Don Roach: When Rights Collide – Homosexuality and Religion

Don Roach: When Rights Collide – Homosexuality and Religion

Our use of the term “anti-gay” has become a little excessive. I was reading about a law in Arizona that would allow any person or corporation the ability to claim the practice of religious exercise as a defense to violating certain sections of Arizona law.

Nowhere in the text of the law is the word “gay”, “black”, “white”, or other buzzwords used to attach an –ist claim to such language. Nevertheless, most media outlets are calling the bill an “anti-gay” piece of legislation so let me add some context around the bill.

First of all, most state have equal protection statutes the contents of which employers are required to post somewhere employees to see. These statutes usually talk about not discriminating based on race, religion, creed, national origin, and sexual orientation. For the purpose of today’s analysis, let’s only view these laws with respect to religion and sexual orientation.

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In practice, this means states cannot make laws nor support actions by any entity (unless exempted) that discriminated based upon religion or sexual orientation. For example, if I apply for a job at Citizens Bank, Citizens cannot use my religion or lack thereof as a criterion in its hiring practice. Were I a homosexual man, the same would hold true. If, during the process I felt discriminated against on those grounds, I could seek legal redress against Citizens.

The law in Arizona appears to be addressing businesses that object to certain aspects of homosexuality – namely gay marriage – and refusing to serve them based upon their religious convictions. Recently, there was a story of a wedding photographer who refused to take photos for a gay couple on religious grounds and was sued – and lost . In response to the ruling against his client, the attorney for the photographer said:

The idea that free people can be ‘compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives’ as the ‘price of citizenship’ is a chilling and unprecedented attack on freedom.

Americans seem to agree as a Rasmussen poll found that 85 percent of Americans believe that “if a Christian wedding photographer who has deeply held religious beliefs opposing same-sex marriage is asked to work a same-sex wedding ceremony, […] he has the right to say no.”

Alternative, the lawyer for the couple who sued the photographer successfully argued in court that:

No court has ever held that the First Amendment gives businesses a license to sell goods and services to the general public but then reject customers based on race or religion or sexual orientation, in violation of state law.

While America appears to overwhelmingly agree with this photographer, the courts did not.

What happens when rights collide?

The situation with the photographer and the Arizona law are about rights colliding. Free religious exercise is one of the primary reasons people from Europe came to America as many couldn’t freely practice their religion. Still, if my religion called for me to murder someone every 28 days, religious exercise wouldn’t be a sufficient defense. In recent years, many in the faith community have discussed the implications of gay marriage and churches refusing to marry same-sex. I haven’t heard any local or national pols that churches do not have a right to marry whomever they want to marry. It’s not dissimilar to Catholic churches refusing to marry people who are not Catholic.

Thus the question is where do we draw the line between exercising our First Amendment right to practice our own religion against other rights?

In situations with gay marriage, it is a dicey legal situation. Most Americans favor allowing people to practice their religion and even a majority of Americans are fine with gay marriage. One argument in support of gay marriage has been how it doesn’t affect people who are heterosexual. That’s not the main argument, but it is certainly an argument in debate. Well, in these two examples there will be impact and if you are a businessperson with considerable convictions about an issue, where are your protections?

Where are your rights? Do you as a business person just not sell anything?

I feel we need to strike a balance, but I’m not quite sure how. I wish I could end with a solution, but unfortunately I don’t have one. Do you?

Don can be reached at [email protected] . Please follow don on Twitter at @donroach34.