Posted on 04/03/2015 1:36:17 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
Editor’s note: Amid the discussion about the religious liberty laws in Indiana and Arkansas this week, there’s been a lot of misinformation—and a lot of thoughtful concerns about what religious freedom laws actually allow and what they ban. We talked to Heritage Foundation’s William E. Simon Fellow Dr. Ryan T. Anderson to get the facts—and to find out whether, as your liberal relatives will likely argue as the political discussions happen this holiday, the original Indiana religious freedom law would have allowed discrimination.
What’s religious liberty all about?
Religious liberty is about protecting people’s fundamental natural rights. People have rights—including the right to pursue religious truth and, within the limits of justice and the common good, to act on their judgments of what truth demands. People have these rights as individuals and in the communities they form: their churches, their schools, their charities and their businesses.
Religious Freedom Restoration Acts protect this fundamental right. They prohibit the government from placing substantial burdens on religious exercise unless the government can show a compelling interest in burdening religious liberty and do so through the least restrictive means.
One of the hallmarks of religious liberty protections is that they protect people of all faiths, even if their beliefs seem unfounded, flawed, implausible or downright silly. Recognition of a right to religious freedom does not, however, depend on religious skepticism or relativism. Rather, it rests on the intelligible value of the religious quest—the activities of seeking to understand the truth about ultimate questions and then conforming one’s life accordingly, with authenticity and integrity.
What happened with Indiana’s religious liberty law and the “fix”?
The law needed no fix.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act that Indiana passed, and that Gov. Mike Pence signed into law, was a good piece of policy, and there really was no need for a fix.
The fix that they came up with at the last minute was rushed to passage, and it actually creates more problems than it solves. It now says that sexual liberty should always trump religious liberty, and that’s not right.
We should have a balancing test where religious liberty and sexual liberty can coexist, and that’s what the Religious Freedom Restoration Act does. But the fix that they rushed to come up with says that sexual orientation and gender identity laws will always trump the religious liberty law. That’s wrong.
So let’s be honest here, I mean, are you basically saying that it’s OK to discriminate?
Not at all, what I’m suggesting is that everyone should have their rights protected, and that a court of law should adjudicate when those rights come into tension.
But if you think that if you do have a gay couple coming into, let’s say the pizza parlor, that they shouldn’t be able to be served? Are you saying that gay people shouldn’t be served?
Of course they should be served, and I don’t know of any religion that teaches that you can’t serve a slice of pizza to someone because they’re gay or lesbian.
And I don’t know of any business owner that has claimed that they won’t serve gays or lesbians at their restaurant.
The only religious liberty concerns that we’ve seen in this general area involve weddings. Wedding photographers, florists who provide flowers for weddings, bakers who bake wedding cakes—they’re happy serving gays and lesbians for get-well-soon flowers and happy-birthday cakes.
Their only objection is to the same-sex wedding. And I don’t know why we need to have the government to coerce a 70-year-old grandmother into violating her beliefs about marriage.
This is about the civil rights issue of our time. Don’t gays and lesbians have civil rights?
Of course this is about civil rights, and the very first civil right that our Constitution protects, in the very first amendment to our Constitution, is the civil right of religious liberty.
And so we don’t want to set up a situation in which sexual liberty trumps religious liberty. We want to have these things coexist, so that gay couples should be free to get flowers or get a cake for their wedding, but the government shouldn’t coerce any particular person into providing those flowers or that cake for that same-sex wedding.
Let’s look at this other side, and that is when we take a look at what’s before the Supreme Court. They’re going to make a decision at the end of June. If they make same-sex marriage the law of the land, won’t you then be breaking the law?
Not at all. The Court might rule, inappropriately, to say that all 50 states have to recognize the union of two men or two women as a marriage, but the government need not say that every organization in America has to help celebrate that marriage.
We can live and let live. The same-sex couple is free to live and to love how they want to; the Evangelical grandmother should be free to run her business how she wants to. That’s coexistence, that’s tolerance, that’s what America’s all about.
Why don’t you want gays and lesbians to be free?
I do! I want gays and lesbians to be free to live in accordance with their beliefs.
I just don’t want the government to coerce Evangelicals or Mormons or Muslims or Jews or Catholics—or anyone else for that matter. I think religious people can be free to live in accordance with their beliefs, gays and lesbians (many of whom are religious, by the way) can be free to live in accordance with their beliefs. No coercion is necessary.
