The Washington Post reports:
Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. yesterday fired Robert J. Smith, his appointee on the Metro transit authority board, for referring to gay people as sexual deviants on a cable television show.
"Robert Smith's comments were highly inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable," Ehrlich (R) said in a statement less than five hours after the controversy erupted during a Metro board meeting. "They are in direct conflict to my administration's commitment to inclusiveness, tolerance and opportunity." ...
Smith acknowledged after the meeting that he had referred to homosexuals as "persons of sexual deviancy" during a political round-table discussion on a Montgomery County cable show that was shown on Sunday.
"Homosexual behavior, in my view, is deviant," he said. "I'm a Roman Catholic." ... "The comments I make in public outside of my [Metro board job] I'm entitled to make," he said. His personal beliefs, he said, have "absolutely nothing to do with running trains and buses and have not affected my actions or decisions on this board." ...
The Metro directors oversee a $1 billion operating budget and nearly 10,000 employees. They set policy for the nation's second-busiest subway and fifth-busiest bus system....
Smith said he has been a regular panelist on the weekly political round-table show, "21 This Week," telecast on Access Montgomery cable Channel 21, for the past 12 years. He appears as a "Republican activist," according to Rodney Bryant, the show's producer.
On last weekend's show, Smith interrupted another speaker who was talking about federalism and Vice President Cheney's daughter. The speaker said Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, would not want the government interfering in her life, according to a recording of that portion of the show.
"That's fine, that's fine," Smith interrupted. "But that doesn't mean that government should proffer a special place of entitlement within the laws of the United States for persons of sexual deviancy."
It seems like Smith is the sort of high-level political appointee who can be fired for his speech -- including off-the-job speech on matters of public concern -- with no First Amendment constraints, and with no requirements that the government show any likely disruption that would be caused by the speech. (See generally Elrod v. Burns and Branti v. Finkel, which arise in the slightly different but closely related area of dismissal based on political affiliation.) And I think the Governor's decision may well have been quite sensible, not just as a matter of politics for the Governor but as a matter of public relations for the metro system and for Maryland government more generally.
Nonetheless, it seems to me that this shows that the gay rights movement -- which in many respects I support -- has indeed led, and is likely to continue to lead, to nontrivial burdens on people who hold and express traditional religious views that condemn homosexuality: Here, the firing from a government job that really does have relatively little to do with gay rights matters; in other cases, dismissals by private employers for anti-gay speech; in other contexts, burdens on religious institutions' ability to refrain from assisting conduct (for instance, adoption by same-sex couples) that they think is morally improper; in still others, the exclusion of the Boy Scouts and other groups that discriminate based on sexual orientation in the course of trying to convey their anti-homosexuality message (something that I've argued is a constitutionally permissible burden, but a burden nonetheless).
These burdens might well be justified. Also, on balance they are far less than some of the burdens that gays have had to labor under in the past (such as the threat of prison time for their sexual behavior), and are likely less than even the burdens that gays have to labor under today (such as the threat of being fired for their sexual conduct, in some states prohibitions or restrictions on adopting children, the inability to get permanent residence and U.S. citizenship for one's life partner when heterosexuals can get this important benefit as a matter of course, and so on).
Nonetheless, it seems important to recognize that unfortunately the securing of greater rights to some leads to (not inexorably, but practically) the decrease in the rigths of others. And it helps us understand why those who do not value gay rights highly -- because, for instance, they believe that homosexual behavior is immoral and harmful to society -- would fight hard against expansions in gay rights, and resist claims of the "It's none of your business whom I have sex with, so why are you objection to various gay rights proposals?" variety. The broad gay rights movement, which goes beyond just demanding freedom from legal punishment for homosexuality and equal access to public benefits, does intrude (whether justifiably or not) on others' business, and resisting the movement then in turn becomes those other people's business.
Thanks to reader Mike Chittenden for the pointer to the newspaper article.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Is there Enough Libertarian and Conservative Support for Gay Rights for it to Matter?
- Why Ever Fire Public Officials for their Views?:
- The Racism Analogy:
- Conservatives, Libertarians, and Slippery Slope Concerns about the Gay Rights Movement:
- Firing a Washington Metro Board Member for Anti-Gay Speech:
- Washington Metro Board Member Dismissed for Anti-Gay Remarks in Same-Sex Marriage Debate:
But how is any of this relevant? The racists were wrong then, and the anti-gay people are wrong now. I don't think it's "unfortunate" at all that it's becoming socially unacceptable to say insensitive things about gay people, as long as it's still legal to do so.
