Glenden BrownReligious Rights and Wrongs
For a long time now, the ridiculous right has been ginning up pointless controversies over claims that religious people have the right to refuse to do their jobs on the basis of their faith.
From Rob Boston, at Talk to Action:
Stories abound in the media of “pro-life pharmacists” who refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions and Muslim taxi drivers who will not transport people carrying bottles of liquor. In one case, a Muslim grocery store clerk refused to ring up customers’ packages of bacon.
Are these legitimate religious freedom claims? Maybe and maybe not. The courts will sort that out. In any case, it’s important to remember that none of these services - the pharmacy, the taxi and the grocery store - is in the religion business. A house of worship is and thus can claim First Amendment protection.
I think Boston is being too nice. I don’t see these claims as legitimate religious freedom claims - I see them as an attempt by one person to impose their values on another. The woman going to the pharmacy being denied contraceptives is having her moral agency actively curtailed by someone who very likely has little actual knowledge of her life circumstances. I have heard accounts of rape victims being denied emergency contraception and forced to drive all over town to get it and is in fact suffering needlessly some so pharmacist can feel morally superior. The Muslim cabbies and clerks are equally fully of crap - and far more trivial.
The confusion these misguided religious zealots seem to suffer from is the distinction between their freedom to practice their faith as they see fit and forcing it on others. A clerk selling me bacon isn’t being forced to eat it - or even approve of me eating it. The pharmacist isn’t being asked to use por approve of contraception in his/her own life. Selling me a product in no way suggests you approve of me using it. In the case of the pharmacists, it’s difficult not to see such claims as sexist - I haven’t heard of pharmacists refusing to sell condoms to men but I have heard of them refusing to sell contraception to women.
If I go into the anti-choice Pregnancy Resource Center I won’t expect to get accurate information about contraception. However, if I go to Walgreen’s, I damn well better not get any crap about getting a legal prescription for contraception. If I go to a Halal or Kosher restaurant, I don’t expect to get bacon. By contrast, it’s on the menu at IHOP. If you get a job at IHOP, you better be prepared to serve bacon.
As same sex marriages become a more visible and ordinary social reality in the United States, conservatives argue they are losing their freedom to oppose same sex marriage - and worse, that they will be forced to engage in religious practices with which they disagree.
For example, the FRC and allied groups love to point to a case pending in Arizona that deals with a photography studio that is being sued because it denied services to a same-sex couple.
The Religious Right thinks this is a great horror story for their side, but they overlook one salient fact: a photography studio and a church are not equivalent entities from a legal perspective. Generally speaking, a secular business holds itself out as a “public accommodation” and pledges to serve all people. A church does no such thing. Churches, by dint of the First Amendment, have the right to refuse membership or services to anyone. Most businesses do not.
There was a time when blacks could not eat in certain restaurants, and when a wedding photographer could have refused service to an interracial couple. Anti-discrimination laws put a stop to that. Now, some gay-rights activists are arguing that secular businesses should be required to treat them equally as well. Such an argument might carry the day when applied to a business. It will fail every time when applied to a church.
There are other cases - for instance where a church is running a business - where the boundaries are less clear. If a church is running a reception center as a business, is it a public accommodation like any other business? Or should its status as a church owned entity provide it with protections? In some sense, though, these questions are already out there. Should the Deseret News be forced to accept advertising from an anti-Mormon group? Should a church run newspaper be forced to print wedding announcements for same sex couples if that church believes same sex marriage is wrong? If the church cites religious reasons and the same church refuses to recognize as valid, say, a marriage performed in a synagogue do they print announcements for Jewish couples? If so, the religious objection argument seems less valid. It’s a gray area.
But we’re not talking about employees in businesses run by churches. We’re talking about employees in secular businesses abusing their positions (and bullying customers) in that businesses and then justifying it on the grounds of their faith.
July 18th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Well said, comrade. Hopefully good old American greed will prompt companies to reign in such in-your-face expressions of religiosity. Reading your post, I find myself recalling a personal, if fictional hero, Horace Rumpole, barrister at law. A barrister, in Horace Rumpole’s memorable phrase, is a taxi for hire. Attorneys have an obligation to serve their clients’ interests regardless of their personal attitudes toward the client and his/her beliefs or lifestyle. The same should be true of others offering a service, especially Rumpole’s proverbial taxi driver. If this kind of pick-and-choose service is allowed free reign, we’ll have Mormons in Salt Lake refusing to serve gays, evangelicals refusing to serve Mormons, and Jews and Muslims refusing to serve each other. In the face of such silliness, one asks not immodestly how long it will take us to shake our stone-age superstitions. What fools we mortals be.
July 18th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
That is what I truly like about 1Utah, the respect and dignity that everyone’s beliefs are afforded
Why is it acceptable for religions to be attacked, degraded and generally disrespected on this site?
On any subject that we don’t agree with the “acceptable” view point we are attacked, degraded, called names, sexuality questioned (which is especially ironic considering). Be it the homosexual lifestyle, global warming, conservation, 2nd amendment rights, etc; those that don’t toe the line are often subjected to ridicule.
