As the debate over same-sex marriage continues in the lead-up to Ireland’s referendum on the question, the prospect of allowing a “conscience clause” has been thoroughly rejected by the Yes side. If the referendum passes, they argue, anyone who doesn’t want to wholeheartedly support it in their own business – say by baking a cake that says “support gay marriage” as Asher’s Bakery in Northern Ireland were asked to – can lump it. And by “lump it” I mean “end up on the wrong side of the law” – Asher’s Bakery are currently awaiting the verdict in lawsuit taken Northern Ireland’s Equality Commission.
The US State of Indiana recently tried to pass a law that might give some prospect of protection to the likes of Asher’s – and it’s fair to say that supporters of same-sex marriage exploded. A #boycottindiana campaign was launched on social media, and CEOs including Apple’s Tim Cook denounced the supposedly “anti-gay” law.
The bizarre thing is that the law doesn’t even mention gay people or same-sex marriage. But the boycotters rejected anything that could give even the prospect of a day in court to businesses like Asher’s, or Memories Pizza, an Indiana restaurant whose owners said they wouldn’t cooperate with a same-sex wedding, though they were happy to serve customers of any sexual orientation. The latter have been forced to close after a sustained campaign of harassment, including death threats.
Randall Smith wrote a great piece on the Indiana business at The Public Discourse:
As you may have heard, the State of Indiana just passed a Religious Freedom Bill. It’s based on a similar federal statute that was passed in 1993 and signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton, and it is nearly identical to the laws in nineteen other states. Because of state court decisions, nearly identical protections exist in ten additional states. The law simply prohibits substantial government burdens on religious exercise unless the government can show that it 1) has a compelling interest in burdening religious liberty and 2) is doing so through the least restrictive means possible.
Oddly, people across the country are reacting as though Indiana did something utterly unprecedented and unspeakable. Instead of calling it a “religious freedom law,” it is being described as an “anti-gay bill,” even though the words “gay,” “homosexual,” and “marriage” never show up anywhere in the law.
This is troubling—and not just for the reasons you might guess. It’s not because I think everyone should agree with this law. On its substance and wisdom, I think honest people can disagree. What’s troubling is the emotional virulence with which people are reacting to this particular law, when it is identical to protections offered in thirty other states and in the federal government. Indiana is just playing “catch up” here, legally speaking. We usually want states to offer legal protections roughly equivalent to those offered by the federal government. So why the uproar in this case?
Again, it’s fine for people to express disagreement with the law—if they know what’s in it. What I’m worried about is the single-minded, narrow, largely uninformed, self-righteous prejudice of those who are furious with the “bigots” that are assumed to live in Indiana and the glee with which they are welcoming the hysterical reactions against the state. “I’ve never been so ashamed to be from Indiana,” wrote a friend of mine on Facebook. Really? Nothing else was more shameful? Not the Indian massacres, not the popularity of the KKK right up through the 1920s, not the lynching of black men? The mayor of Seattle has banned all official travel to the state of Indiana. How about to any of the other thirty states that have nearly identical religious freedom protections?
He continues:
A comment I saw on Facebook read: “Let’s DISCRIMINATE against those who DISCRIMINATE.” The author seemed to have very little sense of irony.
Be that as it may, this is exactly what this person ought to do. If this person judges that a certain business is engaged in conduct that is immoral, then he or she should refuse to do business there.
But here’s the rub. Let’s say that someone gets the government to pass a law that says, in effect: “You may not discriminate against that business for doing as they have chosen to do.” I imagine this person is going to be very angry, because now he or she is going to be forced to do business with someone they consider to be engaged in an immoral practice. Most people generally don’t like this. Getting the compulsory powers of the state involved hasn’t helped the conflict; it has worsened it.
I may not like the fact that you sell cigarettes and/or contraceptives in your store; I may even think it is morally wrong for you to sell cigarettes and/or contraceptives. Given the right circumstances, we might even be able to have a mutually illuminating discussion about the morality of selling cigarettes and/or contraceptives. But once the state enters in to force me to buy either cigarettes or contraceptives for myself or others, then we no longer have the proper matter for a moral discussion. Instead, we have the stage set for a pitched battle with stakes that are very high indeed, where the very integrity of each moral agent is at stake.
It’s one thing for the state to ask people to tolerate the existence of things in the society they consider morally wrong: pornography, strip clubs, contraception, war, capital punishment. It’s another thing altogether for the state to insist that its citizenry must take part in activities that they consider morally wrong: to force them to fight in a war if they’re pacifists, for example, or force them to send an escaped slave back to their so-called “owners” in the South when one was morally opposed to slavery.
Read the whole thing. Freedom of conscience for people of all faiths and none is a fundamental democratic value. And on a personal level, I simply have no idea why anyone would want to force a person to provide a service to them if doing so would violate their conscience, unless there is an overwhelming justification.
After May 22nd, Irish citizens, be they No or Yes voters, will still have to live with one another. The Yes side couches its arguments in terms of tolerance, of “live and let live”. But the fact that any attempts to introduce a conscience clause have been scuppered shows that tolerance for people who believe in traditional marriage, for want of a better term, is not high on their list of priorities. If you want a glimpse of Ireland’s future if we vote Yes, look to Indiana.