Let's say that there were a fairly major religion that still practiced ritual animal sacrifice- suppose, for example, that the highly ritualized Spanish bullfights (the ones were they die, not the Portuguese ones with velcro spears and whatnot). The animal is repeatedly stabbed and left to slowly bleed to death before being killed in such things, which are televised both in Spain and wider Europe- I've watched them on RAI Uno in Italy before.
Such things are, in large part, entirely socially unacceptable in the present United States- with good reason, too. That, however, does not negate that this social unacceptability, to the point of the loss of livelihoods, imposes a significant cost on individuals who feel morally bound to the "Matador Mysteries" or whatever this religious practice would be called.
Recognizing that this rising social unacceptability could, in fact, demand of adherents that they surrender their morals or their life, is not, in my view, a bad thing- rather it is simply being thorough before one makes a balancing judgment as to further extension of certain rights.
Please note too that I attempted to select a deepseated historical example for this, to avoid the problem of new "religions" like the World Church of the Creator, which exist entirely as a vehicle for some form of discrimination.
That said, the two examples he offers are not very convincing, because both deal with limitations in taxpayer support for anti-gay groups, not with any punishment of anti-gay groups.
The "burdens on religious institutions' ability to refrain from assisting conduct (for instance, adoption by same-sex couples) that they think is morally improper" must refer to the decision by a Catholic group in Mass. to stop placing kids for adoption because it could no longer both receive public funding and discriminate against gay couples.
The "exclusion of the Boy Scouts" is about denying subsidies in the form of free-of-charge access to public facilities.
I don't disagree that more equal legal treatment of gays makes it harder for anti-gay groups to discriminate, but is there anything more nefarious going on than denying public funds to discriminatory groups?
Furthermore, I think it is rather critical to establish once and for all whether homosexuality is a choice or a circumstance of birth before we set a precedent on how it is to be treated. I agree that adults should be entitled to marry whomever they choose, but I'm very concerned about the choice aspect of that. If we can't establish that homosexuals have an unimpaired freedom of choice in this matter, I don't think this precedent needs to be set.
You're an intellectual deviate. Your intellectual behavior differs from the norm.
Libertarians are political deviates. Their views deviate from the norm.
Does that mean I get fired?
You misspelled "fundamentalist," Professor.
This sort of thing happens all the time with every hot button issue. Most political appointees would lose their jobs for saying, 'we should have more abortion' or even the seriously debated claim, 'abortion is effective in reducing crime'. Though most of the people who have these beliefs do not have them as part of an organized religion these beliefs occupy a similarly foundational moral role and effectively amount to these people's religious beliefs and some people do have these beliefs as part of small religious communities out here in california.
I can come up with tons of examples of religious beliefs whose statement would get you fired. The only difference between this situation and those situations is that there are more people who have these particular beliefs. Yet the fact that a group is large and politically powerful should mean protecting their 'rights' is less important (they can look out for themselves) nore more!
Is it a "news" item that if you embarrass your employer with gratuitous expressions of your personal views that you can be fired? If the President's speechwriter appeared on the Tonight Show and tossed in some opinion that Jews run and manipulate the world would anyone be surprised that the writer the next left "to pursue other interests"?
<blockquote>
The "burdens on religious institutions' ability to refrain from assisting conduct (for instance, adoption by same-sex couples) that they think is morally improper" must refer to the decision by a Catholic group in Mass. to stop placing kids for adoption because it could no longer both receive public funding and discriminate against gay couples.
</blockquote>
No —- the ban in Boston on discrimination against same-sex couples was absolute. There was no option to refuse federal funds and be allowed to continue to discriminate. Such discrimination was declared simply illegal: Catholic Charities would be required to place children with same-sex couples, i.e., to put them in homes that either lacked a mother or lacked a father.
That's why they left the business.
I guess they didn't teach you in your slave school that the destruction of the bourgeois family was a goal of the Left since its invention in the 19th century.
