Free Exercise
Well, this ‘Christians suing for right to be intolerant‘ thing is certainly a place where free speech rights (and the ‘free exercise’ clause and reason and religion and quite a few other things) get interesting, or difficult, or both.
Ruth Malhotra went to court last month for the right to be intolerant. Malhotra says her Christian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality. But the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she’s a senior, bans speech that puts down others because of their sexual orientation. Malhotra sees that as an unacceptable infringement on her right to religious expression. So she’s demanding that Georgia Tech revoke its tolerance policy. With her lawsuit, the 22-year-old student joins a growing campaign to force public schools, state colleges and private workplaces to eliminate policies protecting gays and lesbians from harassment…The Rev. Rick Scarborough, a leading evangelical, frames the movement as the civil rights struggle of the 21st century. “Christians,” he said, “are going to have to take a stand for the right to be Christian.”
One problem with Malhotra’s claim is that it’s very disputable whether her Christian ‘faith’ does compel her to speak out against homosexuality. Other Christians don’t experience that compulsion, so that raises the question, is it really the Christian ‘faith’ that does the compelling, or is it something else that feels to Malhotra like her Christian ‘faith’ because she’s never thought to disaggregate her ‘faith’ from her ethical and moral views? And if so is this failure to disaggregate merely a way of dressing up nasty hatreds and yuk-factorism as something admirable and spirichual? My guess would be yes, that is what it is – but then that could just be part of my habit of religion-bashing.
As they step up their legal campaign, conservative Christians face uncertain prospects. The 1st Amendment guarantees Americans “free exercise” of religion. In practice, though, the ground rules shift depending on the situation. In a 2004 case, for instance, an AT&T Broadband employee won the right to express his religious convictions by refusing to sign a pledge to “respect and value the differences among us.” As long as the employee wasn’t harassing co-workers, the company had to make accommodations for his faith, a federal judge in Colorado ruled. That same year, however, a federal judge in Idaho ruled that Hewlett-Packard Co. was justified in firing an employee who posted Bible verses condemning homosexuality on his cubicle. The verses, clearly visible from the hall, harassed gay employees and made it difficult for the company to meet its goal of attracting a diverse workforce, the judge ruled. In the public schools, an Ohio middle school student last year won the right to wear a T-shirt that proclaimed: “Homosexuality is a sin! Islam is a lie! Abortion is murder!” But a teen-ager in Kentucky lost in federal court when he tried to exempt himself from a school program on gay tolerance on the grounds that it violated his religious beliefs.
The ground rules shift depending on the situation. Don’t they though. That’s why these discussions of free speech and cartoons and Irving and Ellis and whatever the latest item is, are always with us.
“Think how marginalized racists are,” said Baylor, who directs the Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom. “If we don’t address this now, it will only get worse.”
I know everyone has seen this, but;
http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=61307
oh, and check out;
http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=61412
Can I scream, please?
“Christian activist Gregory S. Baylor responds to such criticism angrily. He says he supports policies that protect people from discrimination based on race and gender. But he draws a distinction that infuriates gay rights activists when he argues that sexual orientation is different — a lifestyle choice, not an inborn trait.”
And what, for —-‘s sake, is the Christianity he’s being such an activist about? An inborn trait? I’m not a gay rights activist and it sure as hell infuriates me! Why should the lifestyle choice of Christianity be more deserving of tolerance than any other? How can all this be taking place with a straight face?
Basing tolerance of homsexuals on the idea that homosexuality is innate and innate traits should be beyond criticism is both wrong and unwise. If some trait like a tendency to abuse children is found to be innate, then all the arguments in favour of tolerating homosexuals apply to child abusers. For example, the ban on speech hateful about homosexuals would have to apply to child abusers.
(NB: I am not equating homosexuals with child abusers, nor homosexuality with child abuse. I am just putting the general argument being offered by those quoted in the article in favour of toleratance of homosexuals in a less congenial setting).
Paul, I guess the point is that it’s a harmless trait.
I’m intrigued that they regard themselves as duty bound to hate homosexuals – where is all that hate the sin, love the sinner business?
But seriously, we can’t ban them from stating their view (homosexuality is wrong) as long as they don’t go around harrassing gay people. Perhaps it is a more difficult line in practice but I don’t think it is in theory.
I am with PM on this. The difficulty is determining what constitutes harm or harrassment. It is so easy to take offence and label it harrassment but, as almost everybody who comments here has observed, we are all offended from time to time and we tolerate that as is necessary in a healthy society. It strikes me as quite unreasonable for minorities, religious or otherwise, to promote restrictions on the freedom of others whilst arguing for similar freedoms for themselves; in fact it strikes me as disgusting hypocrisy.
Paul, ‘tolerance of homosexuals’ implies that heterosexuals have a right to tolerate or not tolerate. Where did that come from? How does one go about not tolerating a homosexual? Plenty of examples to choose from, from a noose in Tehran to queer-bashers in your local park.
Were I to be told that my existence was being ‘tolerated’ I should be not only offended but alarmed. Paticularly if a well organsised and resourced group were seeking to have that tolerance withdrawn.
I don’t think the analogy with paedophiles was helpful, any more than one with arsonists or serial killers would have been. Some people hurt others, sometimes because of a compulsion they cannot control. Society is not ‘intolerant’ of such people, rather it protects itself against them.
A more pertinent analogy would be with Jews. If simply being who you are, regardless of what you do or say, causes others to be so ‘offended’ that they feel the need to to put on a bigoted t-shirt, or stick up a poster declaring that you are unfit to live with ‘decent’ people, you might feel the situation was becoming disturbing.
If you read the article, a very specific threat was made by Malhotra and her fellow brown shirts: stop coming out as gay if you want to be ‘tolerated’.
Not the same thing as wearing a T-shirt or holding an “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” sign at all.
I think Paul brought up a good point about whether or not innate traits should be beyond criticism. I know that a lot of people are under the assumption that if a particular trait is innate and not a “lifestyle choice”, as in the case of homosexuality, it would be less subject to condemnation by Christians. But they miss a crucial point: the Christian response is that even if a trait is innate the individual has the choice of whether or not to act in accordance with it, and to do so is wrong according to their theology.
Paul,
I didn’t mean to imply that you were making an equivalence, I was refering to the concept of ‘tolerance’.
Don’t lose any sleep over it, don. Christians are supposed to “hate the sin, love the sinner” anyway so the issue should at most be about tolerance of activities, not of people.
Your comment “Were I to be told that my existence was being ‘tolerated’ I should be not only offended but alarmed” is right on the button.