What’s Wrong with the World

The defendants' attorney, Jordan Lorence at ADF, says that of course a Christian widget-maker cannot fire an employee because he's gay.

Let's remember that (AFAIK) this is not _yet_ federal law but only state law. (I assume it is state law in the state in question in this case.) It's probably true that once you have homosexual anti-discrimination laws, you aren't going to be able to save the Christian, or just traditionally minded, marriage photographers on the grounds that this is a "different kind of business." Anti-discrimination laws are anti-discrimination laws. They will carry all before them. That's why we should fight these sorts of laws at the federal level tooth and nail, esp. if we're lucky enough to live in states that don't yet have them.

The NPR story says that a Christian school "has been sued for expelling two allegedly lesbian students." Anybody know anything more about this? I read a bit about the Yeshiva University case, and evidently they didn't try to raise their school's religious character as a defense in the case. Mind you, they shouldn't have had to. You shouldn't have to be a major religious organization to be able to act on your conscience in these matters. But if the other case is really about a _Christian school_, then I assume they _will_ raise their religious nature as an institution, which could make it a rather important test case. Meanwhile, of course, the mere individual doctors, photographers, businessmen, etc., will simply be cut down like field mice before a reaping machine.

Dale Carpenter has an interesting article over at Volokh going over some of the issues more technically. In short, a lot of claims didn't hinge on gay marriage itself but upon states and cities making sexual orientation a protected class in discrimination claims. Admittedly it isn't reassuring, but I think it is best to have one's gun aimed at the right target.

http://www.volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_06_15-2008_06_21.shtml#1213748649

Um, it's a heck of a lot easier to force a school with married student housing to allow homosexual couples to live there if they really do have a state marriage license than if they don't. Even the anti-discrimination statutes apply more directly in that case than where there is no category of state homosexual "marriage." This shouldn't be hard to understand. The New York courts that forced Yeshiva to house homosexual couples on the basis of non-discrimination statutes alone had to jump through quite a few hoops to do so. It would have been a knock-down if there had been homosexual marriage in N.Y. at that time and if those couple had had formal state marriage credentials.

I've skimmed over the Volokh post. Technically correct, though the marriage question is bringing the issue to the forefront. If I'm a photographer, and two men contract to have their little soiree with other friends memorialized - stipulating that it's merely a party and not something else - that's one thing; if two men express the demand that I memorialize their wedding, that's something else altogether. The legal claims will be pressed on antidiscrimination grounds, which are enough of a slough, but marriage will often be the trigger.

Lydia, I think that the Christian school to which the NPR article refers is California Lutheran High School. It's run by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, according to the following article:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/september/6.20.html

Looks like the school won in the end. The case started 2 years ago.

http://americansfortruth.com/news/judges-tosses-out-lesbian-lawsuit-against-christian-school.html

"And so it comes to pass that the old Soviet doctrine of religious liberty comes to America: we will be free to profess whatever creeds it so pleases us - between our ears, and no further."

Bingo. "You religious people are free to believe anything you want. Just keep your damn mouths shut about it or else."

All the more clear that we need a Constitutional Amendment protecting marriage. People in my state have been weighing a couple of different versions of state constitutional amendments, but I think that the net result, even if they push one through, will be moot. As soon as a case comes up, the Supreme Court will overturn the state amendment on the grounds of the "full faith & credit" clause of the federal Constitution, and that's that.

2 questions: Is there even a 10 % chance of getting a Fed. Constitutional amendment passed? 5%?

If not, is there significant gain IN OTHER ARENAS to a big hard push for a constitutional amendment? Either slowing down the creeping rot, or creating room for getting concessions from the rotters, or something?

On purely (and I do mean purely) prudential grounds, I recommend state amendments. I worry about what a federal amendment would be used to do. There is a sense in which writing an amendment to the federal Constitution is like handing the federal courts a blank sheet on which they will write whatever they like. One doesn't mean to do that, but it could come to that. For example, if a federal amendment doesn't prohibit civil unions, some crazy federal court could rule that that means states _must_ have civil unions, or recognize other states' civil unions. And so forth. In my own state, our state Supreme Court tends to be more disciplined as far as sticking to what laws and the state constitution actually mean rather than telling lies about them.

