal doctrine of "public accommodations" meant that, if you serve the public you have to serve the whole public - not just those folks you feel like serving. That's what anti-discrimination laws are about.

There's a broader issue here - the extension of the First Amendment into what might be termed a Quest for Purity. What people seem to be asking for is that they be allowed to completely disassociate themselves from anything that violates their religious principles. But where is that line? Does making a cake morally involve the baker in the wedding? Does processing paperwork in a courthouse indicate individual moral approval?

The fact is that we are all involved in many transactions each day that bring us into contact with things to which we might well have religious objections. My tax dollars go to support wars overseas which I find fundamentally immoral, and certainly indefensible within my theological view. But I don't get to withdraw that support selectively. The government can't draft me to fight in such a war - there's an example of a religious exception - but I can't escape being connected to it.

Legally and culturally, what these folks are asking for is a morass. If every individual, regardless of job or responsibility, gets to pick and choose whom they will or will not engage in transactions with, things could go sideways quickly. Over the medium term, I would expect to see even more Balkanization or "voting with one's feet" than we already see - people retreating into enclaves (neighborhood, school, church, business networks, etc.) of people who are only like themselves.

When that withdrawal is complete - as it largely is with the Amish community - that's OK, especially when it's a small minority that doesn't mind being cut off from the rest of society. And even the Amish don't refuse to do business with the rest of us, even though in their eyes most of us are sinners. But the people who are making these "religious conscience" claims want to have it both ways - they want to engage in society and participate in its wealth and power, but they want to be selective about it. That way lies madness, I fear.

• As much as the debate will focus on law - what individual judges or cake bakers are or not permitted to do without legal sanction - the legal side of this case is less interesting to me. Just as the theology of racial segregation largely vanished from mainstream institutions within a generation or two (though it still exists in dark corners, as Dylann Roof demonstrated), I expect that religious views on homosexual relations will also evolve. Indeed, they already are:

- Jimmy Carter (possibly the nation's most famous Southern Baptist) has publicly broken with the Southern Baptist Convention over this issue.

- Tony Campolo, one of the most prominent public evangelicals in the US, has come out in support of gay marriage after years of opposing it on religious grounds.

Granted, both of these guys have leaned left over their careers and have been to some degree left behind by the rightward drive of their own churches. Both have received plenty of pushback for the statements they've made, some of it pretty harsh. But that's to be expected. I suspect that, in a generation or two, our children and grandchildren will look back and wonder what all the hullabaloo was about.

• What's really interesting to me is not what the law says. It's the "religious conviction" arguments that people are making and the religious understanding behind them. The vast majority of folks seeking religious freedom exemptions in these cases are doing so from a Christian standpoint. And while I can understand (although I don't agree with) Christians who regard homosexual marriage as theologically inappropriate, I don't understand their desire to disassociate themselves from it to such an extreme degree.

Many Christians, even today, find divorce morally problematic. Given the passages in Matthew 19 this is understandable, even though others may interpret those passages differently. Given this, are there county clerks who refuse to issue marriage certificates to people previously divorced? Are there bakers who ask if either of the couple has been married previously before baking a cake? My guess is, probably not.

In Christian theology there are many sins - that is, many things which can separate a person from God. In some Christian views, no sin is worse than another - all have the same effect of sundering the relationship between humans and the divine. In other views there is something of a hierarchy - the Catholic church, for example, has famously raised up seven "Cardinal" sins in particular as the most dangerous. Yet in none of these views is homosexuality given a unique position in the pantheon of sin, as being worse than all others. On those grounds, therefore, it's hard to see why one would religiously discriminate against homosexuals but not, for example, against greedy or violent people.

Even the repeated assertion that "the traditional Biblical view of marriage is between one man and one woman" is challenged by the numerous references (some of them quite favorable) to polygamy in the Old Testament. Politicians who have recently argued that the Obergefell decision will lead to the sin of polygamy next should perhaps read their Bibles a little more closely...

