What Can Be Done? (Free To Believe: The Battle Over Religious Liberty In America - Part 3/3)

Luke Goodrich works for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He's won multiple Supreme Court victories for religious freedom. He has appeared on Fox, CNN, ABC, NPR, and been in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Time Magazine. He's also an adjunct professor at the University of Utah law school where he teaches constitutional law.

I am summarizing his important and timely book in three installments that match the three sections of his book:

1) What Is Religious Freedom (read it here)
2) What Are The Most Serious Threats (read it here)
3) What Can Be Done? (the subject of this post)

What I blog is a mix of direct quotes and paraphrases from his writing. I will try to note where I am stepping out of the book and offering my own commentary.

What Are The Most Serious Threats? (Free To Believe: The Battle Over Religious Liberty In America - Part 2/3)

Luke Goodrich works for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He's won multiple Supreme Court victories for religious freedom. He has appeared on Fox, CNN, ABC, NPR, and been in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Time Magazine. He's also an adjunct professor at the University of Utah law school where he teaches constitutional law.

I suspect he will also surprise - and challenge - both liberals and conservatives on the issue of religious freedom. While it's written broadly for people of faith and specifically for Christians, I think it also offers great food for thought for those who are not religious.

I have already begun to blog a review/overview of his book in three installments that will match the three sections of his book:

1) What Is Religious Freedom (read it here)
2) What Are The Most Serious Threats (the subject of this post)
3) What Can Be Done?

What I blog will be a mix of direct quotes and paraphrases from his writing. I will try to note where I am stepping out of the book and offering my own commentary.

* * * * *

Let Them Bake Cake (4/4): Third Unresolved Question

In the first post in this series, I offered an overview of the Supreme Court's ruling on Masterpiece bakery and its implications (or lack thereof).

In Part Two, I addressed the first of some unresolved questions that are sure to be hotly contested.

Part Three dealt almost entirely with the unresolved questions swirling around the political or legal side of the issue. 

Part Four will address this unresolved question: Is the argument of those who decline to participate for religious reasons a biblically solid argument? Are they actually complicit in sin by offering material aid to an event which they believe promotes and celebrates a moral ethic to which they are opposed?

I offer my thoughts not as a definitive answer, but as a reflection of where I am on this issue based on a lot of reading I have done and conversations I have had with other Christians who are at times significantly at odds with each other on how to respond. I welcome thoughtful critiques.

Let Them Bake Cake (Part 3/4): The Second Unresolved Question

In the first post in this series, I offered an overview of the Supreme Court's ruling on Masterpiece bakery and its implications (or lack thereof).

In Part Two, I addressed the first of some unresolved questions that are sure to be hotly contested.

Part Three is going to deal almost entirely with the political or legal side of the issue. I am saving my perspective on what I believe Christians need to consider individually in spite of whatever law is finally enacted for a following post.

* * * * *

SECOND UNRESOLVED QUESTION (with a bunch of subcategories):

Is art speech? Is baking art, and therefore speech? (A group of bakers with a neutral position on the case itself filed an amicus brief claiming it is.) And if baking a cake is speech, is forcing a baker to bake a cake they believe communicates a message they don't wish to communicate the same as forcing someone to say something not only against their will but in opposition to their conscience? 

We sometimes say, "You can't say that!" ("Fire!" in a crowded theater; slander; language that incites violence that is "intended, likely and imminent"; the betrayal of state secrets). But what if the government moves from rules that prohibit certain kinds of speech to rules that compel certain kinds of speech?

We don't want the government to tell us if we can or can't kneel for the national anthem and we don't want the President-elect to insist that singers must sing for his inauguration, yet these are far more obvious examples of speech (or at least expression). Shoot, fashion designers refused to custom make clothing for the Trumps, and nobody complained. Clearly we don't have a problem with businesses withholding goods or services in certain cases when they feel their involvement express an alignment (at least when the cause is one with which we agree).

Speaking of how causes can change perspective, let's compare what Arizona decided should happen in two cases involving expression: a tattooing case vs. a calligraphy case:

Let Them Bake Cake (Part 2/4): The First Unresolved Question

In the first post in this series, I offered an overview of the ruling and its implications (or lack thereof).

In Part Two, I will begin addressing some unresolved questions that are sure to be hotly contested. 

* * * * *

FIRST UNRESOLVED QUESTION

Is there a cogent argument that separates discrimination against people vs. discrimination against events or actions? In other words, can we treat someone fairly irregardless of their identity while drawing the lines at participating in certain activities?

Jack Phillips sold his goods to gay people all the time. In fact, he offered the couple in question an over-the-counter cake. It wasn't that he didn't want to offer his goods and services to them or to other gay people in general. He simply did not want to make a custom cake for a same-sex wedding in particular, since he believed that would make him complicit in the endorsement or celebration of a particular event to which he objected on moral grounds for religious reasons.

As best I can tell, this has been the case in every court battle I've seen on this issue. The business owners have had regular gay clientele, and many have had gay employees. One florist had served a gay client for ten years without incident until she refused to do a same-sex ceremony. Clearly, the fact that someone was gay did not dissuade them from hiring them, selling them goods, and being friends. It was the particular event that tripped them up.

Phillips is not even denying them the right to use goods he has already made for general public consumption. He is not asking his clients to agree with him about what marriage is or is not. He is, however, committed to using his artistic talents (a form of speech, more on that later) to make custom cakes that only participate in a marriage ceremony he believes is symbolically meaningful and inherently religious, even if the clients do not.

So, is there a way that 'agreeing to disagree' is even possible in this scenario?

HHS and Kosher Delis

Interesting article about the intersection between religious freedom and personal ethical standards.  In the fictional story of "The Parable of the Kosher Deli," William Lori uses a less volatile example to highlight the dilemma of the government mandating exemptions from the dictates of conscience.  His ideal conclusion:

     The government recognized that it is absurd for someone to come into a kosher deli and demand a ham sandwich; that it is beyond absurd for that private demand to be backed with the coercive power of the state; that it is downright surreal to apply this coercive power when the customer can get the same sandwich cheaply, or even free, just a few doors down. The question before the United States government — right now — is whether the story of our own church institutions that serve the public, and that are threatened by the HHS mandate, will end happily too.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-parable-of-the-kosher-deli/#ixzz1ma3puZsu