Right-wing response to Iowa, continued
Evangelical Christian Rod Dreher bemoans the Iowa Supreme Court's decision. He writes, "[Friday] morning, I had breakfast with some guys, including a lawyer. We weren't aware of this decision, but we talked about this issue. The lawyer said that as soon as homosexuality receives constitutionally protected status equivalent to race, then 'it will be very hard to be a public Christian.' By which he meant to voice support, no matter how muted, for traditional Christian teaching on homosexuality and marriage. To do so would be to set yourself up for hostile work environment challenges, including dismissal from your job, and generally all the legal sanctions that now apply to people who openly express racist views."
Dreher goes on to cite Maggie Gallagher's "Banned in Boston", a diatribe against Massachusetts' policy that the Roman Catholic Church, a religious institution with its own government and military (to say nothing of its history of sexual abuse in Massachusetts), could not be a licensed state agency. This translates, in Gallagher's and Dreher's minds, as a ban on religion. Dreher argues, as do many Evangelicals, that this separation of religious institutions from the state will result in a ban on religious speech. Like Glenn Beck's baseless speculation about the impending downfall of the United States, such dire predictions are as easy to make as they are difficult to defend. Reality, as usual, offers a very different story.
I don't know anything about Dreher's life or background; I do know that I have lived in both Iowa and Massachusetts. Evangelicals in Iowa (among whom I've spent the majority of my life) are kind, generally decent, but politically reactionary people. There are virtually no gays in their communities (indeed, openly gay Iowans constitute a mere 3% of the state's total population). Their freedom to speak and practice Christianity is hardly ever infringed. Nevertheless, they are fiercely sensitive to even the faintest whiff of infringement, and most would rather be imprisoned or killed than silent about their beliefs. Their children are raised to understand U.S. law and religious rights. They are more than capable of defending their rights. I'm not too worried about the federal government bossing them around. If and when their rights are infringed, I'll be happy to defend them. But the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling in now way infringes on their freedom of speech. Indeed, one can only speculate (as Dreher does) about how it might, someday, infringe on their freedom of speech; meanwhile, the ruling actually expands civil rights to more Iowans in the here and now.
What about Bostonians in the here and now? Is Dreher correct to cite Massachusetts as an example of what could happen in Iowa? Perhaps the state of Iowa will alter its relationship to certain religious institutions, but will this constitute a ban on religious speech? I live in Boston. I have been to Evangelical churches in Boston. And contrary to Ms. Gallagher's experience, I've found that anyone who wishes to vocally and publicly oppose gay marriage in Massachusetts can do so, loudly, without any fear of government infringement or reprisal. In fact, the Evangelical Christians in Massachusetts do not differ significantly in opinion, tone, or ideology from Evangelical Christians in comparable American cities in American states where gay marriage is banned (e.g., Oregon, California, Illinois). Hell, Massachusetts even had a Mormon governor who opposed gay marriage at the time it legalized gay marriage! Freedom of speech and freedom of religion are alive and well in the land of the Puritans and the Salem Witch Trials.
Dreher bemoans the analogies between gay marriage and the Civil Rights Movement, but his very argument makes such analogies apt. Just as opponents of civil rights for African-Americans appealed to speculation about the negative consequences of civil rights legislation and ignored the actual justification for such legislation...well, you get the idea.
Anyway: Anonymous Liberal and Andrew Sullivan have already responded to Dreher's post. Anonymous Liberal takes up Dreher's "public Christian" comment and invites him to "try being a 'public homosexual' for a while and compare the experience. If I had a Quantum Leap machine, I'd be tempted to zap Dreher into the life of a gay high school student or maybe a gay man in a small Southern town and see how easy he finds it to publicly be himself."
Sullivan adds: "One imagines how the early Christians might have responded to this threat: by embracing their marginalization and seeing discrimination against them as a sign of their righteousness. Today's [Christian fundamentalists], in contrast, need the government to enforce their religious doctrines, for fear that without government, these convictions could falter. It says a lot about the comparative strength of their faith and their paranoia."
Sullivan continues: "But if Rod does actually believe that those who want to publicly express Biblical injunctions against their gay fellow citizens will be subject to active discrimination, then what he needs to do is not prevent gay people from civil equality but work tirelessly to protect free speech. As Rod knows, I'm a big opponent of hate crimes laws, of abuse of sexual harassment laws, p.c. speech codes and any infringement on religious or irreligious speech. Such infringements of freedom from the left are just as noxious as those from the right. I'll happily join him in opposing any attempt by the state to coerce or chill free speech. But it must and can be perfectly possible for public orthodox Christians to live side by side with politically equal homosexuals. Just as it is perfectly possible for devout Catholics to live and work alongside divorced co-workers, even if they feel the need constantly to profess the impermissibility of divorce. This is not and need not be a binary choice."
