op-ed published this past Tuesday<\/a>, Margaret Renkl argued against \u00a0religiously grounded stupidity and religiously grounded exemptions from generally applicable laws. The online headline \u2014 which she might not have written \u2014 grabbed my attention: \u201cWe Are Taking Religious Freedom Too Far.\u201d<\/p>\nIn her piece, Renkl criticized a Louisiana public school that blatantly ignored Supreme Court jurisprudence by having students read the Lord\u2019s Prayer each day after the Pledge of Allegiance; a Nashville baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding; employers who don\u2019t offer their workers health insurance that covers birth control; and ultra-Orthodox Jews (or others) who refuse to vaccinate their children.<\/p>\n
Renkl\u2019s first example is a blatantly unconstitutional establishment of religion, not a matter of religious freedom. (One might ask why schools cannot follow \u201cone nation under God\u201d with the Lord\u2019s Prayer, but that\u2019s a separate matter).<\/p>\n
Her next two examples \u2014 the wedding cake and health insurance \u2014 have been the subjects of recent and controversial Supreme Court cases. Renkl writes that \u201cit\u2019s illegal for a store owner to discriminate against customers because they happen to belong to a group against which the shopkeeper harbors a personal prejudice.\u201d It is true, as she writes, that \u201cit\u2019s illegal for a racist to open a restaurant that serves only white people.\u201d It is probably illegal for bakers to refuse to bake any cakes for customers because they don\u2019t like those customers\u2019 sexual orientation. However, it is not currently illegal for bakers to refuse to bake cakes for same-sex weddings. (It\u2019s also worth noting that public accommodations laws differ among states). Based on the Hobby Lobby <\/em>case, it\u2019s also not illegal for corporations to offer their employers health insurance that does not cover birth control.<\/p>\nMost states require children attending public schools to receive vaccinations, but they also offer exemptions if individuals object for religious or other reasons.<\/p>\n
Renkl concludes that \u201cit\u2019s long past time for lawmakers in this country to propose a much more reasonable definition of religious freedom.\u201d What is that, for Renkl? \u201cThe Constitution protects my right to believe whatever I want to believe,\u201d she comments, \u201c\u2026[not] the right to expose innocent people to unnecessary suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to tackle these four very different issues in one fell swoop. No Lord\u2019s Prayer in public schools. That was easy. After that, though, it\u2019s tricky. What does the free exercise of religion entail? Does the First Amendment protect only the freedom to worship or to hold religious beliefs, or does \u201cexercise\u201d entail living out one\u2019s religious beliefs in the public sphere?<\/p>\n
What, then, are the proper limits of religious exemptions from generally applicable laws? Hardly anyone would argue that there should be no religious exemptions. Supreme Court decisions that provided exemptions for Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses who refused to salute the flag were wise. Other instances might be guided by common sense. Do we want to force Catholic charities to in any way participate in helping their employees obtain health insurance that covers birth control? I am still baffled that the Obama Administration thought it was a good idea to take on the Little Sisters of the Poor.<\/p>\n
What about evangelical bakers? Renkl contends that \u201cif you\u2019re a baker whose religious convictions prevent you from baking a wedding cake for a gay couple, then you need to find a line of work that doesn\u2019t involve selling wedding cakes from a public storefront.\u201d Perhaps not, according to the Supreme Court (which technically held only that government officials bigoted against Christianity could not prosecute evangelical bakers who won\u2019t bake cakes for same-sex weddings, leaving open the question of whether or not non-bigoted government officials could prosecute evangelical bakers for the same thing).<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think refusing to bake a cake is akin to either making students listen to the Lord\u2019s Prayer or exposing children to potentially fatal illnesses. I do think in the long run that religious businesses and individuals are going to lose most of these public accommodation cases. And they should. There isn\u2019t really a reasonably less restrictive way that the government could fulfill its anti-discrimination interest than to compel businesses open to the public to serve all comers without regard to sexual orientation.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Americans on all sides of these issues should display more concern for the liberty of others. It\u2019s a bit rich to say that someone who has been baking cakes for a long time needs to find a new line of work because he doesn\u2019t want to celebrate suddenly legal events that conflict with his religious views. One might disagree, but surely one can understand this. And it\u2019s at least as callous to say that a same-sex couple can just find another bakery. That\u2019s a very restrictive solution. Still, in a big, diverse, and mostly free country, it\u2019s somewhat baffling that we can\u2019t find a way to have same-sex marriage and evangelical bakers.<\/p>\n
Historically, most Americans have cherished religious liberty, but they have disagreed vigorously about its meaning. It\u2019s not that we have too much religious freedom. Rather, religious freedom is ill-defined, in part because the \u201cfree exercise\u201d clause is vague and because religion is difficult to define. At the same time, most of us want more freedom for ourselves and cannot even fathom the ways that others desire freedom.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a convoluted New York Times op-ed published this past Tuesday, Margaret Renkl argued against \u00a0religiously grounded stupidity and religiously grounded exemptions from generally applicable laws. The online headline \u2014 which she might not have written \u2014 grabbed my attention: \u201cWe Are Taking Religious Freedom Too Far.\u201d In her piece, Renkl criticized a Louisiana public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1008,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,8,29],"tags":[4277,333,5417],"class_list":["post-45239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicalism","category-john-turner","category-religious-freedom","tag-masterpiece","tag-religious-liberty","tag-vaccines"],"yoast_head":"\n
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