By eliminating traditional institutions that supply a separate source of independent strength, the Left hopes to convert the population to free-floating atomistic individuals ripe for collectivization in "loose coalitions of numerous distinct movements, including (but not limited to) feminists, greens, some labour unions, some atheists, some gay rights activists, and some minority ethnic and racially oriented civil rights groups".
The atomized are also increasingly dependent on public spending and public "direction"/regulation. If you doubt this, note the increase in government spending and regulation across the OECD nations.
Quite a burden.
This is rather confusing, not in the least because of the ambiguity of the term "broad." What are those aspects of the "broad gay rights movement" that intrude on others' business, as opposed to creating equal access to government funded and sponsored programs?
Whether or not Mr. Smith should have been fired is a political question. The Governor obviously saw his statement as an indication that he could no longer trust Mr. Smith's judgement, just as if Mr. Smith had said on the television program that transit routes should avoid poor neighborhoods so as to cut down on crime in public transportation.
OTOH, religious organizations are free to discriminate on their own dime and their own time.
I love that your post completely ignores any points made by anyone, but makes a nice swipe at "the Left" boogeyman.
In general:
I fail to see how the gay rights movement has placed nontrivial burdens on anyone. Gay rights activists did not fire Robert Smith, the Governor did. Both Republicans, both paragons of "individual responsibility" if the platform is to be believed. The gay rights movement is responsible for its actions only, not the actions of a conservative governor who fired his conservative employee for making a politically inane comment on public TV.
He was factually correct. Or, is it simply that we are so hypersensitive that we don't want to offend anyone and will punish those who do. Of course, when we give groups power because they are "offended", they will be encouraged to find more things to be offended about.
For those (like "M") who think the firing was inappropriate, would you still think that if the report had said the following?
And yes, Duncan Frissell, liberals are really just one big secret society intent on destroying the family. We hate children. We rejoice in divorce. And we kick puppies.
That was an unfortunate decision, one that was internally controversial ("Eight members of Catholic Charities board later stepped down in protest of the bishops' stance. The 42-member board had voted unanimously in December to continue considering gay households for adoptions").
Still, is there anything worse going on than refusing to fund groups, or to allow groups to perform public functions such as adoption, when those groups insist on dircriminatory treatment? (I mean aside from Duncan Frissell's trenchant point about the centuries-old conspiracy of The Left to murder the family and God in order to increase the reach of the EPA and SEC).
Freedom of speech doesn't seem to have anything to do with it; obviously a politician can't make racist comments and keep his position based on freedom of speech.
Freedom of religion seems the more interesting question, particularly since no public office is supposed to have a religious oath, right? But I still think it's a non-starter; this is about speech, not about exercise. Religious or not, I don't think a politician has a right to spout off about any which thing and keep his job.
Steve,
I guess you skipped Comparative Religions. Catholics aren't fundies. About 57% of Americans hold "traditional" religious views. Half of those are evangelicals (23.4%)and could be considered "fumdamentalist" and the other half are trad or centrist Catholics (including Latinos), trad Mainline Protestants (including Blacks &Latinos), and a mix of other Christians and other religions (Orthodox Jews, Hindus &Muslims for example).
Source: Fourth National Survey of Religion and Politics, Bliss Institute University
of Akron, March-May 2004 (N=4000).
"Deviant," as you know, means much more than "different from most people." What you're doing is the logical fallacy of equivocation; using a word with two meanings, implying one, but then falling back on the other when challenged to avoid having to defend yourself.
If you're going to call people perverts, shouldn't you at least be honest about it?
They "left the business" because the Vatican is imposing a much less tolerant set of policies regarding gay people in general. Twenty years of reasonable policies that saw a couple dozens adoptions to same-sex couples were replaced with an absolute ban. They CHOSE to get out of the business. More correctly, Pope Ratzinger CHOSE to get them out of the business.
Heck, even Maggie would agree that even she would agree that suggesting that slavery is appropriate or interracial marriage is wrong because of the Scriptures shouldn't give you a free pass.
"Such things are, in large part, entirely socially unacceptable in the present United States"
Bullfighting is currently practiced in southern Texas. See "Bullfighting Comes to Texas"
I think that his firing was perfectly appropriate, given the way he stated his view. All I wanted to say was that there is probably a way that someone (unlike myself) who believes that homosexuality is a sin can express that and not say something that should get one fired from such a post.
