RFRA in Indiana

[lamar1234]

In the Time magazine article about the Indiana law the question ‘Are these laws necessary?’ was posed to at least two people, one who responded ‘Yes’ and one who said ‘No.’

The ‘Yes we need laws allowing religious people to discriminate against other people on religious grounds’ response was penned by a man named Rod Dreher. I don’t see anywhere if Mr. Dreher is an academic, lawyer, politician, theologian, but he took up the pen in the defense of religion and the religious and I applaud him for doing so. Taking up the pen is certainly a more reasonable response than the machete, gun or suicide vest.

He makes many points in his essay, some of them valid, but a few he wrote were certainly worthy of a word or two between friends.

He acknowledged that the supporters and the very beneficiaries of this Bill were a minority in American and Indianan (Is that right?) society. He writes in the April 13, 2015 Time magazine on page 32 “We may be wrong. But the Constitution gives us the right to be wrong. It is a right so precious it was guaranteed in the First Amendment, alongside free speech.�

Let’s make sure we agree on what we’re talking about, ok.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.[1]

I DO see a relevant passage to this debate in the 1st Amendment, but I don’t see anything explicitly about the right to be wrong. It surely is implied when we grant citizens free speech. As soon as someone, anyone exercises this right and speaks they’re wrong, well, excepting someone who presupposes they’re right.

Now, what I think he’s talking about is not freedom of speech, I think he means the ‘…or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.� Once again, though, nowhere in this or any other part is there anything about being wrong. It’s up to us, then, to see if we can come up with what Rod was saying. I’ll offer a suggestion. Rod was saying that the value and importance of religion couldn’t be measured by the same standards as, say, scientific advances. Whether a religion is right or wrong about a fact or belief or tenet isn’t the most important issue. I’d assume he believes that the value of religion, the good things that religion does in and to a society outweigh those concerns.

So, Rod’s notion, then, is that it is one of the many duties of the Federal Government to ensure people’s right to be ‘wrong.’ That’s a pretty profound statement. Lots of consequences there.

So, you wake up tomorrow as the head of the new Federal Agency ensuring and protecting American’s right to be wrong.

What would the agenda be? Would it be prudent to start with defining the word ‘wrong’ in this case? Might be where I’d start.

Where does someone’s right to be wrong end? If someone sat on the Mall in Washington and began to consume can after can of lead paint, where would the Agency’s stand on that be? Would it matter if that person claimed it wasn’t just his Civil Right to be wrong but he was exercising his religious freedom to be wrong? You good with that?

Later in the article he writes that anti-gay principles were nearly universal a generation ago.

He closes with “An America where the majority casts aside religious liberty and treats orthodox Christians as outcasts, as gays were once wrongly treated, is an America in which it is hard to have faith.�

Nice double entendre, no?

What made treating gays like outcasts wrong, though? Weren’t the people who were promoting the idea of gays as deserving outcast status predominantly religious? He’s acknowledging that the ‘other’ side has won this battle in the culture war, as he calls it.

He’s admonishing the victors to treat the vanquished gently. Now, I love me some irony. He’s asking, essentially I think, the gays and gay supporters to treat the Christians in a Christian manner, no? Is that a reasonable interpretation?

If it is, he seems, to me, to be forgetting that it was, predominantly, the Christians who made being gay so difficult in the first place.

So, what if they do, though, is a much more interesting philosophical question? What if the ‘gays’ do treat the Christians as Christ admonished his followers to treat people? What if they, and I say this with a straight face, turn the other cheek to the Christians?

What would it say, then, about the values different segments of society hold? When the Christians held the majority, they persecuted homosexuals. Now, the homosexuals and those supporters of their causes seem to have the majority. Please tell me why an eye for an eye shouldn’t apply?

I truly don’t believe it will, though.

We can wait and see but I’m willing to bet now that the homosexual portion of Indiana won’t make life anywhere near as difficult for the Christians today than it was for them for most of the History of the US.

I don’t think a single Christian will be chemically castrated as Alan Turing was, I don’t think they’ll be put in stocks or pilloried, a Christian who refused service to a gay couple for religious reasons might have their business picketed but would anyone find fault with a different group exercising their right to peacefully assemble or voice their opinions?

What will it mean, though, if the orthodox Christian minority is treated tenderly by the secular, gay-loving majority? Were that to happen, in such a way that any reasonable person would agree that the victors had not gotten spoiled, will it change opinions about homosexual people? I’m NOT asking if opinion on homosexualITY, the act, would change but I'm asking about people's assessment of the people that happen to be homosexual or homosexual-supporting?

We all know that even with very carefully selected language, the possibility for abuse will be enormous and the practical considerations vast.

Who wants to sit on a panel to decide what is or isn't a sincerely held belief?

I'd love to read the minutes but will pass.

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 1 by lamar1234]



A lot to take in here and I think it is best summed up at the end about deciding what is and isn't a deeply held religious belief. Another problem that occurs to me is this silences victims. It doesn't protect anyone's belief in any meaningful way it merely prevents those that have been victimized from taking legal recourse.

[lamar1234]

[Replying to DanieltheDragon]

Do you, my friend, think that the gay and gay-supportive majority of Indiana will use their political supremacy to seek revenge?

[Hamsaka]

[Replying to post 1 by lamar1234]

Over all, a very interesting post.

In my limited understanding of all the ramifications of the First Amendment upon religious freedom and freedom from religion, the government refuses to take any stance at all about determining the sincerity of a person's beliefs. As far as I understand it, the person is considered to be exactly as sincere as they claim to be, by law.

And that seems fair.

