Monday, November 14, 2011

Why I get a nagging feeling every time I hear the phrase 'religious liberty'

Those who are my friends know that I am a serious fan of the 1970s detective drama Columbo. The thing I really loved about this show was the fact of how the character of police detective Columbo never considered a murder case completely simple. He never bought into the idea of an "open-and-shut" case if he had a nagging feeling, no matter how insignificant it was.

That nagging feeling is what I get when I hear about  marriage clerks, hotel owners, Catholic adoption agencies, and recently - cake bakers who refuse to serve gay couples. No doubt you have heard about them and will probably hear a lot more as religious right groups trying to hinder marriage equality will canonize these folks as "saints and martyrs" besieged by so-called radical gay activists supposedly trying to force them choose between their livelihood and religious freedom.

In fact they have a term for this sort of thing. They call it "religious liberty."

There is a certain simplicity to these cases which garners them a degree of support. Some of these folks (excluding Catholic charities who have no right to taxpayer money to discriminate and marriage clerks who should put the needs of constituents over their own desires) seems to have a right to serve whomever they wish. And one could even make the case that they are in fact forced to choose between their livelihoods and their "religious liberty."

But then there goes that nagging feeling again. These cases aren't as simple as they are made out. What about the rights of couples refused service? No matter how you attempt to soften the blow, the idea that someone will  not serve you because of how they inaccurately view you still hurts. It's dehumanizing, it's cruel, and it's embarrassing.

In a recent situation in Iowa, a cake baker scheduled an appointment with a lesbian couple who desired her services only to use that time to not only tell them no, but also to criticize their sexual orientation.

Then that same cake baker made several news appearances to decry about how she was victim, backed by several religious right groups spinning the same talking points.

And I haven't even talked about what message of "I will not serve you" would send to a child in a same-sex family who may be present at the time. Nor have I mentioned the unnecessary inconvenience same-sex couples will have to endure if they live in an area where the so-called religious martyr is the only one who can address their needs.

Then you have to consider just how will gay couples tell just who will or won't serve them. How would they be able to tell without the courtesy of signs saying "we don't serve gays." Of course if such signs did exist, I'm sure those who put them up wouldn't think that they were being cruel. Just like folks who put up "No Irish Need Apply" signs didn't think they were being cruel.

And then you have to ask yourself just far will those the argument of "religious liberty" go? Today it's hotels and cake shops. Tomorrow it may be restaurants or apartment rentals.

So I almost understand the argument of "religious liberty."  But then comes that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that just won't go away - the feeling that "religious liberty" is just another way of saying "allowed discrimination" and that some folks will use the phrase of "religious liberty" to deflect attention from the victims of this "allowed discrimination."

 Lastly, the thing that bothers me the most is the sad fact that the phrase "religious liberty"  has less to do with religion or liberty and more to do with telling gay couples that they are inferior.



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7 comments:

  1. Alvin, I would actually cherish the day when so-called "Christians" put up signs insisting that "Gays need not inquire"! How, then, could NOM and other such groups, or society as a whole possibly insist that this is not bald-faced discrimination? Of course, as far as I am aware, back in a Yale debate with Andrew Sullivan, Maggie declared that it was "impossible" to discriminate against Gay people? Why? I didn't catch the reason, if she even gave one. However, over the years, reps. from NOM (particularly Maggie and Brian Browne) have equally insisted that anything less than full, civil discrimination against Gay people in terms of housing, employment, medical care, or goods and services (Brian even admitted this on MSNBC this year!!!) was a loss of their so-called "religious liberties".

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  2. Heck, part of Maggie and NOM's "marriage message" or "marriage culture" may very well be that Gay people and our relationships *are* inferior....I seem to recall than in NOM's early history they were asked to appear at various Congressional hearing in which they stated that Gay people couldn't feel the love for their spouse to the same extent as a man did for his wife!

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  3. Anonymous5:17 PM

    I just posted a comment today that broached this subject. Exactly where does this "religious liberty" end? Can the religious owner of a gas station tell a gay couple that he doesn't approve of their lifestyle, and demand that they find another place to find gas? Can a religious clerk at McDonald's ask a gay couple to go to another clerk, because they disapprove of homosexuality? How about a Christian emergency room doctor? Can they refuse a gay patient using a religious liberty clause? Who knows?

    The fact that religious people CHOOSE to be religious, and because of that choice they get a free-pass to discriminate against other American citizens is repugnant. THAT'S the nagging feeling I get when I hear these stories.

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  4. Reminds me of this,

    The Ultimate Association: Same-Sex Marriage
    and the Battle Against Jim Crow’s
    Other Cousin
    BRYAN K. FAIR

    http://www.law.miami.edu/studentorg/miami_law_review/issue_archive/pdf/vol63no1/MIA106.pdf

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  5. Sadly, the Religious Right uses the term "religious liberty" as code for "being able to say homophobic crap with impunity."

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  6. Anonymous7:38 PM

    You get a "nagging feeling," Alvin, because a sign reading "Straights Only" is but one word off from a sign reading:

    "Whites Only."

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  7. Using "religious liberty" to justify discrimination against GLBTQ people inverts the classic test of an allowed exercise of liberty, as "your liberty to swing your fist around wildly in space ends an inch before my nose begins" becomes "my liberty to swing my fist around wildly in space is infringed by your nose being present."

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