The Republican government of the state of Indiana thought it could make happy its base of support among evangelical Christians by signing a so-called "Religious Freedom Restoration Act". But the law had nothing to do with religious freedom, which every Indianan was already guaranteed under the US Constitution. Any male Indianan whose religious beliefs lead him to oppose gay marriage has the freedom to choose not to get married to another man. Any pregnant female Indianan who is religiously opposed to abortion has the absolute right to abstain from terminating her pregnancy.
Politicians who are promoting these laws across the country want to allow people to engage in religious discrimination against others. I belong to the United Church of Christ, which supports same-sex marriage. I have been performing same-sex weddings for nearly two decades. Among more serious forms of discrimination, the Indiana law would have made it okay for these couples to be denied service at bakeries when they ask for same-sex wedding cakes. That would deny them protection from persecution for their religion, which supports their same-sex spiritual union.
In the recent Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court established that a business can have a religion. This is a serious misinterpretation of the Constitution. Neither the staff nor the clients of a business can be expected to have the same religious convictions of the owner or CEO. Businesses and corporations are not people. There is no burden on the religious freedom of a business executive in providing contraceptive coverage in health benefits to staff, since this can't be interpreted to imply that the executive is personally, religiously in favor of using that coverage himself. The Hobby Lobby case inspired this latest spate of state law proposals that encourage discrimination based on religion.
The good news in the bad news about the Indiana law is the swift effectiveness of the backlash against it and similar laws proposed in statehouses around the US. The clincher: opposition to the law from powerful business interests who understand that society has changed decisively in the direction of full inclusion for gay and lesbian people. (There will still be serious problems with the Indiana law, even after the amendment: see more at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.)
With this backlash, the American people are awakening to the fact that there is no "war on religion" in America as it has been invented by the religious right in recent years. Instead, they have been awakened to the current "war by religion". People indeed are persecuted for their religion in America... by religious organizations. Professors and other staff at many Christian colleges, and staff at other evangelical institutions, must sign statements of faith in order to get and keep their jobs, even though many of them do not share those beliefs. Their livelihoods depend on suppressing their freedom of religious expression. People whose religion supports the use of contraception are being persecuted by church-related institutions that have a secular charitable purpose, or that otherwise use religion as a reason for denying reproductive health care coverage. In the US military, there is a pervasive culture that pressures soldiers to conform to theologically conservative Protestant Christianity in order to advance in the ranks. The same atmosphere often prevails in intercollegiate sports. These real threats to true religious freedom are corrosive not only to personal freedom but to the vitality of religion itself. The Koran puts it well (Surah 2:256): "There is no compulsion in religion." With compulsion, people fake religiosity, and this degrades the meaning of faith for everyone.
So let us celebrate the real religious freedom that we have always enjoyed in America, enshrined in the Bill of Rights. And let us strive to save religion from the war by religion that threatens religious and non-religious folks alike.
JIM BURKLO
Website: JIMBURKLO.COM Weblog: MUSINGS Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See a video interview about my new novel, SOULJOURN
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Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California
Website: JIMBURKLO.COM Weblog: MUSINGS Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See a video interview about my new novel, SOULJOURN
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California