Dreher goes on to cite Maggie Gallagher's "Banned in Boston", a diatribe against Massachusetts' policy that the Roman Catholic Church, a religious institution with its own government and military (to say nothing of its history of sexual abuse in Massachusetts), could not be a licensed state agency. This translates, in Gallagher's and Dreher's minds, as a ban on religion. Dreher argues, as do many Evangelicals, that this separation of religious institutions from the state will result in a ban on religious speech. Like Glenn Beck's baseless speculation about the impending downfall of the United States, such dire predictions are as easy to make as they are difficult to defend. Reality, as usual, offers a very different story.
I don't know anything about Dreher's life or background; I do know that I have lived in both Iowa and Massachusetts. Evangelicals in Iowa (among whom I've spent the majority of my life) are kind, generally decent, but politically reactionary people. There are virtually no gays in their communities (indeed, openly gay Iowans constitute a mere 3% of the state's total population). Their freedom to speak and practice Christianity is hardly ever infringed. Nevertheless, they are fiercely sensitive to even the faintest whiff of infringement, and most would rather be imprisoned or killed than silent about their beliefs. Their children are raised to understand U.S. law and religious rights. They are more than capable of defending their rights. I'm not too worried about the federal government bossing them around. If and when their rights are infringed, I'll be happy to defend them. But the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling in now way infringes on their freedom of speech. Indeed, one can only speculate (as Dreher does) about how it might, someday, infringe on their freedom of speech; meanwhile, the ruling actually expands civil rights to more Iowans in the here and now.
What about Bostonians in the here and now? Is Dreher correct to cite Massachusetts as an example of what could happen in Iowa? Perhaps the state of Iowa will alter its relationship to certain religious institutions, but will this constitute a ban on religious speech? I live in Boston. I have been to Evangelical churches in Boston. And contrary to Ms. Gallagher's experience, I've found that anyone who wishes to vocally and publicly oppose gay marriage in Massachusetts can do so, loudly, without any fear of government infringement or reprisal. In fact, the Evangelical Christians in Massachusetts do not differ significantly in opinion, tone, or ideology from Evangelical Christians in comparable American cities in American states where gay marriage is banned (e.g., Oregon, California, Illinois). Hell, Massachusetts even had a Mormon governor who opposed gay marriage at the time it legalized gay marriage! Freedom of speech and freedom of religion are alive and well in the land of the Puritans and the Salem Witch Trials.
Dreher bemoans the analogies between gay marriage and the Civil Rights Movement, but his very argument makes such analogies apt. Just as opponents of civil rights for African-Americans appealed to speculation about the negative consequences of civil rights legislation and ignored the actual justification for such legislation...well, you get the idea.
Anyway: Anonymous Liberal and Andrew Sullivan have already responded to Dreher's post. Anonymous Liberal takes up Dreher's "public Christian" comment and invites him to "try being a 'public homosexual' for a while and compare the experience. If I had a Quantum Leap machine, I'd be tempted to zap Dreher into the life of a gay high school student or maybe a gay man in a small Southern town and see how easy he finds it to publicly be himself."
Sullivan adds: "One imagines how the early Christians might have responded to this threat: by embracing their marginalization and seeing discrimination against them as a sign of their righteousness. Today's [Christian fundamentalists], in contrast, need the government to enforce their religious doctrines, for fear that without government, these convictions could falter. It says a lot about the comparative strength of their faith and their paranoia."
Sullivan continues: "But if Rod does actually believe that those who want to publicly express Biblical injunctions against their gay fellow citizens will be subject to active discrimination, then what he needs to do is not prevent gay people from civil equality but work tirelessly to protect free speech. As Rod knows, I'm a big opponent of hate crimes laws, of abuse of sexual harassment laws, p.c. speech codes and any infringement on religious or irreligious speech. Such infringements of freedom from the left are just as noxious as those from the right. I'll happily join him in opposing any attempt by the state to coerce or chill free speech. But it must and can be perfectly possible for public orthodox Christians to live side by side with politically equal homosexuals. Just as it is perfectly possible for devout Catholics to live and work alongside divorced co-workers, even if they feel the need constantly to profess the impermissibility of divorce. This is not and need not be a binary choice."