In reading up on the Hobby Lobby/ACA contraception lawsuit, there was a lot of statements made to this effect. Religious sincerity and 'conscience' was the central issue, but that sincerity shouldn't be objectively qualified (and couldn't be, I don't think).

Any such new committee would have to define what an insincerely held belief was, for contrast. This would be their first feat of intelligence.

And I too see a slippery slope of misuse and all that, and wouldn't want to touch any of it with a ten foot pole .

I thought the Yelp comments made to Memories Pizza were remarkably restrained (the ones I read in the first several days). Not made in great taste, but considering all of the homosexuals murdered in the name of some god, we are looking at the results, via behavior, and can compare them. Unless homosexuals have been murdering Christians since the last time I checked the news, the 'moral sense' of the homosexual-and-their-supporters community has a leg up on some Christians.

[lamar1234]

[Replying to Hamsaka]

Yes but does it not logically follow that determining the origin of someone's action in this case is essential?

I don't know where this will go, but let's play it out.

You're an Indiana Police Officer and you drive up on a scene where a woman has a minor flesh wound, a knife is on the ground and there's a man looking upset and agitated being restrained by a group of civilians.

It turns out that the woman claims to be a follower of Wicca and refers to herself as a witch and she got into some argument with the gentleman that you can't quite puzzle out who started it but the man is now claiming that his religion states rather clearly "Suffer not a witch to live."

If he stabbed her just because he was being a jerk, then you can charge him, rather obviously, with Assault, possibly with a deadly weapon.

If he claims, however, that he's exercising his religious freedom....... well, what are you going to do?

Now, the legal eagles here can jump on this and say "Oh no! Someone's religious freedom, like my right to swing my fist, stops just short of someone else's nose."

I won't disagree but don't all religions have tenets in them that, if followed, would definitely trample on other's life, liberty or property?

Who would be comfortable saying that a secular Agency should be tasked with going through every religious foundational text to see which religious proscriptions adherents can and can't follow in Civil Society or which of these proscriptions must be followed versus which are optional or are not so important?

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to DanieltheDragon]

Do you, my friend, think that the gay and gay-supportive majority of Indiana will use their political supremacy to seek revenge?

I have no idea of the thoughts or intentions of others, history however has shown that Christians have not been denied service or any rights under the law. In areas of the US where the gay populations are the highest there has been no reported discrimination of services or rights towards Christians.

So the evidence indicates this is unlikely.

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 5 by lamar1234]

I think the best analogy to the case you presented is this:

The public and private sphere of the US is like a sand box. The justice and legal system are like parents in the sand box. We are the children. The parents state you can make believe anything you want but you are not allowed to steal or hurt others.

In this case there is no need to worry about the assailants religious liberties. He has the free will to act on his religious principles but he still must suffer the consequences of his actions. He can believe and act on his beliefs but the moment he breaks the rules he gets kicked out of the sand box. The government is in no way preventing him from exercising his religious beliefs they are simply not facilitating his ability to do so.

[lamar1234]

[Replying to DanieltheDragon]

REALLY good analogy.

Legally, however, would it or would it not come up, maybe, more in civil cases than criminal?

You'll recall or will easily be able to locate the results of the TWO OJ trials; one criminal - not guilty; one civil - financially responsible for her death to the families of the deceased.

I stab you, clearly unwillingly, through the temple with an obsidian knife as part of my sacred ritual.

I go to prison, possibly death penalty to satisfy the criminal aspect of what I did to you.

Please know that I would never stab you or anyone else, anywhere, with anything for any sacred reason.

Now, what, though?

Could my defense lawyer, while I'm getting traded around for cigarettes inside at least protect some of my worldly assets from your family because I can not be held financially responsible for what my sacred texts enjoin me to do?

Has anyone, yet, attempted to shift the burden of guilt onto a parent, let's say, because their religious upbringing CAUSED them (their claim) to break either civil or criminal statutes?

Why wouldn't that work?

[lamar1234]

[Replying to post 8 by lamar1234]

Another point, my friend, if society really has turned a corner on the redistribution of political and by definition judicial power from the anti-gay, if we can just use these two crude measurements alone, and the pro-gay?

If we accept that premise, what then, will be the effect on our lawbooks? Could we have a discussion about laws that carry punishments more, let's say, STRINGENT than something perhaps ethically more equivalent as a tacit alignment of religious and legal sensibilities?

Crime A and crime B are relatively similar in the amount of destruction of property or loss of life or any other tangible scale of negative consequences, right? They're equally 'bad,' if you will?

Are there instances where those judged to be perpetrators of Crime A are given stiffer penalties because the particulars of Crime A resonate within a local religious context.

I have no doubt that the more the deciding body responsible for the punishment phase, whether judge or jury, thought the criminal himself or his action's deserved harsher punishments the more antithetical to their religious sensibilities the criminal appeared but I have not done any research into that other than being from Texas a State, like every other in our Union with its own racial challenges to overcome.

A kid in a black T-shirt proclaiming 'Anarchy' or a pentagram or even Metallica at some points in History before the band lost all their hair is going to get a worse punishment enough times to say it is statistically significant.

But it won't always be so easy to parse.

Did the young black man accused of raping a young white girl receive a harsher sentence than a young white man accused of raping a young black girl because he's black or because there is an emphasis, in that area, of religious tenets based on those similar to 'the mark of Ham'? It's most definitely a combination of the two.

The example of the three Goth kids accused of killing three or more little boys in, I believe, Arkansas comes to mind.

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 8 by lamar1234]

Civil liability would be an interesting question Danmark is a lawyer perhaps he could shed light. I reckon it would be very contextually dependent as are most civil suits.