Politics and amendments, while necessary, are merely a defensive posture. Over the past thirty years, homosexual activists have been diligently working towards redirecting society. ...And they've been extremely successful. For example, two years ago I attended an Our True Colors conference and was overwhelmed, not only by the blatant perversity, but also by the extraordinary degree of organization that gay activism has achieved. Take a gander at the conference guide for an example of what they're teaching and who's funding and promoting homosexuality. They are everywhere, most especially in the public schools. They have the youth. If we win the political battle today, all they need do is wait another ten years or so.

Steve, yes I recognize that. But unless we simply throw in the towel, we have to ask what are the things we should be trying to do to halt the destruction. Obviously a Const. Amend. won't solve everything, but it might give us some breathing room while we work on other fronts.

Lydia, I think EVERY state constitutional amendment on the subject is going to fall before the Fed. Supreme Court if it rules that the full faith and credit clause trumps. I could even see a strict constructionist voting for such a result, more's the pity: It would be hard to see how even the Framers would have handled the issue under that clause without a possible conclusion that state A must recognize state B's marriages unless state B's marriages are in violation of some FEDERAL requirement.

Alternatively, go ahead and do state marriage constitutions, and get Congress to put the issue out of federal court jurisdiction. This would create (a) a legal mess of epic proportions, (imagine a suit in one state about employer benefits where the defendant is in another state but the "spouses" have moved to a third, or where they "live" in separate states for a time, or ...), and (b) would be at the whim of the next Congress with a different political bent.

I'm with you Tony. But I don't think that most appreciate what we're up against (my previous post. ) A US constitutional amendment is a very remote possibility, especially given the forthcoming political landscape and the demographics of the upcoming generation. Passing an amendment is a race against the clock imo. When I look into my crystal ball (Obama or McCain & a democratic congress) I see very little hope for its fulfillment. An amendment didn't even break ground under Bush with a republican congress. If it doesn't happen in the next ten years, or less, it aint gonna. Call me a pessimist. We shouldn't throw in the towel, but we need to look at the reality of the situation before we can implement a relevant, effective strategy.

This isn't so much a response to the OP as it is a thought about this subject in general. Aren't we seeing a logical outworking of popular ideas about human rights? John Rawls et al aside, does the phrase "human rights" evoke anything other than a sense of "social practices that support my happiness and self-esteem"?

I guess that's obvious enough, but here's the rub: both conservative Christians and gays are playing that game. Both groups are trying to claim their "rights." The problem for Christians is, the popular conception of rights is based around happiness. And who could oppose gay marriage, because it will make so many people so happy?

The moment a Christian starts trying to play this human rights game, at least outside a serious, well run court room, they'll lose. The generic idea of human rights is much more palatable than conscience and duty.

So maybe it is time for Christians to stop trying to play the rights game, and re-assert duty and perhaps civil disobedience?

In the very least, that would save me from a lifetime of articles by white middle class Christians whining about how persecuted they are.

There is some case authority that, even under the federal FFC clause, the forum state does not have to recognize the other state's acts, decrees, etc. that would violate the public policy of the forum state. However, we all know how the SCOTUS treats precedent that gets in the way of its legislating from the bench (eg, Lawrence).

Aren't we seeing a logical outworking of popular ideas about human rights?

Succinctly, yes. Though I'd argue that the logical outworkings are not transparent across the population; hence, that popularity must be qualified significantly, perhaps to operational insignificance. Most people, sensibly enough, not being ideologues and fanatics, don't entertain the notion that any given idea must be accorded its full logical expression; rather, any number of ideas and customs are mingled together and promiscuously interrelated, limiting and conditioning one another. I'll have to side with Chesterton in suggesting that only madmen hew to the singularity of some simple, clear idea, subordinating all else thereto.

John Rawls et al aside, does the phrase "human rights" evoke anything other than a sense of "social practices that support my happiness and self-esteem"?

Heh. Outside of the discourses of conservative philosophers, no, nothing much is evoked by the phrase beyond such solipsistic nonsense.

So maybe it is time for Christians to stop trying to play the rights game, and re-assert duty and perhaps civil disobedience?