Of course, if you call these groups by their one common aspect -- opposition to gay rights -- they'll say you're being unfair.
If this guy is a political appointee, I presume he's employed "at will" and can be fired for whatever reason.
You are just flat out wrong. Numerous polls have found that a majority of Americans think homosexuals should be permitted to pursue their relationships as they wish. Indeed, Gallup polls have seen over the last 20 years a move to a majority of Americans saying homosexuality is "acceptable." That trend has reversed only slightly in recent years with the far right gay hysteria campaign.
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/gal1.html
Hmm. Well, I think you're subjectively right, that this is how anti-gay activists feel. At the same time, I think you're kind of mixing together the push for legal rights with the push for tolerance and respect. The push for tolerance and respect does indeed conflict with the ability of anti-gays to be publicly anti-gay. But that's pretty much a head-to-head battle, not some sort of hidden slippery slope. And the idea that this is actually a justification for opposing gay rights seems pretty sketchy.
I don't want to be as pointed as some are, but there's kind of a comparison, it seems, to saying that opposition to feminism (potentially legitimate) could explain why people would have opposed women's suffrage(not legitimate). It amounts to a suggestion that opposition to women's suffrage should then, hypothetically, be recognized not really as anti-woman, but as something else. I guess that tactically, it may be something to be aware of, but it also starts to sound like a justification...
You might want to read the article on bullfighting. Here's a quotation from it:
"Since U.S. law prohibits fight-to-kill bullfights, all fights at Santa Maria will be bloodless. The traditional three-act structure will remain intact, but blunt sticks will be used instead of barbed."
I was referring specifically to the Spanish form of bullfighting, which wounds and then kills the bull. Bullfighting in the U.S. (which is actually surprisingly common in the California central valley, particularly outside of Fresno and Bakersfield, due to large Portuguese populations) is all bloodless, and the bull leaves unharmed at the end of it.
Slowly, but surely, we return to our British roots. :-D
As DanielH also implies, contrasting "same" and "different" fails to capture the actual issues involved. The actual issue in both of these situations is whether certain differences--racial differences, or differences in sexual orientation--should be used as grounds for discrimination. In that sense, the anti-discrimination claim in both cases are essentially the same: you should be treating us the same because the differences in question don't justify disparate treatment.
I could really care less about the term used and it doesn't need to be pejuritive, but we need an general term for those outside the sexual norm who are 'protected' against people not accepting their lifestyle. So what is the correct term for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (both pre-op and post-op)?
What HL said - "Blacks argued that they were the same as Whites and should be treated accordingly. Gays argue that they are different from straights and therefore straights should approve of whatever Gays want. The analogy doesn't hold."
Turned upside down - But with regards to marriage, gays argue that they are no different from heterosexual couples, and deserve equal recognition from the government. So the analogy to Blacks seeking equal civil rights does hold.
But I don't see how the government accommodating religious organizations in their views of homosexuality is any more objectionable than accommodating them in their views of, say, war and compulsory military service (e.g., the Quakers).
If a government appointee speaks out on this basis, does it make a difference?
Tom needs to go back to remedial civil rights class with HL. Seriously, do people just sit around making this stuff up?
As to you basic question, since Maryland bans discrimination based on sexual orienation, it seems that a government official making a comment about pedophilia and gays and thus objecting to them could probably be fire. If for nothing else, probably intellectual competence.
Religion appears to be the one "get out of jail free" card when you violate public policy by making statements that are discriminatory.
But what happened to him is an indication of the losses that political correctness imposes on society: whatever poll you look at, there are really large chunks of the American populace on either side of this cultural divide. If neither side is willing to tolerate the mere expression of the other side's views in public, how are we to resolve this conflict?
In regard to the analogy between sexual orientation and race: nobody disputes that gay relationships don't produce children in the natural course of things. This at least is a difference between heterosexual and homosexual relationships. Is there any analogous difference between the races-- based on nature, not on social conditions?
Well, other races have slightly different physical differences, most of which are "cosmetic", if that is the right term.
But the (non)production of children is irrelevant to the big question of gay marriage, since numerous married couples never will have children, either out of choice or biological dysfunction or age. Or are we to make the production of children a requirement for the government to grant marriage licenses?
But why?