The truth is that views of marriage and relationships have always been cultural, and have always been changing. A couple of centuries ago we still considered wives as property, and marriage was structured as such. Adherents to that view embedded it in their theology, and there were plenty of "sincerely held religious beliefs" supporting legal and social structures that we would find abhorrent today. Despite claims by some that "God never changes", our understanding of God and God's will have changed a LOT over the centuries. Somehow, we always manage to "discover" a theology that fits with our current cultural views and norms.

This is not to say that religious beliefs aren't sincere, or that the search for truth about God isn't important. I don't advocate throwing up our hands and retreating into some kind of radical relativism. What I do think this suggests is the need for humility. People in the past have been wrong - not just wrong by the standards of our day, but wrong. We didn't abolish slavery because we changed our minds and now things are different - we came to view the ownership of any human being by another as contrary to the will of God for humanity as it always had been.

So how best to wrestle with these issues? I think the warning about the speck in your neighbor's eye in Matthew 7 is instructive. We are called to look to ourselves first and foremost, rather than trying to control the behavior of others. Some have suggested that these "religious exemption" arguments for county clerks are a way of making sure that no gay weddings take place in certain communities - that is, a back-door way of trying to control other's behavior. I'm sure there's some truth to that.

But the gospel doesn't call us to control the behavior of our neighbors or to make sure that they don't commit what we think are sins. It also doesn't call us to remove ourselves from the world and refrain from contact with any sinful thing - although that's not what these "exceptionalists" want anyway, since they're not trying to disassociate themselves from any other sins. The only clear direction I can see: love one another. Try as I might, I can't find any qualifiers on that - it's not "love only the people you approve of" or "love only the people who are behaving the way you think they should". Matthew 5 is pretty clear on that subject, it seems to me.

So in a certain sense, I would welcome more religious discussion in this context. If you want to express your faith through your action in the world, great. Just make sure - in all humility - that it's the faith you really claim, and (ideally) that it's a faith that pulls people in and builds them up, rather than tearing them down. I see nothing "Christian" about this wave of rejectionism. Eventually, I hope they see it the same way.

You Keep On Using That Word...

Occasionally I find something amusing on Facebook, and rather than respond to it there I post it here. I do this in part so I don't scare off the "friends" I have on FB who are invaluable sources of information about ideologically and tribally extreme positions. Since those people don't read my blog, I feel pretty safe re-posting their stuff here.

The last couple of days on FB have, to a great extent, been dominated by the "marriage equality" discussion. Far too many of my FB friends have changed their profile pics, so that I can't tell them apart anymore. But what I was really waiting for was for someone on the other side - someone against gay marriage - to take a stand. I finally got my wish today, with this:

One Nation Under God supports Civil Unions this does not prevent anyone from living whatever lifestyle they choose but we believe strongly in the traditional, universally-held belief of a man and woman being required to constitute marriage. God created man and woman for a reason and this is an essential part of His plan of happiness for humankind. Sadly, whenever there is good as we know there tends to be evil. The reason for this particularly against the family is because this is where the potential for the most love and joy exists. Just as in politics those with less than honorable intentions purpose is character assassination so it is where the greatest cause of happiness exist so does Satan's desire exist to take away the ability for humankind to enjoy life. The family his his single greatest threat.

For those who claim because someone doesn't agree with them means they hate them they are nothing more than schoolyard bullies trying to force their own beliefs upon others while hypocritically attacking those who simply follow the traditional and universally-held belief that a man and a woman who have children are what constitutes a family.

This page has been, is and will ever always be for the love of the family. God bless the family!

I certainly support both free speech rights and the right of people to believe whatever theology they choose. But the "argument" here fails to persuade, largely because it rests on a twice-repeated assertion that the "traditional" definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman is "universally-held".

If this were true, would we be having this discussion? I think Inigo Montoya put it best:

The Church in Public and the Question of Violence

This being an election year the media is particularly sensitive to political controversies everywhere, especially those that might have some tie to the election. We've been treated several times this year to stories about marriage equality and the right, or lack thereof, of gay and lesbian couples to marry. Obama's long-championed healthcare legislation has also been under great scrutiny, with a major Supreme Court case and arguments about religious freedom and birth control just a few of the many threads in that discussion.