My irony meter is clicking. In all seriousness, the rights game cannot be abandoned entirely, as even in natural law thought, rights are obverse duties, mainly. Yes, Christians should re-assert the primacy of duty. Again, the irony meter clicks: Christians lose when the play the rights game, since rights are no more than the social ratification of desire, but were Christians to play the duty card, they'd be greeted with looks of stupefied incomprehension, and then they'd lose.

In the very least, that would save me from a lifetime of articles by white middle class Christians whining about how persecuted they are.

It's not whining if you are being persecuted, is it? And if they're losing, their views progressively marginalized, that does qualify as some form of social persecution, no?

What is truly cloying is the whining of the 'sexual minorities', who wail as though the Inquisition were descending upon them, when they are winning handily. Nothing is more grating in its hauteur than a group of cultural aggressors portraying themselves as a weak and embattled band of victims. Cunning agitprop, though.

What is truly cloying is the whining of the 'sexual minorities', who wail as though the Inquisition were descending upon them, when they are winning handily. Nothing is more grating in its hauteur than a group of cultural aggressors portraying themselves as a weak and embattled band of victims. Cunning agitprop, though.

Diogenes at Catholic World News put it well that it is like "congratulating Godzilla for speaking truth to power."

It's not whining if you are being persecuted, is it? And if they're losing, their views progressively marginalized, that does qualify as some form of social persecution, no?

Amen, Maximos. And government persecution, too. It looks like Pastor Boissoin in Canada is going to refuse the Orwellian demand that he apologize for criticizing homosexuality in a letter to the editor of his local newspaper. He could end up in jail. The Minnesota (I believe it is) wedding photographer is going to be fined. Suppose Christian universities are ordered to give married housing to homosexual couples and have to close as a result? Shutting down Christian higher education or requiring them to set up shack-up places for homosexual couples isn't persecution? "Whining" is one of those words liberals and other bullies use when they want to go on bullying and don't like it when people object.

By the by, I don't think the FFC clause actually would require recognition of homosexual "marriage" unless it cd. also be used to require recognition of "marriage" to animals or of a man to a table, an adoption document declaring that a child had been "adopted" by a chimpanzee, a computer, or an automobile, and so forth. There obviously has to come a point at which even though the documents in different states have the same name--"marriage license," "adoption certificate," or what have you--they are not actually talking about anything remotely like the same thing, and hence a state in refusing to recognize the piece of paper from the other state is not violating the full faith and credit clause when this is known to be the case. I think an originalist would recognize this as an implicit background assumption of the FFC.

Lydia, that might work...until one reads Kennedy's idiotic assertion in Planned Parenthood vs Casey. Fortunately, we seem to be moving a little less wholeheartedly in that incredible direction. At the moment.

The progression will be:
homosexual marriage
polygamy (any takers that it will remain illegal in all 50 states for 20 years?)
polyandry
line marriage - multiple husbands and wives
marriage with minors
marriage with animals
marriage with objects
marriage with imponderables - if society still exists.

Maybe we should do away with marriage as a legal class altogether, and force the legislature to define EACH benefit going to EACH class it wants to recognize for benefit. So, you could have one class recognized as "emergency contact", another as "default child care agent", another as "financial back-up", and another as "medical agent" etc. Then a person would be responsible for registering his choice for each of these with the state.

Oh, I didn't mean to express any faith in Kennedy (of which I have none, except faith that he will almost always do the wrong thing with the power of his position) by my comments about the FFC clause. I meant only to express my opinions about the actual meaning of the text and, more importantly, what it does not mean.

Oh, sorry. Yes, I agree that the text should be read that way, but I think that it WON'T be read that way, even by some of those usually on the right side of SCOTUS votes. For example, Scalia is more than a bit of a formalist - you follow the external form of the law, and to hell with whether, how, or how much that conflicts with the entire underpinning substructure of content that was assumed by those framing the law.

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration of Scalia's position, though I know that's how he's sometimes viewed. It would be interesting to ask him what his opinion is of the FFC clause and how it relates to homosexual "marriage."

Oh, my response wasn't ironic. I have no problem with a Christian pharmacist refusing to dispense the morning after pill, for example.

