Into the West

The Deseret News had another ridiculous editorial on gay marriage this week. The long and short of it is that religious exemptions will never be enough to satisfy marriage equality opponents. Why? Because these religious fears that they constantly conjure up are merely a mask for fear motivated by nothing more than religious bigotry. Read on for the blow by blow.

"So-called religious exemptions, tacked onto New York's Marriage Equality Act at the last moment in order to secure a thin margin for the act's passage, fall woefully short of protecting genuine free exercise of religion for those who believe that marriage between a man and woman is the rational, civilized and divinely prescribed standard of sexual conduct."

Of course, the Deseret news isn't going to say anything about protecting the religious freedoms of those who believe differently than they do. What about the thousands of gay families who would like to have their relationships protected by marriage? It's like the church only believes in religious freedom if your beliefs are synonymous with theirs. Pathetic.

"Religious organizations provide marriage and family counseling; they operate hospitals, clinics, homeless shelters, colleges, schools and camps; they provide job training and adoption services. And through the provision of all these services they employ individuals to whom they extend significant employment benefits.

If lawmakers were serious about accommodating religious practice, shouldn't they have wrestled meaningfully with the potential conflicts posed by this wide range of concerns?"

Do we really need to specifically state every single instance in which a church should be exempted from normal standards of equality? Our country has a long and very detailed record of allowing churches to discriminate in their hiring practices, in who they allow to attend their schools, churchs, camps, etc. etc. Of course the obvious big exemption here is that if your church is taking tax payer dollars, you're not going to be allowed to discriminate. Would operating a government funded charity that excluded Mormons really be acceptable? Of course not. Finally, the inclusion of hospitals and clinics in the above statement is rather troubling. Since when do we refuse healthcare or treatment to those with whom we have religious differences? What's next, temple recommend requirements for surgery? (see I can play with silly extreme slippery slope arguments too).

"And since the free exercise of religion is an individual right, shouldn't lawmakers acknowledge the rights of individuals with religiously motivated beliefs about sexual intimacy to order their closely held affairs in ways consistent with belief?"

Again, why do we need to specify individual rights that are already clearly spelled out in the constitution and established through a long history of case law. Clearly individuals have the freedom to choose which business and services they will support based on whatever criteria they want. Running a business is another matter entirely. This country has a long history of racial inequality. I thought we learned a few things from those experiences, you know, separate drinking fountains etc. etc... Same principle applies here. And as far as protesting goes, if the Westboro Baptist church can protest at the funerals of our dead soldiers, I don't think religions have anything to worry about.

"It is the long held position of this paper that while society should legally protect the dignity of those who are attracted to the same sex, society should also legally define marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife."

This sentence makes absolutely no sense. You don't protect my dignity by turning me into a second-class citizen, denying my right to marriage and to all the protections that come with it. This is another example of the church calling for reason, dignity and respect, and then refusing to supply the very thing it is asking for.

"If such exemptions are to genuinely protect the free exercise of religion, those religious exemptions must be broad enough, specific enough and secure enough to capture the true measure of faith as it is practiced daily by robust religious organizations and their adherents. Otherwise, exemptions might perversely imply that the state can dictate religious practice around core beliefs regarding sacred human intimacy. This is the peril of exemptions."

More religious paranoia that has absolutely no basis in actual facts. Do we really need to spell out every single instance in which religious freedom might be threatened? This is patently ridiculous. Can you imagine spelling out every different type of church meeting that should be protected, every ordinance, every church building, every kind of whatever organization that is run by a church? The bottom line is that this country already has strong protections for religious freedoms - and I have yet to see any examples of those freedom being violated, other than the fact that we are still denying marriage to thousands of couples based on nothing more than the religious beliefs of others.