to my questions about the meaning and potential applications of the proposal that he and four other academics have advanced for reconciling religious-liberty concerns and same-sex marriage. Here is his response:
I wrote one of the two letters that Dale Carpenter references in his post on the same-sex marriage legislation in Connecticut. Let me say a few things by way of background, and then respond to his four specific questions.
I wrote separately from the others, and I speak only for myself here. I wrote separately because I support gay rights and same-sex marriage and I also support religious exemptions; in my view, these are parallel protections for quite similar claims to individual liberty in matters essential to personal identity.
We may also have a different sense of the magnitude of the problem. Compelling a person or religious organization to do things in violation of conscience can be devastating to the individuals affected. There are several high profile cases around the country, but the total number of such cases that have come to public attention is not large, and the lack of a marriage case per se in five years in Massachusetts is encouraging. Of course, Massachusetts is also notorious for forcing Catholic Charities to entirely withdraw from adoption services because of its conscientious objection to placing children with same-sex couples..
The number of people who think same-sex marriage is morally or religiously wrong is large. But the percentage of those people who feel sufficient personal responsibility to assert a conscientious objection claim rather than facilitate what they perceive to be the immoral acts of others is considerably smaller. The percentage of those who are in an occupation where the issue arises for them is much smaller still. The percentage of those who will turn away business in the name of conscience is somewhat smaller still. And as same-sex marriages becomes more familiar and accepted, each of these percentages should fall. On the other side, that portion of the gay and lesbian community that is more interested in making examples or provoking legal confrontations than in living their own lives may also be rather small. For all these reasons, I don