A Question for the (Il)liberal Christian Audience

For those of you who were in favor of yesterday's historic, Supreme Court decision (and it was a decision and not an interpretation) what do you honestly think about private institutions like colleges who refuse to hire practicing homosexuals?  I will presume that most of you were against the recent Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, so you have little problem with the government using its coercive power to either fine/imprison small business owners or make them violate their conscience.  And you were in favor of forcing every single state in the union to recognize gay "marriages" rather than letting the people of the states decide.

Are you also in favor of coercing every single private college either to hire practicing homosexuals or be denied federal aid in the form of grants and loans?  I don't see why you would be opposed to this given the reasons I have seen (and I know what a lot of my secular colleagues think.)  I assume that you would be in favor of coercing them too by cutting off funds.  But I'll be interested to hear whether my assumption is wrong and what your reasons are.  (I'd be particularly interested to hear from any of my colleagues but I'm open to thoughts from anyone).

Scalia's Blunder

Having read numerous opinions and all of his books (even the one on practical advise to lawyers in how to present a case), I have tremendous respect for Antonin Scalia.  However, I have never understood how he came to the conclusion that he did in the religious freedom case over the use of peyote by an American Indian in Employment Division v. Smith.  Perhaps I will never know.  No explanation seems consistent with his general practice.  One might think that as a conservative he would rule against the use of peyote; but anyone who has followed his rulings knows that his judicial philosophy quite often determines a ruling at odds with what a conventional conservative might be thought to prefer.  The case is baffling.

Michael Paulsen, though, explains why it was such a bad decision:

Antonin Scalia is one of the most brilliant, principled, sound, and thoughtful jurists ever to sit on the Supreme Court. But twenty-five years ago today, his legal skills utterly failed him.

Read his lucid critique here.

"What the Foes of the Religious Freedom Law Get Wrong"

A reader recommended the following article for inspection.  The title of the post is the title of the Daily News article by S.E. Cupp.  

Cupp has some good observations:

The Indiana law, based on dozens of laws already enacted in other states, does not give businesses a “get out of gay free” card, if you will. It does, however, allow a business owner to raise religion as a defense when an anti-discrimination lawsuit is presented. There are no assurances that this defense will be upheld by a court of law.
But the outrage over Indiana’s law is outrageously inconsistent. Are Connecticut and Massachusetts, two liberal states with similar laws (whose governors are, not incidentally, mulling runs for President), also “backwards” and “intolerant”?
What about all the businesses that have scolded Indiana or threatened to pull out or halt expansion? Apple CEO Tim Cook, who came out himself last year, tweeted his disappointment in Indiana, saying that “Apple is open for everyone.” Apple still does business in Russia, though, where discrimination against gays isn’t merely a possibility but in fact codified into law. The company did briefly halt sales in Russia on Tuesday — not because of its laws endangering the rights of gays but because of the ruble’s plunging value.  

Hillary Clinton tweeted that she was “sad this new Indiana law can happen in America today.” But Clinton is happy to receive donations to her Clinton Global Initiative from Saudi Arabia, where homosexuals are actually beheaded.

But I take issue with other details in the article, specifically in the paragraphs I shall label [A] [B] and [C]:

When Opposing Laws Like Arkansas's and Indiana's Cost Lives

Once again, First Things' R.R. Reno:

None of the dire outcomes predicted by those campaigning against the Indiana RFRA have materialized in jurisdictions that already have versions of the law. Aside from the specific matter of participation in a gay wedding, there has not been a single case in which someone has claimed a religious right to refuse to serve or sell to gays or lesbians. Employment? There exists only one case from 1985—and in that case the court denied the claim to a religious exemption from anti-discrimination laws. Facts belie the outcry and expose it for the propaganda effort that it is.

This campaign of misinformation comes at a cost. For some people, RFRA protection is a matter of life and death.

Take Mary Stinemetz, a Jehovah's Witness in Kansas who needed a liver transplant but would not accept a blood transfusion for religious reasons. To get such an operation, she would have to go a hospital in Nebraska. Kansas Medicaid, which had a policy of only covering in-state procedures, refused to cover the transplant (even though the Omaha procedure would have cost less than the in-state one with a blood transfusion).