The point is that "they can do it as long as they don't take government money" isn't an option for adoptions, supposedly because adoptions are a public function. Why, then, is it an option for marriages?
Suppose he'd referred to "gun nuts" and gotten fired. Would EV then worry that gun rights groups were imposing "nontrivial burdens" on people who hold and express the view that widespread gun ownership is undesirable?
People
No, just pointing out that near-pedophilic pornography enjoys a large following amongst straights, so the upthread poster's comments about the "gay movement" disavowing pedophilia are nonsensical and were probably just regurgitated from a Mike Savage(Weiner) book.
That makes him the worst of the worst. There are many levels on which he deserves to lose his job and be drummed out of civil society. I can't feel too bad about the one that got picked.
(is that snark? or hyperbole? not sure, but it's not entirely facetious)
The children-as-products-of-marriage debate has been hashed to death elsewhere, and I don't mean to hijack this thread for that purpose. Instead, I was thinking on a broader scale: does the infecundity of gay relationships mean that sexual orientation should be considered "deviant"? There was lots of purported "scientific evidence" used by racists to "prove" that non-whites were inferior, but that has now been entirely discredited. So what I was asking was, does the analogy hold up at this level?
On another level, many people seem to think that this difference between gays and straights is as insubstantial as skin color. Is that correct?
I think there is actually one semi-serious point here. I don't think the government could interfere with discriminatory churches conducting their own marriages--but those need not convert automatically to civil marriages, as in fact has been proven by the many gay marriages conducted by various churches.
So, what is less clear to me is whether discriminatory churches could be denied the authority to sign a marriage license for a couple in lieu of a state official. Of course, this has always been an oddity in the law--why, in addition to state officials like judges and justices of the peace, should clergy, but no one else, have the power to sign marriage licenses? Frankly, this always struck me as constitutionally suspect.
In any event, such a law wouldn't change much in practice. If you wanted to get married by the discriminatory church, the church could do it. At most, you might then have to get a state official to sign your civil marriage license. And frankly, I think this is how it should work anyway, discriminatory churches or not.
nn489,
First, I think byomtov has it right on the "political correctness" issue. For example, suppose a member of Bush's cabinet referred to Evangelical Christians as "Jesus Freaks" in a public event. You can bet that person would get fired, and it would be politics, not "political correctness".
Anyway, I think the best available science (and my own experience) suggests that many gay couples are capable of forming happy, healthy, loving, romantic partnerships in substantially the same manner that straight couples can. I think that is about all we need to show that gay couples are capable of participating in marriage to the benefit of both themselves and society. If they also raise children (as many undoubtedly will), the children will likely benefit as well.
Of course. Even if you get married in a church, you still have to get a license from the govt (or at least, my hetero Catholic marrying pals here just had to do both, and I assume this is the case everywhere). The Church retains the right not to recognize divorces that the state grants, to the occasional consternation of a Kennedy. Similarly, it retains the right not to marry two black people, or people of different races, or two gay people.
Legal recognition of marriage is separate from religious recognition of marriage.
Can you give an example of exactly what you mean here? In what particular sense does the gay rights movement "go beyond" this?
In the context of this post, I might guess that you mean that the "movement" (which is kind of vague) is demanding the suppression of speech in the interest of advancing its goals. But I'm not aware of any gay political organization that fails to support free speech rights. If there were, I'd be interested in hearing about it, because I'd probably write them a nasty letter.
I try to laugh about it, cover it all up with lies
I try to laugh about it, hiding the tears in my eyes
'cause boys don't cry
It's also wrong, incidentally; sex with 18-year olds is not "near-pedophilic." Pedophilia is the term for sex with (or sexual attraction towards) pre-pubescent children.
Yeah, it's completely reasonable for the governor to fire the guy, given the political ramifications of what he said. But those ramifications are at least partly the result of political correctness. If Americans of all opinions could listen more civilly to people who disagree with them we'd have a better country.
Anyway, as to the scientific evidence-- I'm not talking about gay marriage in particular. I'm talking about homosexuality in general, in relation to the analogy between it and race. Our society has largely (and thankfully) determined that such natural differences as exist between the races offer no basis for discrimination. The argument-by-analogy for gay rights would be to say that neither are there any differences between gays and straights that justify different treatment. But people who regard homosexuality as "deviant" would argue that the natural fecundity of straight sex (and, conversely, the natural contraception inherent in gay sex) is in fact a significant difference. So the analogy between orientation and race stands or falls on that statement being false.