In all seriousness, the rights game cannot be abandoned entirely, as even in natural law thought, rights are obverse duties, mainly. Yes, Christians should re-assert the primacy of duty. Again, the irony meter clicks: Christians lose when the play the rights game, since rights are no more than the social ratification of desire, but were Christians to play the duty card, they'd be greeted with looks of stupefied incomprehension, and then they'd lose.

Perhaps I was too dismissive of the concept of rights, but the term itself has become so over-determined that I think it is a little too optimistic to think we can extricate it from solipsistic defenses against suffering. I don't know how to use the term without the usual sentimental humanist overtones.

And yes, Christians might "lose" if they play the duty card... my answer to this, and I won't present an argument for the idea now, is that Christians and radical lefties need to be friends. Anyone asserting the concept of duty will lose because the social background of our lives is all about marketing, profit and comfort - and I really do think that everything that goes by the name "conservatism" is hopelessly attached to the very cultural forces that devalue duty. Yeah, I'll say it: conservatives are (incomplete) nihilists.

It's not whining if you are being persecuted, is it? And if they're losing, their views progressively marginalized, that does qualify as some form of social persecution, no?

I've already partially explained why I dismiss conservative complaints as whining. I think conservatives are staunch defenders of the very order that produces this "persecution," and in other contexts, are the people that benefit the most from this order. Hence my "white, middle class" qualification.

Combine that with the victim-status that so many on both the left and the right constantly seek to assert, and you see where my contempt comes from.

I cannot for the life of me see how any broad, general ideas about how conservatives benefit from X and "defend the order that produces" Y give anyone a right to have "contempt" for a Lutheran school that is sued for kicking out girls who post pictures of themselves on Myspace engaging in same-sex behavior. Or for Pastor Boissoin who is being fined for criticizing homosexuality in a letter to the editor of a newspaper. You get to have "contempt" for people who *obviously are being persecuted for upholding their religious standards and/or criticizing homosexuality* because you can go off on some tangent about how maybe they believe in some notion of "rights" that could be regarded as liberal and maybe they are white and benefit from "the system"? I guess, only if you're a postmodernist. So why do I bother pointing out how contemptible such contempt is? I guess because someone who brags about having "contempt" for people who are persecuted for doing these things, and who have the gall to say that they should not be treated in this fashion, makes me really angry.

This link is a response to Steve Burton's comment that got sent down the memory hole, but it is relevant here as well.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070320000151/rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2007/03/the_evolution_o.html

Great post of Ed Feser's, Step2. Thanks for reminding us of it and finding the link. Look at this bit:

wouldn’t be surprised if mainstream American liberals start calling in five or ten years for restrictions on the rights of religious organizations to “discriminate” in hiring practices or publicly to teach doctrines that might be offensive to “sexual minorities.”

Five or ten years.

The stages are getting shorter.

**I really do think that everything that goes by the name "conservatism" is hopelessly attached to the very cultural forces that devalue duty. Yeah, I'll say it: conservatives are (incomplete) nihilists.**

This makes me wonder, Mike, exactly which 'conservatives' you are reading or listening to. I certainly don't get anything like that sense from the folks I read.

if mainstream American liberals start calling in five or ten years for restrictions on the rights of religious organizations

Boy, are you optimistic. There are so many ways in which we have inched closer to just that, that it is really only a small hop into widespread direct laws about the matter. CA already passed a law requiring all employer health insurance pay for artificial contraceptives - including religious organizations opposed on moral and faith grounds. More than one state has tried or is trying to force Catholic hospitals to allow abortions. More than one state is trying to force pharmacists to dispense contraceptives and the "morning-after" pill against their religious beliefs. Many a school has condemned children who try to put their Christian faith on their sleeve (like a picture of Christ on their T-shirt), when they would not THINK of doing the same to a child with a picture of Buddha.

The persecution is already there - it is not widespread and afflicting major components of our lives - unless you happen to be a pharmacist or run a Catholic hospital.

"Many a school has condemned children who try to put their Christian faith on their sleeve (like a picture of Christ on their T-shirt)..."

Actually, there are Christians who oppose such things as well, as illustrated in the MSNBC news article below.

