The First Amendment enshrines our nation's cherished traditions protecting freedom of religious expression. The First Amendment also enshrines our rights to be protected from the civil enforcement of religious principles. Freedom of religion also means freedom from religious establishment.
At times American civil statutes have vested some religious customs into law. But as we think more deeply, civic freedom tends to prevail over religious discrimination.
Churches have the right to refuse ordination to women on the grounds of their particular religious principles or tradition. But we don't extend that religious practice into the civil realm. We no longer have secular laws outlawing female leadership or forbidding a woman to "assume authority over a man." (1 Timothy 2:12)
Churches have the right to refuse to marry anyone that the particular church deems inappropriate for marriage. Some churches do not allow a believer to be married to a non-believer. Some churches do not allow a divorced person to be remarried. Some churches do not allow people of different races to be married. Some churches do not allow persons of the same sex to be married to each other. The Constitution protects churches' rights to follow their own teachings and to limit marriage as their church doctrine might proscribe.
Fifteen states had laws forbidding marriage between people of different races in 1967 when the Supreme Court ruled such laws unconstitutional. Thirty-three states including Arkansas still ban same-sex marriage.
Our churches and our society are debating same-sex marriage. It is likely that churches will come to various conclusions about that, much as they have about women's leadership in church hierarchy. It also seems inevitable that civil jurisdictions must eventually recognize a constitutional freedom to marry. It is simply just.
It is just and traditional to let religious organizations set their policies for marriage, and it is just and in keeping with our civil traditions for the state to let citizens marry legally as they choose.
There are some groups now attempting to legalize discrimination in the name of religious freedom. In several states there is proposed legislation to protect businesses that refuse service to anyone whose presence violates their "deeply-held religious beliefs." Their target is gay and lesbian people.
Bills like these betray our Christian values. Jesus told us to love our neighbors and to serve them. Jesus told us to love and serve your neighbors whether or not you see eye to eye with them. Jesus went even further, telling us to love and serve even those whom we might consider to be enemies. If Christians intend to assert their deeply-held religious beliefs, they need to do so by loving others more radically, not by hanging "No Gays Allowed" signs in their businesses.
I'm old enough to remember when hotels and restaurants and churches turned away black people and thought they were doing the right thing.
When the first Christians were suffering discrimination from those who did not accept their allegiance to Jesus as Messiah, a wise Rabbi cautioned against legal penalties against them. "Let them alone," he advised, "because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them -- in that case you may even be found fighting against God!" (Acts 5:38-39)
The irony about religiously motivated civil legislation discriminating against gay people is that many of those being targeted are faithful Christians who love and serve Jesus as their Savior.
When Christians seek to encourage religiously motivated laws, we need to advocate for laws that extend the circle of love and charity, not constrict it. Let Jesus be our guide. Jesus said nothing about homosexuality. He did say a lot about loving your neighbor as yourself. He said a lot about our responsibility toward the poor and about greed. He reached across civil and religious boundaries to extend his hospitality and generosity to aliens and toward those whom his society regarded as unclean. He upheld the meek and the outcast, and he challenged the powerful and wealthy.
A Christ-like legislative agenda would include increasing, not cutting, Food Stamps; expanding, not contracting, access to medical care; and welcoming, not deporting, immigrants. It would focus on living wages for working people and support for those needing work, on feeding the hungry and encouraging the imprisoned, on bringing good news to the poor and turning swords into plowshares. And from those who have enjoyed good fortune, it would expect more generosity for the common good.
Commentary on 03/23/2014