Religion appears to be the one "get out of jail free" card when you violate public policy by making statements that are discriminatory.
Good point. It helps when you’ve got Dr. Dobson, tag-teamed with Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out and the ADF guarding your backside, and “marriage scholars” like Maggie Gallagher playing the “religious persecution” card. It’s really quite amazing that an intelligent person like Robert Smith who works side by side with “openly gay elected official” Jim Graham on the Metro transit board would behave in this manner.
From my limited perspective, people who are openly gay have settled down and formed family and are not ashamed of their families. In the workplace, openly gay people display family pictures on their desks. This can be an act of bravery if no protections are offered as is the case with Virginia state government employees.
A hypothetical VA case brings up the other side of the religious freedom coin. Suppose an openly gay VA employees marries at his United Church of Christ church. After he returns from the honeymoon, he brings in a wedding photo, and within five hours, finds himself fired. He can’t claim sexual-orientation discrimination because of the VA attorney general’s ruling, but he may be able to claim religious discrimination.
As Chai Feldblum explains, this is a zero sum game. If everybody would just agree to leave family matters alone, people with conflicting views may be able to get along. There is still the matter of the Pope declaring that “non-traditional” families are “an eclipse of God”, but didn’t an earlier Pope punish Galileo for insisting that the earth is round?
What about the natural resistance of melanin-rich skin to skin cancer? Or the natural resistance of whites to sickle-cell anemia? These are differences, right?
Oh, wait, you said "significant" difference.
So why, exactly, is the capacity to reproduce "significant" in this context? Significant to whom, on what basis? Go ahead, take your time.
(To fend off a typical dead-end, let me cite the slogan I saw on a sticker once: "I f--k to come, not to conceive.")
What would we think of someone who posted an entry in a blog such as that above? We would call them a bigot, for what other motivation would they have to point this out other than to help justify those who object to acceptance of jews -- even if they (like EV pretends to do) "support" jewish civil rights in general?
EV has an odd obsession with homosexuals -- recall his bizarre series of posts about how it is true that homosexuals are trying to "recruit" people.
No, it would only be news to someone who wanted to excuse and justify those who discriminate against jews. Although Eugene professes to be a supporter of gay rights generally, he often goes out of his way to justify and excuse those who discriminate and hate gays. This is just another example of his behavior in this regard. As I note above, if this had involved Jews or blacks, do you think Eugene would have pointed this out and used it as an example to point out the obvious facts which he states? No, he would not. So what's the difference here? One difference and one only: Homosexuals.
Eugene's obsession reminds me of this onion article.
Hopefully, EV is more (1) a contrarian and (2) someone interested in gay rights for purposes of his "slippery slope" theories.
Silly professor.
Don't you know that free speech and the freedom of religion is restricted to your private home and church? Speak outside those places and the "tolerant" and "openminded" left will get you fired.
Why do these people feel the need to talk about their religion? I mean, what, do they think the 1st Amendment applies to THEM? Are they that silly?
I think part of your comment comes very close to being out of line. One of the most important movements forward in gay rights has come with the increasing ability of heterosexuals to think about gay rights. Prior to the 1950s or so in this country, don't-ask-don't-tell was more than just a military policy -- avoidance was the generally accepted way of dealing with homosexuality, and was the best case scenario for most lesbians and gay men.
That has changed, but many heterosexuals are still sorting out their thoughts and feelings -- just as those of us who are gay had to do for ourselves as we came out of the closet. Eugene is willing to engage even the most difficult dilemmas involving homosexuality, and deserves credit, not condemnation for doing so.
This post is an excellent example. We treat religious beliefs with an extremely high degree of solicitude in this country, and I think religious believers have begun taking some advantage of that deferential attitude when gay rights are the subject. While other kinds of beliefs are subject to the rough and tumble of discussion, debate and sometimes quite rude dismissal, religious beliefs are expected to be - and usually are - treated differently. And whenever religious believers are criticized, they claim that it is an unfair attack on their faith.
