I am a big proponent of individual liberty. We have but one life here in the vast cold and unsympathetic universe and absent harm to other we should be free to live our short allotment of years as we see fit this included adhering to whatever spiritual or religious standard that we might adopt to give our years some sort of meaning.
Recently I listened to an edition of the podcast The Ezra Klein Showand his guest was conservative columnist and critic of popular culture Rod Dreher If you know anything of Dreher’s writings and work then you know that one of his major themes and one he returned to quite often is that religious liberty, particularly for socially conservative Christians, is under assault with a coming Orwellian nightmare that promises to crush all dissent from the majority opinion. His opinion, if I hear and read it correctly, is that the ‘Culture War’ has already been lost and that protecting the rights of Christians as a beleaguered group under assault from a majority intent on eradicating that Christian thought is an essential role for government. Well know cases that need protection or are examples of this crushing mindset include the bakeries that refuse to created wedding cakes for same-sex couples, pharmacies that refuse to dispense medications for some purposes, schools that are citizen for terminating the employment because of an employee’s private life, employers demanding exceptions to insurance regulations, and hospitals the refuse to allow certain medical procedures. In Dreher’s opinion each of these cases has at its core a deeply held, critically important test of religious conviction and a state that seems determined to crush religious beliefs where it conflicts with the greater culture. (There is an argument to be made that this religious belief defense is nothing but a cover shielding a deeper and hostile bigotry but true or not that is not thee point I am discussing today.)
A critical element common to all of these cases, and an aspect that I think is far more important, is that in none of these examples are we witnessing the convictions of religious individuals. Each and every one of these cases is an organization, a fictitious person, and often a licensed non-profit, insisting that the rules that apply to other corporations and company do not apply. It is important to note that the creation and protections of fictitious persons, companies, and non-profits, are an act of the state. It is a set of laws created outside of any religious sphere crafted with a secular intent for a secular purpose. These laws, regulations, and structures in the commercial and profit driven world exist to help shield the assets of entrepreneurs to foster economic growth and stability. They, in effect, say, you John Smith, can create a business and we will treat that business as a person, it’s taxes will be separate from yours, it’s liabilities will be separate from yours, and it’s action will be separate from yours but under Dreher’s argument the companies get all these benefits granted by the culture and the law while also claiming a special protection based upon the creed of it’s owners, despite that business being a separate entity.
Moving into the issue concerning non-profits this becomes even more egregious. Non-Profits are specially licensed and sanctioned to serve a public good, receiving carved out protections backed by the secular state because their mission is defined as something that is intended to benefit society as a whole and not a particular isolated segment or population. It is a perversion of that intent to allow non-profits to discriminate. In South Caroline the governor has petitioned and received a federal waiver that permits a federally funded Christian foster agency to not only refuse to place children with same-sex couples for adoption but also allowing the agency to refuse to place children with Jewish homes because that is a ‘violation’ of their Christian beliefs.
Individuals have the freedom to believe what they wish, but not legal and financial support from secular society.