Gay Marriage Isn't About Justice, It's About Selma

Lutheran pastor, Hans Fiene:

Why do so many young adults paint absurd caricatures of Christians who request government protection of their religious freedoms, arguing their true goal is to ban gay men from sitting at the local lunch counter? Why do they spread falsehoods about legislation, insisting that bills like the one recently signed by Indiana Gov. Mike Pence will unleash a Republican-led Jim Crow revival aimed at the LGBT community? Why do so many people, Gen Xers and younger, invent a monster of anti-gay bigotry and keep screaming the monster is real despite a mountain of contrary facts standing before them?

The answer is “social studies.” My generation engages in straw men, misinformation, and lies because, in every year of social studies class, we studied the civil-rights movement not as history, but as hagiography. We didn’t just learn what events happened on American soil, we were encouraged to mimic the segregation-defeating holy ones and merit for ourselves a place alongside them in glory. Combining that admonition with our general aversion to hard work, we concluded that the only thing necessary to be as righteous as the saints who fought racial injustice was to decry an injustice that no one else was. And we became so desperate to find that injustice, we lost our minds in the process.

[...]

Don’t Let Facts Sully Our Self-Righteousness

But after all those years of waiting for that diamond to arrive, we weren’t going to let anyone to tell us what we held in our hands was really a cubic zirconia. This cause made us righteous. We were certain of it, so no opposition was allowed. No debate on the issue could be tolerated. No damn, dirty facts would take our saintly status away.

Of course we know that politely telling a customer you’ve served for nine years that you can’t, in good conscience, provide flowers for his wedding isn’t in the same moral universe as murdering a black teenager for talking to a white woman.

So when you argued that disapproving of gay marriage didn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as oppression of black Americans, we knew you were right. Of course we know that politely telling a customer you’ve served for nine years that you can’t, in good conscience,provide flowers for his wedding isn’t in the same moral universe as murdering a black teenager for talking to a white woman. Of course saying “you don’t get to vote because your skin has a different amount of melanin than mine” is logically indefensible, while saying “I don’t think a union that’s biologically incapable of procreation fits the definition of marriage” is an argument that needs to be fairly considered, even if we don’t agree with it. But we wouldn’t consider it, wouldn’t even let your words embed in our ears because we would not risk having to surrender our halos in the offhand chance that you maybe, sort of, kind of had a little bit of a point.

Here is the rest.

Religious Freedom Restoration Act: A Time for Testing

First Things editor R.R. Reno:

We’re in a moment of mass hysteria, one that vindicates Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s decision to sign his state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). This law establishes a strong standard for religious liberty: A person’s free exercise of religious can be “substantially burdened” by a law only if that law advances a “compelling government interest” in a way that involves “the least restrictive means.”

It was immediately denounced as an unprecedented assault on gay rights. Apple CEO Tim Cook described the law as part of “something very dangerous” that “would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors.” Many others have joined the frenzy. Gays aren’t going to be served at restaurants! They won’t be allowed into hotels!

What world is Tim Cook living in? At present, Indiana has no legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. As a result, no matter what one thinks of the recently passed RFRA, when it comes to gay rights this legislation does absolutely nothing to allow people to do things they’re not already allowed to do.

And what were people doing? At this point nobody has identified any pattern of discrimination in Indiana that, somehow, this legislation will empower. No gay person has complained of being denied a hotel room. None have reported being denied service at a restaurant. Gays and lesbians are not prohibited from voting or holding public office. Nobody is lobbying to prevent Elton John from performing in Indiana. There are no reports of discrimination in hiring.

But today is beside the point. Let me repeat that: Today is beside the point. The controversy in Indiana is about the future.

Christian conservatives in Indiana pressed for a RFRA because they anticipate the establishment of a thoroughgoing gay rights regime in America. The Supreme Court is very likely to find a right to gay marriage in the Constitution. Moreover, the reasoning used to justify the discovery of this right is only too likely move along lines that equate any objection to same-sex marriage with bigotry.

This is what I call the Selma Analogy. 

READ THE REST.