Religious Liberty

The following is a parable and/or a nightmare and/or an attempt to understand the thinking of my state's junior senator.

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Joe is a devout, religious man. As a symbol of his piety, and in obedience to the dogma of his faith, Joe never cuts his hair. This is a personal act of religious belief and expression, freely chosen as a matter of individual conscience.

Joe's wife, Jane, is a devout, religious woman. Since their faith holds that long hair is "manly," and that women's hair is unclean, devout women in their tradition wear their hair very short. Particularly pious women shave their heads completely, which is what Jane has chosen to do.

Jane's shaved head, like her husband's waist-length hair, is a personal act of religious belief and an expression of individual conscience. It, too, is freely chosen.

Joe and Jane want their children to live faithful lives of obedience to God and God's moral laws. And because they live in a society that respects religious freedom, they have the right and responsibility to instruct their children as they see fit. Joey Junior, who is only 5, already has a shaggy, shoulder-length mane. His sister Julie is, like any adolescent, a little bit rebellious. Shortly after she turned 14 she stopped shaving her head for a whole week. Her parents responded lovingly, but firmly, doubling her household chores and restricting some of her privileges until she began, again, to shave her head daily in obedience to God and her parents.

It's important that Julie learn to keep her hair, if not shaved, at least very short. That is the law in their village. This, too, is a matter of protecting religious freedom.

After all, what good would it do to say that Joe and his family had the "freedom" to worship as they see fit if every day they were also bombarded by wanton displays of impiety that undermined everything they believe and hold dear?

The village elders strongly believe in religious freedom. No one is forced to pledge allegiance to a particular religious dogma. Newcomers are not required to convert. But at the same time, the elders insist, no one ought to have the freedom to threaten the faith of others. The elders cannot just allow some men to wander about with short hair, or women with perversely long hair, eroding everything that devout parents like Joe and Jane are trying to teach their children.

In order to ensure that families like Joe's are free to exercise their religious beliefs, the elders were forced to establish some rules — basic guidelines for the conduct of everyone in the village. It is this establishment that makes free exercise possible.

As one of the elders put it, "Your right to swing your fist ends where the other man's nose begins." Thus to protect the other man's nose — the other man's faith and family — certain rules have been established. It is illegal in the village for any man to cut his hair or for any woman to let her hair grow so long as to touch her ears.

To demonstrate as forcefully as possible their commitment to the religious freedom that these laws were established to protect, the elders have decreed that anyone who violates them will be put to death.