The news is full of debate around Indiana’s new law, the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, which many say would allow outright discrimination against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) individuals. Just like last year’s Supreme Court decision that allowed Hobby Lobby to deny birth control coverage to its employees on religious grounds, this newly passed law represents a growing movement among cultural conservatives to preserve their freedom to non-cooperation with government policies that offend their religious sensibilities.
After all, they argue, if a family business objects to contraception on religious grounds, isn’t it a violation of the First Amendment to force them to pay for it? If a pharmacist believes that a certain prescription medication is immoral, does she have an obligation to fill it? If a hotel owner believes that same-sex relationships are wrong, should he be forced to provide a room to a gay married couple?
At first glance, these may seem like thoughtful concerns about the meaning of our constitutional society. But dig a little bit deeper, and it’s apparent that those who are insisting on a religious exemption to discriminate are asking for extraordinary privileges for themselves.
Just ask any pacifist.
As a Quaker, I know this struggle well. My church, my family, my whole religious tradition abhors violence. We deny the utility and morality of the military-industrial complex. It is a deeply painful thing for us, and for many other peaceful people, to see a huge portion of our federal income taxes go to pay for war-making. Our religious freedom is denied every time one of our young men is forced to register with the federal government for possible military conscription.
Yet, for as long as the United States has existed, those in power have determined that religious dissenters like me and my community don’t have a right to redirect our tax dollars to nonmilitary spending. We also don’t have the right to refuse to register for the draft. We don’t have a special exemption to block the trains carrying nuclear materials, or stand in the way of bombers intended to kill thousands in our name.
Don’t get me wrong, some of us do resist. My dad, for example, is a war tax resistor. He politely informs the IRS each year that he’s withholding the portion of his federal income tax that would be used for military expenditures. And, every once in a while, the IRS comes and removes the money from his bank account anyway, along with interest and fines for noncompliance. My dad gets off relatively easy, because his form of resistance does not carry criminal penalties, so long as he is open and honest about what he is doing.
Some of my nonviolent brothers and sisters go even farther. Like the Plowshares Movement, who take direct action to resist the blasphemous nuclear arsenal that presently stands poised to destroy all life as we know it. Steeped in a deeply held Christian commitment to peace, Plowshares members stage symbolic protests that sometimes damage government property, such as long-range nuclear bombers and missiles. These bold witnesses often spend many years in prison for their conscience.
Contrast this with the folks who want religious freedom to refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, or to deny their employees insurance to purchase legally available birth control. Are there some very real, deeply felt religious beliefs behind these requests? Sure. But how deep do these convictions run? Are they worth sacrificing for?
As Annalee Flower Horne pointed out a couple years ago, a distinguishing characteristic of a true religious concern is a willingness to pay a price in order to be faithful. Real religious freedom comes from within – it’s founded on the willingness to pay a real, personal price to uphold that freedom.
So I have this question for my fellow Christians who want the government to uphold their right to discriminate against LGBT people: What is your religious freedom worth to you? If you really think that the cause of the gospel is best served by refusing hospitality to those you disagree with (I’d love a Scripture reference on this, by the way), how far are you willing to go? Are you willing to suffer for your conviction, as so many of our war-resisting brothers and sisters have for centuries?
I believe that your answer to this question will clarify a lot. If you are willing to suffer for these beliefs, then you don’t need the government’s permission. Go ahead and discriminate, and then face the consequences. If you’re standing in truth, that’s what matters.
But if you aren’t willing to suffer for your faith, that says something, too. It tells me that you don’t really have convictions, you have opinions. You’d be willing to go to jail rather than renounce your faith in Jesus, right? You’d be willing to face a government fine if it meant you didn’t have to murder someone, wouldn’t you? So why do you need government permission to refuse service to LGBT people? Why do you need the state to uphold and defend your religious ideology?
Here’s a question for all of us: Whether religious or not, what are your most deeply held convictions – and what price would you pay to live them out?
You don’t have to go much further than Matthew 25:35. This could be the basis for the common law on innkeepers. In this land of plenty with a pizza parlor in every shopping center we forget that traveling used to be a very dangerous business. Check out John Wayne movies for a reference to travel in our country for the pioneers heading West. Innkeepers historically have been held to a much higher standard than the average person because of the crucial role they played in providing for strangers. Today’s innkeepers are not just Marriot, Hilton and Holiday Inns but Red Lobster, Bakeries and Pizza parlors. If you don’t want to feed the hungry don’t become an innkeeper. There are a lot of things I believe are bad for my relationship with God. A lot of things that would have me walk to close to the edge where the light meets the dark. I make a conscious effort not to engage in those activities. Are they bad activities in themselves? I don’t think so but they are for stronger men than myself. Has this cost me money and income? Definitely! Bit if this world is not our home and we are just passing through what difference does it make?
Thanks, Jim. I think that’s a helpful perspective.
I don’t know what price I would be prepared to pay … certainly nothing on the level of Abraham or Jesus … well, perhaps under duress. What I think is important is trying not to be prejudiced in thought or discriminatory in deed having tried to recognise your own failings. Mutual repentance and forgiveness, as an Eastern Orthodox service I once listened to had as its theme, is the answer as far as I can see. How does something so simple become so complicated though?
Your dad sounds REALLY cool by the way!
Oh and do they have a Rastafarian community in Indiana?
Thanks, Duncan.
I don’t know if there is a Rastafarian community in Indiana, but they certainly don’t get a religious exemption for their faith, do they?
Ha ha I don’t know!?
Nicely done, Micah. You clarified an issue I’ve been trying to figure out – how do you determine deeply held beliefs versus those things that could be claimed to be deep beliefs but are spurious. I think most of us have a sense of the things that are in the realm of true religious issues – birth control versus a claim to God-given parking spaces – but looking at it from an outcome perspective gives some additional clarity – well done.
One of the things I don’t think the Progressive side of the house does a good enough job of is making statements through the market – voting with dollars. One reason for that is we are unaware who is behind what – pick up a rock in the business world and you’ll often see “property of the Koch Brothers” – but it is obscured, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. While I absolutely agree that there shouldn’t be an exemption for a florist or baker, etc., part of me says “let the dollars speak” – don’t use those businesses, and make sure everyone you can know why the shouldn’t patronize them, either. It may be we generally underestimate the effectiveness of this, but it is the language that business understands best.
Hey, thanks, Jeffrey.
I agree that “voting with our dollars” is one strategy that can be employed when working for social change. However, I’m cautious about looking to financial action as one of our primary tools, since some of us have a lot more dollars than others, which makes the capitalist system profoundly undemocratic.
While I’m glad that Indiana’s state government seems to be backpedaling at this point, it doesn’t comfort me much that this change came primarily because very wealthy people and business leaders raised their voices. This is a great contrast to the situation of many oppressed groups in the US, and around the world, who do not have the privilege of voting with dollars.
I question religious objection vs moral objection, vs just plain ignorance. The store owners who refuse services to the lgbt community supposedly because they are Christian. Would they refuse services to atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Buddhists, etc?