By exploring this interesting case, this post raises the question of whether religious beliefs should be treated specially. As earlier posters have noted, the culture has changed radically when a Republican governor of a conservative state believes it will be in his political interest to fire an aide who I think can fairly be characterized as speaking disrespectfully of a small group of fellow citizens. The aide did this because of his religious beliefs. Should that make a difference? Many religious people believe it should.
I, at least, do not. I think religious beliefs, like others, should be subject to criticism, just as I believe that claims to equal protection by lesbians and gay men should be subject to challenge and hard questions. Losing a job is an extreme situation, but as has been noted, this is an unavoidable part of being a politician -- things that might be tolerated for private individuals take on an entirely different character when they come onto the public stage. Gay rights is an issue of that kind.
When it comes to equality, I think we gays have the better argument. More important, I believe that homosexuality, properly understood, is entirely compatible with religion, properly understood. This, too, is controversial, and well worth debating.
What isn't worth debating, I think, is Eugene's good faith and engaging curiousity about how these issues play out in our culture.
They will not be allowed to sign marriage licenses. They will be purged and cleansed. And then we can go after their tax exempt status!
If gays marry, churches could suffer
By Douglas W. Kmiec, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University School of Law
For technical legal reasons, it is difficult to challenge a religious group's non-profit status in federal court, but state court is more open. There, judicial decisions approving same-sex marriage or even state laws barring discrimination can be used to pronounce any opposing moral or religious doctrine to be "contrary to public policy." So declared, it would be short work for a state attorney general's opinion to deny the tax-exempt status of charities and most orthodox Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious bodies. If enough state lawyers do this, expect the IRS to chime in.
I am sure you would be standing up for his "right" to say such things without losing his job.
There's an odd switch of wording in this post that I think led to a lot of the comments in this chain. I was wondering if it was intentional or inadvertent. Early in the post, you refer to the gay rights movement as potentially imposing "burdens" on other people. That makes sense to me--the ascendancy of any group/movement/viewpoint logically imposes some sort of burden on those who don't like that group/movement/viewpoint. And I think it's an interesting discussion.
But then in the paragraph starting with "Nonetheless," you refer to a "decrease in the rigths [sic]" of others. Now, rather than merely imposing a "burden," the movement has infringed on someone's "rights." Was that switch intentional? If so, what's the theory of "rights" you are working under? I'm probably fairly far down the spectrum here, but my view of (especially First Amendment) "rights" is that your rights are what the cases say they are. And in this case, as you suggest, there's no reasonable argument that this guy's rights under the First Amendment case law were infringed. Are you actually thinking of other examples (e.g., employment discrimination, fair housing, etc. as extended to sexual orientation), do you have a different conception of "rights" in mind, or was the change in language just inadvertent?
Thx.
I think you're completely wrong. The idea that EV is anti-gay is silly. He's not; he's simply pro-religion. Guess what? These values often contradict. And they do so in ways that 99.9% of people, even extremely intelligent people, don't fully appreciate (e.g. comprehend).
The post about Jews is completely different because the movement for racial non-bigotry and equality has been around prominently for a long time, and people have had time to come to terms. At this point, showing that kind of solicitude towards racism is clearly overboard, and accordingly, one could draw a lot of very negative inferences.
The movement for homosexual rights, however, is much more nacent. That makes it completely different. Why? Because it's new, it's weird, and people don't know what to make of it. It's also different because homosexuality appears in a way to be a choice, and thus many people don't see it as a civil rights issue in the same way as racism. I think these people are wrong, but I can't go and say they're all evil for thinking this. When it comes down to it, most people are wrong about just about everything.
Some day, the assumptions about uneasiness with full racial equality may fully transfer to uneasiness with full sexual equality. To say they do now, though, is to ignore a lot.
Let's say you had a founding father, who believed in full racial equality and respect and tolerance, but didn't believe in miscegenation. Is that just as bad as the similar view would be now?
Clinton's nomination for ambassador of Lichenstien feels your pain. /sarcasm
I'd claim that EV is generally an apologist for all sorts of bad people, including anti-gay. Though EV supports gay rights (at least in theory), he rarely (and possibly never) makes posts in favor of gay rights, and with great frequency makes posts in favor of tolerance towards homophobia. In being such an apologist, EV is the type of friend that the "homsexual lobby" (as EV has disgustingly referred to in the past) would rather just consider an enemy in the first instance.
