Last week lawmakers in nine state legislatures
launched “religious freedom” caucuses aimed at helping “legislators set
state-specific agendas for strengthening religious liberties.”
Religious liberty should be protected. It should be
safeguarded. And it should be valued. But if this past year is any indication
of what these caucuses’ real policy goals are, their efforts will not be about
protecting, safeguarding, and valuing religious liberty. Instead, they will be
about promoting an agenda that rolls back women’s health and rights and
curtails equality for gay Americans, all behind the guise of “religious
liberty.”
Two organizations in particular—the Family Research
Council and the Liberty Institute—have been at the forefront of promoting this
agenda. In a report released earlier this summer, titled “The Survey ofReligious Hostility in America (PDF),” these organizations highlight hundreds of
examples of what they consider to be threats to religious freedom in the United
States today.
But many of these cases are not at all about
religious freedom. They are instead about people trying to use religion to
discriminate against gay individuals, even when doing so is illegal under state
law—unfortunately it is not illegal in a majority of states or under federal
law—and has nothing to do with the actual practice of religion. Just because a
restaurant owner is religiously opposed to same-sex relationships, for example,
does not give that owner a legal right to deny a lesbian couple service in his
or her establishment.
Still, organizations such as the Family Research
Council and the Liberty Institute insist that the First Amendment gives people
a license to use religion to discriminate against others. By this logic, people
also have a right to discriminate against someone because they are Jewish,
because they are African American, or because they are a woman, as long as
there is a “religious freedom” rationale behind doing so.
Let us examine three ways in which these
organizations claim “hostility” to religious freedoms, when in reality they are
instead attempting to legitimize using religion to discriminate against gay
Americans.
Religious liberty does not allow businesses to
discriminate against gay customers
Opponents of gay equality—including the Family Research
Council and the Liberty Institute—believe business owners should have a legal
right to discriminate against gay customers, all in the name of “religious
liberty.”
Included in these organizations’ report, for
example, is Cervelli v. Aloha Bed & Breakfast. In this case, Diane Cervelli
and Taeko Bufford, a lesbian couple, were turned away by Aloha Bed &
Breakfast in Hawaii during a trip to visit their close friend and her newborn
baby. The owner of the bed and breakfast explicitly stated that same-sex relationships
were “detestable,” and that they “defile our land.” For this reason, the owner
denied the couple accommodations at her hotel, which stands in clear violation
of Hawaii’s public accommodation law prohibiting any hotel or “other
establishment that provides lodging to transient guests” from discriminating
based on race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, ancestry, or
disability. As a result, Cervelli and Bufford, represented by Lambda Legal,
have filed a sexual orientation discrimination suit against the bed and
breakfast.
The Cervelli suit is ongoing. But if the ruling in
Elane Photography, LLC v. Willock—also included in the Family Research Council
and Liberty Institute report—is any indication, however, the courts will rule
in Cervelli and Bufford’s favor, since this is clearly a case of sexual
orientation discrimination. In the Elane case, a professional photographer in
New Mexico refused to take pictures of a same-sex couple’s commitment ceremony,
arguing that doing so was a violation of her religious freedoms. As expected,
the New Mexico Court of Appeals found that doing so did not harm the
photographer’s religious liberties but instead that her refusal constituted a
clear violation of the state’s Human Rights Act, which prohibits discriminating
in areas of public accommodation on the basis of sexual orientation.
Most of us recognize discrimination when we see it.
These are two clear-cut examples of discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation. If an interracial couple were denied lodging at a bed and
breakfast or denied service by a photographer, we would similarly recognize
that as discrimination, plain and simple. Any arguments using religion as a way
to discriminate against interracial couples would be absurd, just as they are
when people try to use religion to discriminate against same-sex couples.
Religious liberty does not allow mental health
professionals to deny services to gay clients
According to the American Counseling Association’s
code of ethics, counselors are prohibited from condoning or engaging in
discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, among other
categories. It continues to say that counselors cannot “discriminate against
clients, students … in a manner that has a negative impact on these persons.”
So when Julea Ward, a graduate student at Eastern Michigan State University
studying counseling, refused to work with a client in a same-sex relationship,
Ward was dismissed because of her failure to comply with the American
Counseling Association code of ethics.
All counselors have a right to practice their
religion freely. They do not, however, have the right to deny mental health
services to clients based on those beliefs. Doing so would set a dangerous
precedent. Just as Ward, a would-be high school counselor, would not be able to
deny services to a Muslim student based on her religious objections, she
certainly should not be allowed to deny services to gay students based on those
objections. Given the high rates of bullying and harassment that gay students
face at school, her refusal to serve gay clients clearly has a “negative
impact” on those clients and stands in clear violation of the American
Counseling Association code of ethics.
After a lower court upheld Ward’s dismissal, the 6th
Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case to the Eastern District of Michigan
to determine whether Ward was indeed dismissed because she failed to comply
with the code of ethics.
Religious liberty does not allow adoption agencies
to deny a child a loving home
If their report is any indication, the Family
Research Council and the Liberty Institute also believe adoption providers
should have a legal right to keep children in the adoption and foster-care
system rather than place them with responsible, caring, and loving same-sex
couples.
In their report, these two organizations include
last year’s legal battle in Illinois between Catholic-affiliated charities and
the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
Following the passage of a civil unions bill earlier
that year, Catholic Charities in Illinois said it would refuse to let same-sex
couples adopt children and would instead refer them elsewhere. (For what it’s
worth, 6 in 10 Catholics favor allowing same-sex couples to adopt children).
For its part, the state of Illinois told Catholic Charities that doing so
violated the state’s civil unions bill and the state’s nondiscrimination law
prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Catholic Charities provides a vital social service
in many states by running adoption and foster care programs. By receiving
public funds to provide those services, however, they have a responsibility to
both place children in loving and stable homes and comply with state laws. If
service providers are unwilling to comply with the law, then the state should
not award taxpayer dollars to them. And that’s exactly what happened in
Illinois: Rather than place these children in homes irrespective of parent’s
sexual orientation, Catholic Charities instead dropped its lawsuit and ended
its historic relationship with the state. Thereafter it began to refer children
to other adoption service providers that were willing to comply with Illinois’s
nondiscrimination laws instead of following the nondiscrimination laws itself.
This is not a case of religious “hostility.” This is
about ensuring that all of the 17,080 children in foster care in Illinois today
can find a loving and stable home. Study after study confirms that same-sex
parents are just as capable of raising mentally and physically healthy children
as different-sex parents. Denying or delaying a child a home with parents—gay
or straight—when receiving taxpayer dollars is both wrong and discriminatory.
Religious liberty and fairness for gay Americans are
not mutually exclusive
Opponents of gay rights have historically undermined
equality and fairness for gay Americans by directly attacking gay people
themselves. But as the public has become more accepting of gay individuals,
this tactic has become less and less successful. For this reason, opponents of
equality are hiding behind the guise of “religious liberty” to perpetuate a
discriminatory and unequal legal environment for gay people.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
guarantees the ability to practice one’s religion free from government
interference. It allows Americans to worship freely and bring their faith into
the public square. But the cases noted above are not about religious liberty in
the slightest. They are about people using religion to discriminate, and that
should not be allowed to stand.
About the author: Crosby Burns is a Research
Associate for the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center forAmerican Progress.
This article was published by the Center for
American Progress.
No comments:
Post a Comment