LINK:
Lawsuit filed over 'I Believe' plates in S.C.: Members claim the state's new license plate design advocates Christianity

Excerpt:

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A group that advocates separation of church and state filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to prevent South Carolina from becoming the first state to create "I Believe" license plates.

The group contends that South Carolina's government is endorsing Christianity by allowing the plates, which would include a cross superimposed on a stained glass window.

Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Christian pastors, a humanist pastor and a rabbi in South Carolina, along with the Hindu American Foundation.

Tony, that was my point. I was quoting from a post by a colleague of mine, Ed Feser, at a now-defunct blog, Right Reason. Step2 gave us the link. It must have been put up more than a year ago (I didn't get the date while I was at the link), and that was what he said. I was noting that it's much faster than that.

I cannot for the life of me see how any broad, general ideas about how conservatives benefit from X and "defend the order that produces" Y give anyone a right to have "contempt" for a Lutheran school that is sued for kicking out girls who post pictures of themselves on Myspace engaging in same-sex behavior. Or for Pastor Boissoin who is being fined for criticizing homosexuality in a letter to the editor of a newspaper. You get to have "contempt" for people who *obviously are being persecuted for upholding their religious standards and/or criticizing homosexuality* because you can go off on some tangent about how maybe they believe in some notion of "rights" that could be regarded as liberal and maybe they are white and benefit from "the system"? I guess, only if you're a postmodernist. So why do I bother pointing out how contemptible such contempt is? I guess because someone who brags about having "contempt" for people who are persecuted for doing these things, and who have the gall to say that they should not be treated in this fashion, makes me really angry.

Lydia, I really would have thought that my statement about pharmacists and the morning after pill would give you an idea of how I'd react to many of these circumstances. I mean, really. Try reading in good faith sometime.

This makes me wonder, Mike, exactly which 'conservatives' you are reading or listening to. I certainly don't get anything like that sense from the folks I read.

A very fair question, one that needs to be answered with a list of links and quotes. I hope you'll understand when I say I'm not invested enough in this conversation to put an hour's worth of research into it, though. But I'll ask this: would you agree that it is a common conservative idea to equate creativity and entrepreneurship with the free market, "free market" now inevitably meaning global corporations?

My answer is inadequate, but I'm off to attend a wedding.

Oh, I see, so these people _do_ get to object strenuously to their treatment, as do the rest of us when discussing it, without its being called "whining"? Yes, indeed, that was unclear.

The Mighty Maximos: "And so it comes to pass that the old Soviet doctrine of religious liberty comes to America: we will be free to profess whatever creeds it so pleases us - between our ears, and no further."

And I guess any violators will be sent to the "re-education camps" somewhere in North Dakota.

Anyhow, It might be a good idea to start studying closely what happened to xtians in the old Soviet Union and how they responded to their situation, for it might provided valuable clues on how to proceed and knowledge about what to avoid.

"These cretins need to get their agitprop straight. Is behaviour ontology, or is it an act of self-creation, a discovery by the individual of his own private meaning of the mystery of existence? It cannot be both"

Perhaps you are being deliberately ironic here, with that "straight agitprop" line, but I'd like to point out that eschewing the principle of non-contradiction can be very advantageous in effecting cultural change.

While irrationality only perplexes the logical, rhetoric isn't supposed to appeal to one's rational opponents but rather to the easily swayed. As Chesterton held the madman to move all the faster because his rationality was unimpeded by any other human characteristics, in our stultified and emotive culture those who reject the requirements of rational argument have an advantage over those who do not.

Some schools of logic hold that from a contradiction, anything follows. Perhaps absurdity is a perpetual motion power source.

Which leads us to this conundrum: it may be wisest to use irrational rhetoric-loaded demagoguery to sway people emotionally toward USING THEIR REASON instead of blindly following whoever has the nicest sounding words.

I think I just swallowed my tongue.

Oh, I see, so these people _do_ get to object strenuously to their treatment, as do the rest of us when discussing it, without its being called "whining"? Yes, indeed, that was unclear.

That isn't what I said.

Sigh. So we're back to their not being allowed to object without its being called "whining"? Then we're back to my having contempt for your contempt. What a shame.