You’re a millennial. Why are you out of step with the rest of your peers on these issues?
When I was an undergraduate at Princeton, most of my liberal classmates disagreed with me, but they didn’t have many good reasons for their beliefs.
This got me thinking about these issues, and I’ve actually come to the conclusion that the best of human reason, the best of science, the best of philosophy is on the side of marriage as the union of man and a woman. I wrote a book about it that the Supreme Court cited. So I think that’s good reason, and I’m going to continue advocating for the truth.
Do you think that there is a political machine behind these attacks on marriage and religious liberty? Is there a lot of money being thrown at it to take you down and others down on your perspective?
Without a doubt, there’s a well-organized, well-financed campaign, and you can see this in the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, speaking out against Indiana, boycotting the state.
You’ve seen hosts of big businesses saying that they want the freedom to live in accordance with their values, but they want to deny that freedom to small businesses.
You’ve seen mayors and governors saying that they’re going to boycott the state of Indiana when all Indiana wants is to protect its citizens from government coercion. So there’s a lot of hypocrisy going on in this debate.
You are expected to be angry--defy expectations.
You are expected to be filled with hate at Easter conversations about the homosexual lobby--do not let the pagans or those Christians who are being deceived by the world have THOSE expectations fulfilled.
Ryan Anderson does a very good job--without blowing his stack--at explaining the truth about the politics of the homosexual lobby. You can find him on youtube...try to follow his example.
And above all, be soaked in prayer. The Holy Spirit can and will help you.
God bless this Easter. Let us celebrate the Resurrection knowing our God is sovereign.
-- on an Easter Egg Roll while he's still wearing his PJs.Then stuff his yap with deviled eggs and chocolate.
Here’s an idea.
f*** my liberal relatives. Anyone who is a liberal is a traitor as far as I’m concerned. I’m cutting ties with commies.
If you had something like that for a relative, would you even acknowledge it?
We are all sinners, and are slaves to sin until Christ sets us free (through the work of the Holy Spirit) -- but Christians are not going to participate with someone's celebration of their sin - particularly one as grievous as slandering God's first institution after Creation: the marriage of one man to one woman.
Bump
Simply put - you cannot force a Christian to participate
Simply put - that’s exactly what the left intends to do - force Christians to participate in behaviors contrary to their faith.
There is nothing simpler to say about this issue.
If it were not otherwise, they’d just go somewhere else to get their pizza/flowers/cake.
I agree. They do not listen or understand anyway.
Amen!
Observe the world wide anti-Christian behavior this Easter.
Now PERSUADE Al Shabab.
This is very good advice, if one absolutely must talk politics with the family Obots. Take the high road and play the adult role, let them play the hysterical preschooler role. Speaking of Pajama Boy, he had the whole nation giggling in December of 2013. He went undercover, leaving twitter and facebook. I dont tweet or use facebook. Does anyone know if Pajama Boy is still making propaganda videos and an ocassional hot chocolate for Team Obama?
Thank goodness I don’t have any liberal relatives. If I did they wouldn’t want me to come visit them since we wouldn’t get along well. I wouldn’t be able to tolerate their foolishness.
I have no liberal relatives. I had an aunt and uncle who drank the Obama Flavour-Aide, and they are disowned.
They've moved on to Marie Harf.
None of that will work. It’s all reason and logic.
Last time they tried this some liberals were invited to leave.
Ive got a crazy idea... how about DON’T? Talk about Easter and Jesus and such instead. I don’t like this leftist Michelle Obama/DHS/.gov/progressive hijack of every family event.
If they bring it up, utterly ignore them. That’s best.
I haven’t spoken or otherwise communicated with my leftist relatives since 2000 when they gushed about AlGore, but couldn’t articulate any policy or value that he held that was in common with theirs, or would make the country a safer or more prosperous place. But still they had near orgasms just thinking about him.
And I’m getting tired of people calling them liberals. They are not even progressive. They are leftist thugs, socialist fools, big-government totalitarians or outright communists.
I do have someone like that for a relative....my sister-in-law who unfriended me on FB because I dared to express my disgust when the country reelected the POS Obama in 2012. She claimed I was the most close-minded person she’d ever met, that she had never liked me, and she was glad my kids were nothing like me. My husband and daughter unfriended her because of it. Now, unfortunately, there’s a big family reunion in June that we will be attending, and she’s cohosting it. I’m dreading the event, but my husband says we will leave if she starts anything. Gotta love those “tolerant” liberals.
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