Gay marriage: More religious depth, please

June 23, 2008 By

depthSome religion stories err because the reporter, instead of diving into the topic’s waters, skims along its surface. As a result, a reader comes away thinking he has not learned much. I certainly did not learn much after reading two recent stories about homosexuality in California.

For The Washington Post, reporter Ashley Surdin wrote about a lesbian woman who sued a medical provider for failing to inseminate her artificially. The doctor said that she denied the woman treatment because it conflicted with her religious beliefs. The case is now before the California Supreme Court. While an interesting dispute, Surdin did not give her readers much context:

“Freedom of religion absolutely protects all of their conduct in this case,” [Kenneth Pedroza, an attorney for the two doctors] said. “There are two areas in medical care where freedom of religion is invoked most clearly: in the creation of life and the termination of life.” And just as patients have rights, he said, so too do doctors.

Jennifer C. Pizer, a lawyer with the gay rights group Lambda Legal who is representing Benitez, said that while the law protects doctors who refuse certain treatments on religious grounds, it does not allow them to do so on a discriminatory or selective basis. In other words, when doctors refuse a treatment, their refusal must apply to all patients — not to a group, such as unmarried women or lesbians.

“All you have to do is imagine, for a moment, a doctor agreeing to an abortion for women of color but saying, ‘I will not’ for white women. Or a Jewish doctor saying, ‘I will do an abortion for Muslim women, but not Jewish women.’ Or vice versa,” Pizer said. “Just imagining those possibilities shows how deeply problematic such a notion would be.”

A trial court sided with Benitez in 2004, ruling that doctors in a for-profit medical group must comply with California’s anti-discrimination laws, regardless of religion. An appeals court overturned that decision one year later, finding that the previous ruling had denied the doctors’ religious rights.

These passages begs lots of questions. At what point does the doctor’s right to exercise her religion trump the patient’s right to treatment? Also, why did the lower court rule that anti-discrimination laws outweighed those of religious freedom and the second one did not?

Surely both questions deserve a sentence or two. Without a hint at an answer, the reader comes away with a two-dimensional presentation of reality. Perhaps Surdin should have distinguished, or had an authority distinguish, between rulings that allow doctors to refuse to perform abortions but not allow them to refuse to dispense contraceptives.

For The Los Angeles Times, reporter My-Thuan Tran wrote about a similar issue: wedding vendors who refuse to sell their wares to newly married same-sex couples. As you might imagine, some vendors do so for religious reasons. To her credit, Tran found a Christian minister who doubles as a wedding photographer:

Eric Nelson of Nelson Photography in Lake Forest is a wedding photographer and ordained minister through the Trinity Evangelical Christian Church.

Nelson has already booked a same-sex wedding in July, but his religious beliefs and his business sense took him in two directions.

So he’ll only be taking the photos. He will not officiate gay weddings, which he said conflict with his Christian beliefs.

“To me, it’s not about being uncomfortable,” Nelson said. “It’s a choice, like a choice of what clothes to put on in the morning.” Photographing a same-sex wedding is not the same as “solemnizing a wedding,” he said.

The south Orange County photographer-minister said he would likewise turn down officiating weddings for heterosexual couples who he knew were involved in drugs or crime. “If you come to me and I find out you don’t live in the best lifestyle and are not the type of person I would perform a wedding for, I wouldn’t do it,” he said. “I have a choice.”

Nelson’s comments are unexceptionable; many readers will agree with him, as with the idea that homosexual marriage conflicts with traditional religious teaching. I think readers would be better served, however, if Tran had probed Californians religious reasons for opposing gay marriage. It’s clear what the California Supreme Court thinks: gays today are no different from blacks 60 years ago. But it’s not clear what traditionally religious Californians think.

Of course, my call for more depth has a downside; newspapers today are short on space. But in these two stories, the lack of depth meant a loss of understanding.

NOTE: Please stick to the point of my post. All other comments will be treated with extreme prejudice.

Print Friendly

Filed Under: Godbeat, Journalism, Religion, Sex, Social Issues
  • http://perpetuaofcarthage.blogspot.com/ Perpetua

    I like that you said:

    Perhaps Surdin should have distinguished, or had an authority distinguish, between rulings that allow doctors to refuse to perform abortions but not allow them to refuse to dispense contraceptives.

    The second option is greatly preferred. Reporters get in to difficult situations when they try to make these distinctions themselves. Reporters need to find experts to explain these distinctions.

  • Dale

    You’re right about the need for context in the Benitez case; and it’s not as if locating an appellate history of the case is difficult. A number of the amicus curiae briefs filed in case are available on line. Not only Lambda Legal Defense, but the Christian Medical and Dental Association and the Christian Legal Society have posted their briefs, and there were a total of 40 amicus briefs filed. A google search presents a multitude of sites addressing the case.

    A legal fine point: the issue under appeal was whether the defendants could present evidence of their religious objection to the artificial insemination procedure at trial. The lower trial court refused, barring religious objection as a defense. So the lower court didn’t weigh the anti-discrimination suit against the doctor’s right to refuse treatment; the court said that the doctor had no such right. Because the court didn’t recognize that right, it granted a summary judgment to plaintiff, and there was no trial.

    From what I can gather, the appellate court did find that there was a right to refuse treatment, but didn’t reach the issue of whether that right outweighed the plaintiff’s rights under the anti-discrimination statute. The appellate court ordered the lower court to consider evidence of whether the artificial insemination treatment was available from other doctors. That appellate decision was then appealed to the California Supreme Court.