These are not the only issues, of course - poll after poll shows that jobs and the economy are the #1 issue on Americans' minds - but they are great media fodder, because the people who care about them tend to get very excited and say all sorts of fun things. They are red-meat issues to certain segments of the population, and excited people tend to spend more (directly or indirectly) in ways that benefit media outlets.

But my point today isn't about media behavior, most of which is pretty mundane and predictable. What sparked this post starts with an observation and ends with a question. The observation is this: in the public arena, on any issues of national prominence or policy, the only place that the church has been visible this year is on these hot-button issues like marriage and health care.

By "the church" in this case I mean not any particular denomination, but the bulk of organized Western Christianity. It is undoubtedly true that some denominations (Catholics, Baptists) have a greater ability to command attention in the media than others (who pays attention to Quakers?) But there are a great many denominations that can and do say things in public, and that usually get at least some attention for doing so. Those churches that have chosen to do so have poured a tremendous amount of time, effort, and energy into speaking on a few issues related to health care and homosexuality.

One question might be, why aren't churches talking more about issues people care about - that is, jobs and the economy? While this is a tempting criticism, there's an obvious answer: churches aren't (or aren't supposed to be) running for office. They have no particular mandate to speak on election-related issues, or to conform their agendas to election-related polls. My guess is that most churches stay out of economic issues because they don't have a consensus understanding on them, and because their own members have a diversity of views. Theology provides no clear guide to whether we should bail out the auto industry or lower interest rates.

But there are other moral issues that churches are not addressing, and I very much wonder why. Despite differences on particular issues like abortion, all churches agree that issues of life and death are fundamental moral questions about which their various theologies have something to say. And over the last dozen years or so, pretty much all churches have been silent on one of the most consequential life-and-death questions of our time: war and the use of violent force.

There have certainly been plenty of opportunities to say something in this arena. From the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the recent political controversy over drone strikes and "targeted killings", even to questions of individual self-defense raised by battles over gun laws and the Trayvon Martin case - there has been no shortage of events to use as springboards for commentary on when violence is or is not acceptable. Yet churches have been silent.

Is this because theology has nothing to say about violence and the use of force? That cannot be - some denominations (not much noted, like the Amish) have made non-violence a central tenet of their faith, while in past decades Catholic church encyclicals on nuclear weapons and war played a significant role in policy debates. Certainly any church (and there are many) which takes a stand on the "sanctity of life" as a theological issue should care about the death of innocent civilians in war. Yet the churches with the loudest megaphones - which have often championed exactly those "sanctity of life" issues - have said nothing.

More likely, the reason is simple politics. Churches, like most organizations and groups, pick their battles on tactical grounds. In particular, churches have very, very rarely wanted to pick a fight with the State - churches that do tend to find themselves outlawed or thrown out of the country (why are there so many Amish in the US, but not in Switzerland where they were founded? Refusal to participate in the military defense of the country was considered treasonous.) "Controversial" issues like abortion, or health care, or gay marriage, are questions which do not challenge the fundamental core of State authority, and are therefore safe playgrounds on which to pontificate. It's easy to work up a high dudgeon in public over whether religious hospitals have to allow their employees access to birth control, because no one powerful is threatened.

This, of course, is a terrible shame (if not a terrible irony) for a movement that likes to think of itself as being transformational and "in but not of the world". In the broadest sense, it only confirms what churches will themselves (usually) admit - that they are human institutions, prone to the same sins and weaknesses as fallen humanity in general.

However regrettable on a grand scale, I find the churches' silence on questions of violence and the use of force personally frustrating. Violence in the US alone kills thousands more every year than al Qaeda ever has or will, and wars fought by the US military abroad have killed hundreds of thousands (mostly civilians) over the past decade or more. If I want to be a faithful Christian, how do I respond to these realities? What guidance does the church - any church - have in response to such questions?

In the face of ongoing silence, I will have to find my own answers while the religious leaders of the day entertain themselves on other, safer questions.

