Matt Zeitlin

With gay marriage becoming part of the landscape in more and more places, the only major religious freedom issue seems to be whether or not religious instituions will be required to perform gay marriages. And I think everyone can agree that they shouldn’t have to. But since there’s a large portion of the population whose proclaimed religious beliefs prevent them from acknowledging or recognized gay marriages as real or worthy of respect, there is going to be some friction. As Kevin Drum points out, what about the florist or the wedding planner who want do work for same-sex couples? Now, instinctually, this shouldn’t be that big of a deal. There are lots of florists and wedding planners out there* who will surely work for same-sex couples, so do we really need to impinge on the freedom of association for hard-core, recalcitrant folk in the wedding industry?

Now, some like Andrew Sullivan, who, best I can tell, actually opposes protection against employment and other discrimination based on race and gender, are fine with this basically libertarian arrangement. But should people who think that discrimination by private actors is unacceptable really be OK with a proliferation of religious freedom exemptions so that people whose vocation and services aren’t at all religious can discriminate against gays in a way that they wouldn’t be allowed to discriminate against black people?

I think that liberals really have to draw a line in the sand here. And that line, for now, should be that religious institutions should be allowed “religious freedom” to be bigots and to deny services to gays. I can’t see what would be gained by forcing a Catholic priest to perform a gay marriage or for a Catholic adoption agency to work with same-sex couples. Pluralism and equality, in this case, are competing values, and pluralism — if not for purely pragmatic reasons — should probably win out.

But for everything else, we shouldn’t allow “religious freedom” creep. The entire point of 1960s Civil Rights law was that your personal beliefs, be they religious or otherwise, are not an excuse to discriminate in the selling or providing of a service to the public. And I can see no logical reason why ones sexual orientation ought not to be treated the same way as ones race or gender. Hopefully, one day, Congress or the Court will apply the exact same standards to orientation that they do to race, but until then, liberals should be clear that they won’t let proclamations of religious freedom allow public bigotry that we would find unacceptable in every other instance.

*And yes, insert all the jokes/observations you want about the sexual orientations of florists and wedding planners.