    From what I could tell, the California courts recognize a doctor’s right of conscience to refuse to perform a certain type of procedure; the question is whether they recognize a right of conscience to refuse to perform a procedure for a specific patient because the patient is part of a class of individuals protected by the civil rights statute. So the doctors can refuse to perform any artificial inseminations; the question is can they refuse to perform artificial inseminations on only some patients.

  • Jerry

    newspapers today are short on space

    Often when I’m watching a PBS show, there’s mention of more being available on the associated web site. As Leonard Pitts pointed out today:

    maybe we should regard the Internet not as an extra thing we do, but as the core thing we do.

    As you pointed out, there’s a great need for in-depth coverage of issues such as this. Either this needs to happen on we web sites or newspapers have to restructure themselves fundamentally to present more in-depth stories and leave the headlines to the web.

    I’m not sure which model will be better in the long run, but there is a great need for context and I hope we’ll see some medium for such exploration.

  • Claude

    Another relevant context that might have been explained involves the recent Supreme Court ruling declaring unconstitutional laws that deny homosexuals to right to marry. In that decision, the Court declared that laws (and court decisions) that treat homosexuals differently from heterosexuals are subject to “strict scrutiny” to make certain that they do not violate equal protection. That part of the decision will stand regardless of the referendum about same-sex marriage. I would think that that does not bode well for doctors who refuse to treat homosexuals on an equal basis with heterosexuals. In any case, more depth is needed in reporting these issues.

  • Dave

    “All you have to do is imagine, for a moment, a doctor agreeing to an abortion for women of color but saying, ‘I will not’ for white women. Or a Jewish doctor saying, ‘I will do an abortion for Muslim women, but not Jewish women.’ Or vice versa,” [Jennifer C.] Pizer [of Lambda Legal Defence] said. “Just imagining those possibilities shows how deeply problematic such a notion would be.”

    This is a stark allegory, but I predict it will cut no ice with SSM opponents who already are incensed that anyone would dare analogize them with opponents of mixed-race marriage in 1967.

    I think readers would be better served, however, if Tran had probed Californians religious reasons for opposing gay marriage.

    If you’re talking about the specific Californians who were interviewed for the story anyway, I agree. That’s adding depth. If you mean dragging in outside experts, I disagree. That isn’t news.

    Opponents of any kind of equal treatment for BGLTs have always consisted largely of those motivated by religion. BGLTs know this, MSM reporters in California evidently know it, and it’s a good bet that readers who’ve been paying any attention to the issues as they explode into headlines know it.

  • Claude

    The interviewee that I was most impressed with for at least understanding a crucial distinction was the minister-photographer. Although his motives were probably simply commercial, he at least distinguished between his two roles, choosing to photograph same-sex weddings but not perform them. It would, in fact, be illegal to turn down a photography gig because the wedding was for homosexuals, but it is perfectly legal to refuse to perform a marriage ceremony. The vendors who refuse to cater or photograph same-sex weddings are clearly violating the law. Of course, I doubt anyone would sue them. Who would want someone like that making money off your wedding? Moreover, if they announced too loudly that they would not work at same-sex weddings, they would risk not only a discrimination suit, but (I hope) loss of business from heterosexuals who support same-sex marriage.

  • Deacon John M. Bresnahan

    It is clear from these stories that one of the lines constantly used by gay marriage defenders in the media::”It will affect noone other than gays who want to marry” is patently false. It has reached the point that there should be more coverage on the coercive aspect of the issue such as the archdiocese of Boston being strong-armed into having to give up handling adoptions. In Mass. and Cal. courtesy of judicial dictatorship gays have had their way–now it is clear that the next step–coercing and punishing those who wish not to be involved in anything to do with the gay lifestyle is underway and as such is undercovered in the media. As if there weren’t other doctors, adoption agencies and photographers willing to do the bidding of gay customers or clients.

  • Jimmy Mac

    There will soon be an LBGT-sponsored Inquisition (sans Holy Office, of course) and some names that regularly weigh in on this site have been added to the list of future targets.

  • Claude

    Deacon,

    Same-sex marriage has nothing to do with non-discrimination laws. Apparently you are against those too, which sort of gives the lie to the claim on the part of those who want to deny equal marriage in California to *their* claim that they are really in favor of equal rights, except in this one area which has sacramental meaning. The truth, I suspect, is that at least many of the people opposed to gay marriage are also opposed to any civil rights for homosexuals.

  • Claude

    One more thing, Deacon. The anti-discrimination laws in Massachusetts and California are not courtesy of a “judicial dictatorship.” They were adopted by the state legislatures and signed by the state governors.

  • Thomas

    Oh, brother:

    It has reached the point that there should be more coverage on the coercive aspect of the issue such as the archdiocese of Boston being strong-armed into having to give up handling adoptions.

    The law changed. Expecting the agency to comply with it is hardly “strong arming” it. When a religious agency engages in a civil function, they are not exempt from following the law. I applaud the diocese for following its religious convictions. Simultaneously, I note that there was no basis other than religion (and even that’s highly unclear) for the agency they ran to refuse to place children in a loving home just because it was run by two men or two women.

    Unfortunately, the chance of those kids to have a structured, non-institutional family life is the nose that the diocese cut off to spite its own face.