[Vision2020] Op-ed: The Growing Abuse of 'Religious Freedom'

[Art Deco]

 Op-ed: The Growing Abuse of 'Religious Freedom'
The executive director of New Ways Ministry argues that Catholic bishops
are disguising bigotry as religion.
BY Frank DeBernardo July 05 2012 4:00 AM ET

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has worked fiercely to
deny LGBT rights, and now it’s using the banner of religious freedom to
provide political cover for antigay positions. Although we hope any voices
that still prefer discrimination over equality will be drowned out soon
enough, the bishops’ campaign is more than just background noise.

The Catholic hierarchy is trying to fundamentally change the legal
understanding of individual liberties, weighting the supposed rights of
religious institutions more heavily than individual rights. At New Ways
Ministry, we think there are good secular and religious arguments for not
twisting the law into a tool for discrimination. Last fall, the Catholic
bishops created the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty to protect
against a host of alleged threats, with five of the six predictably having
to do with sexuality. The committee opposes same-sex marriage and endorses
“ministerial privilege,” which sets different employment standards for
religious groups, allowing discrimination that is illegal for other
employers. In addition, religious institutions should not have to cover
contraception in employee health plans; Catholic charities should continue
to be awarded federal funds to serve victims of human trafficking while
refusing to provide a full range of reproductive services; and
international HIV prevention programs should not require condom
distribution.

None of these positions are in line with the beliefs of Catholics in the
United States, placing the bishops well outside the mainstream.

But bitter experience has shown that once an unjust policy is set, it can
be difficult for our legal system to set it right. The bishops are
attempting to create the idea that the First Amendment is really a blank
check for religious institutions to do what they like with public funds,
when in reality these time-tested protections are for the individual’s
freedom to worship, and freedom from religion. This strategy exploits the
guarantees of basic freedoms for the purposes of discrimination. But the
bishops’ lobby is known for precisely this kind of surreptitious move —
playing on Americans’ reluctance to be told they are standing in the way of
“Catholics’” (read: the bishops’) religious freedom. The bishops have
convinced some lawmakers that the majority of Catholics need and want the
assurance that others’ freedom to marry or use contraception be denied for
religious reasons.

American Catholics understand and accept the respect for individual
conscience, which includes the respect for others’ right to follow their
own conscience, even if the bishops don’t. A 2011 Public Religion Research
Institute poll found that Catholics are more supportive of same-sex unions
than any other Christian denomination or Americans overall. But there are
already some worrisome precedents set in the name of all Catholics, among
them Catholic Charities’ choice to give up its foster care and adoption
services in the District of Columbia and Illinois rather than allow
same-sex couples to adopt or same-sex partners of employees to have health
insurance. When a Missouri music teacher was recently fired by the diocese
for merely discussing his plan to wed his male partner, it was exactly the
sort of employer discrimination the bishops are fighting to protect.

The LGBT community has suffered under the law, both by discriminatory
statutes and from a lack of recognition for dimensions of our lives that
don’t fit within existing legal norms. But our faith in the law and our
respect for religious differences are what have many of us invested in the
painstaking process of nurturing good, rights-affirming policies while
uprooting injustice. Our fundamental objection to the bishops’ religious
freedom campaign is that it’s a misuse of the law — an attempt to create
new rights for religious institutions while trampling on the rights
long-guaranteed to all individuals.

The Fortnight for Freedom, a series of public actions organized by the
bishops to highlight their religious liberty crusade, will coincide with
Pride parades around the country. LGBT people in some states have more
reason to celebrate than others, and it’s heartening that President Obama
has come out in favor of marriage equality. Policy makers can’t just stop
with the endorsement of same-sex marriage, however. They need to affirm
that “freedom” still means the freedom for individuals to live according to
their conscience, not the freedom of religious groups to redefine the law.



*FRANK DeBERNARDO is executive director of New Ways Ministry. Learn more at
the group’s website, www.newwaysministry.org. New Ways Ministry is part of
the Coalition of Liberty and Justice — a broad alliance of faith-based,
secular, and other organizations that works to ensure public policy
protects the religious liberty of individuals of all faiths and no faith
and to oppose public policies that impose one religious viewpoint on all.*


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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