Why the President's Interview on Gay Marriage Shouldn't Matter

Like the President himself, I am a bit late in responding to the issue of the President's "evolution" interview on the topic of gay marriage and marriage equality. In my case, that's not because my thoughts have been "evolving," it just took me a while to find time to write them down.

From the outset, let me say that I'm perfectly happy that the President said what he said. I've been in favor of marriage equality for years, have family and friends in committed same-sex relationships, and haven't found an argument against marriage equality yet that doesn't boil down to "because my interpretation of the Bible (Koran/what have you) says so". Since we haven't yet repealed the First Amendment, I don't see how you can square being an American under our current rules with wanting to impose your particular religious views on everybody else. Obviously, some North Carolinians disagree - but then, I knew that already.

I'm also not going to take the President to task for being "late" with his announcement. If I had a nickel for every "it's about time" comment/meme/tweet/blog post I ran across last week, I would at least be able to take myself out to a nice dinner. Obama has been attacked from some parts of the Left for this being "too little, too late". Others inclined to agree with the President in a more charitable fashion simply said, "Yay! This is a big deal!" and were happy about it. I think both are, in an important way, wrong.

Ever since Teddy Roosevelt, we've become accustomed to Presidents using the office as the "Bully Pulpit" - a chance to preach to the masses. Whether this works or not is an empirical question; there's a lot of evidence to suggest that, especially on divisive issues of social policy where the parties have already taken sides, it doesn't move a lot of minds. But I think Presidents have the same free speech rights as the rest of us - if he wants to air his opinion, he's welcome to do so.

It's our reaction to those opinions that bothers me a bit. I don't mean whether we agree or disagree with them - Obama knew long before he opened his mouth who would agree and who would disagree, because the pollsters had already told him. What bothers me is the weight that we attach to these Presidential Pronouncements. The way this took over not only the media cycle (which corporations control) but the social media sphere (which we control) last week indicated that, whether you agreed or disagreed, everybody thought that the President's comments were a Really Big Deal.

And this is where we've got it backwards. If you want to live in a country where you wait for the Supreme Leader to issue an opinion, and then line up behind that, there are plenty of other places on earth. And for those on the Republican side thundering about Obama's "War on Marriage" - if you spend all that energy complaining about how government has become "too big and powerful", why are you lending his words the power of credibility? If you really thought that the government was "too much in Americans' lives," you wouldn't argue with him - you'd say (with some truth) that his opinion is largely irrelevant, and that the people themselves decide issues of this magnitude. The Right is feeding the power of the President even as they complain about it.

See, we've managed to reverse the horse and the cart in our democracy. Our "leaders" are leaders only insofar as they are supposed to understand, absorb, and reflect the will of the people. Yes, sometimes leaders can "lean forward" on particular issues - although the elected ones almost always do so only when they know which way the momentum is going. In this case, 20 years of polling data tell you all that you need to know - Americans are moving increasingly towards tolerance of same-sex relationships, including granting them the rights of marriage. What the Screaming Right is doing is fighting a rear-guard action which they have no hope of winning. Obama knows this, and so he's hardly sticking his neck out here.

Real "leadership" is in fact doing exactly this. Mitt Romney's claims to the contrary, the country doesn't need a CEO - somebody to boss us around and tell us what to do. We had a shot at that over 200 years ago when we tried to make George Washington king - which he wisely declined. What we need are leaders who can listen to us and help us have the conversations that we can't organize on our own. If gay marriage is eventually legalized across the country - as I suspect it will be - it won't be because this or any other President said so. It will be because we the American people said so, in sufficient numbers to lay real claim to being the Will of the People. If some churches or individuals don't want to recognize those marriages on moral or theological grounds, that will be their right - just as some (an increasingly dwindling number) have refused to recognize inter-racial marriages.

For all those who would criticize the President, therefore, I think we're missing the point. This isn't his call - and to his credit, he never said it was. This is our call. If a TV interview spurs the conversation among us ordinary Americans, then the President has done his job. But he - who has practically zero power to actually legalize or illegalize gay marriage - isn't the center here. We are. Maybe, even in an election year, we should pay less attention to what the President says and listen to each other a little more.