I strongly believe that Professor Volokh's conservative ethnic background, and perhaps his Jewish religion, affect his views on this issue. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It's not just the conservative Catholics, you know.
Plese see my comment on the "Racism Analogy" post for further explanation. Thank you for allowing my comment, respectfully submitted.
I agree. Often to society's detriment.
So, been there, done that.
Well, not quite. The non-firing expression of traditional views that condemn homosexuality is "...but many persons, including myself, have strong religious beliefs condemning persons we believe are acting immorally." I doubt the Governor would even have bothered to express disapproval in private to Mr. Smith over such a statement.
Mr. Smith's remark seems to carry two particular red-flags. The first, despite some protestation here to the contrary, is the use of the word sexual deviancy, which I believe everyone quite fairly understands to be phrased to express an especially perjorative sense of disdain not a value neutral description.
The second, I don't believe anyone has noted, is "special place of entitlement [for homosexuals]." This is a favorite canard for some - the notion that mandating equality before the law for those singled out for discrimination creates "special rights." For the uninitiated, the phrase seems fairly innocuous. Kudos, however, to the Governor for recognizing its majoritarian dismissal of minority rights. There is no more a "special right" for a homosexual to be treated as an equal citizen by a neutral secular government than a "special right" exist to recognize the religiously inspired pacifist motivations of tiny religious sects or "special rights" for a culturally-constructed population segment like "Hispanics'" inclusion in race discrimination laws.
A) morph into the right to have government protection from private discrimination (which is de jure equal treatment, but de facto a special right); which
B) morphs into special preferences (e.g. "affirmative action," which is a special right, to have the government discriminate against other people in your favor.
"If we treat you equally, as required under the law, you may ask for more. Therefore, we deny to recognize equal treatment in the first place."
Yeah, that's the winning ticket!
But then, it's no surprise I don't share EV's lament--for I don't actually derive any personal satisfaction or sense of self-worth from carrying on the inherited traditions that happen to teach straights are the Brahmins of the moral caste system, and gays the untouchables.
I think there is an ambiguity in your word "significant". A difference can be "significant" in one or more ways without that difference being RELEVANT to the differential treatment in mind.
For example, consider the following statements:
"Biologically, there are significant differences between men and women. But those differences are irrelevant to the respective capacity of men and women to participate in political activities."
The same logic applies to the issue of "deviancy" in just a slightly more complicated form. This would be the basic argument:
"Biologically, there is a significant difference between reproductive sex acts and nonreproductive sex acts. But those differences are irrelevant to the capacity of sex acts to be part of a healthy sexual relationship, because one need not have reproductive sex in order to have a healthy sexual relationship."
This same principle can be applied, of course, to not only gay couples, but also to straight couples who only have nonreproductive sex (either through choice or because of inability to reproduce). The claim would be that the mere fact that such sexual relationships--gay or straight--only involved nonreproductive sex acts would not render them unhealthy.
Of course, I am substituting the terms "healthy" and "nonhealthy" here for "normal" and "deviant". That is because I think "healthy" is capable of some sort of objective inquiry, whereas people's definition of "normal" and "deviant" tends to depend on some sort of a priori religious/moral norms.
Finally, the scientific community has in fact concluded that nonreproductive sexual relationships, including gay relationships, can be healthy. In other words, we have the necessary confirmation that being gay is not in fact unhealthy. Again, whether you want to call it "deviant", even if healthy, is largely something that objective inquiry cannot answer.
If the arguments before the supreme court are like the ones in Washington state there will be no 'protected' classes - this is about every INDIVIDUAL citizens right to marry and there subsequent right to license the civil contract in support of marriage. 'Gay' will no more be protected than 'straight' and they can't demand marriages from any church, even their own right now.
I do remember when I was in the BSA that it did act as a public accommodation - shoot my religion merit badge work was about how the hallmark of a false religion was one that promised an afterlife and included a list of ones I thought were valid and the reasonings behind it. The Baptist minister that signed off on it just said 'well you've obviously put a lot of thought into this'. Can't imagine that happening now.
You're not going to convince anyone when you don't seem to be aware that the US Supreme Court has nothing to say about the meaning of state constitutions, nor does the amendment of state constitutions have any effect on the meaning of the federal constitution.