There are some that honestly and intellectually debate the points, but there are just as many that attack the people instead of the discussing the issues.
In the end, aren’t you (as a group) doing exactly what Glenden accuses the religious right?
July 18th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Bob, Bob….Bob and Weave, there is no choice, you must be a far better competitor to even register with this crowd.
My hats are off to you, we are right on the bulk of the issues, and no doubt given the time and course of natural events will prevail. Not that there is anything wrong with the opposition, yet however extreme they feel you to be, you know them for their own extremism. We may well meet somewhere in the middle, as long as what elements want don’t violate the Constitution.
We live with what we don’t approve of, because it protects all of us in the end.
…and in that my dear friends all, is how we all become ONE!!
July 18th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Ed and Glenden make some good points about what should be expected of someone working in the public sector. Of course, an honest barrister can’t agree to use his legal service to commit a crime, and neither can a regular taxi driver. In the military you have to obey all orders, except illegal ones. The question of conscience, however, comes up when, as with the Nazi regime, the “legal orders” are beyond the pale. When American intelligence or military contractors are give an order to torture someone and are assured by the highest levels of our government that it is legal, I actually hope a contractor will refuse on grounds of conscience, honor, or religion.
If a doctor has sworn an oath to do no harm, to what extent can we compel him to do so?
The law has made provision for people who for religious reasons won’t work on, say, Saturday. I think society can come to some terms that will allow us all to get along and still get the services we have a right to expect.
Bob S. also makes a good point about Glenden’s style. Glenden is ever at his plough.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Scratch a religious nut and you’ll find a mystified, yet trusting person who more than likely feels that his or her groups take on the scriptural realm is the end-all.
Tear deeply into any doctrine and you’ll find justification for any behavior whatsoever. So it’s not the trashing of religion per se, but the fuzziness that their scriptures put forward. It sort of comes down in the free will arena and sorta demands incescent commentary and rewriting by thoughful and spirited people of every age (ours included). That’s why the Mormons keep prophecy alive and up to date. That’s why Mohammed thought he could up-grade the antique. Call it bashing. We often see ‘religion’ as status quo, not for what it may become in a more enlightened now.
July 19th, 2008 at 5:44 am
The more I think about this, the more interesting this becomes. At one point in his career Gary Spence decided he would no longer represent big corporate clients, only the little guy. Should the state force him to abandon that policy in his legal practice?
The right to refuse to do something based on conscience is a fairly basic right. To what extent should the state negate that right? Because of the history of racial discrimination in this country, we decided that refusal to provide public accommodations based on race should be illegal, but how broadly should that precedent be applied?
Supposed someone is engaged in a vital public service, such as providing medical care. Do they have the right to strike? To what extent can any worker be compelled to do something against his or her will?
July 19th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Leo - I was thinking about this last night as well. I wonder if it goes back to the “reasonable person” standard. If I got to a grocery store I have the reasonable expectation that I can buy anything on their shelves and have it rung up by one of their clerks. If I got to a pharmacy with a legal prescription I have the reasonable expectation of having that prescription filled. If I go into a kosher deli, expecting a bacon and swiss club sandwich isn’t a reasonable expectation.
From however the employee perspective, is their expectation that they can work in a pharmacy or a store and not sell certain legal products in that business a reasonable expectation? Would a reasonable person take a job as a doctor and expect to never be asked to write a prescription of emergency contraception? In the case of Gerry Spence, I see him as the kosher deli owner. If he hires an employee, however, who gets partway through helping the little guy and the refuses to finish the job since he wants to work on big corporations only, isn’t that person saying to Gerry Spence I won’t do the job you hired me for? Isn’t the “pro life” pharmacist essentially saying “I won’t do my job”?
A reasonable person going to a law firm expects that firm to tell them relatively up front if they can help them. If I go to a corporate lawyer with a criminal problem, it’s not unreasonable to expect him/her to say, “I don’t do criminal law, let me refer you” but that’s a matter of professional expertise not some moral objection to doing criminal law. The pro life pharmacist doesn’t have to have special professional training to dispense contraception versus migraine medication.
Or to use another example: If I go into Barnes and Noble and get a copy of the The Joy of Sado-Masochistic Sex Orgies In Suburbs: A How To Guide off the shelf, it’s reasonable to expect the clerk at the counter to ring me up, take my money and send me on my way. If I go into Life Way Christian book store I have no reasonable expectation I’ll find that title on the shelves.
There’s also the question of entering the field in general. If I’m a pro life person, why would I become a pharmacist, knowing that medical contraception is the most commonly prescribed medication in the US? Or why wouldn’t I get a job at a Christian pharmacy that doesn’t stock or sell contraception? Why would I get a job at Target or Albertson’s or Rite Aid or Walgreen’s where I will be asked to fill prescriptions for contraception? And if I work at one of those pharmacies, is it even my right to interfere the relationship between doctor and patient by refusing to fill the prescription written by the doctor who knows the patient’s medical history better than I do?
July 21st, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Glen - let’s use some more offensive examples for your Bookstore hypothetical.
Should a Barnes and Noble clerk be allowed to not ring up your purchase of Neo-Nazi texts? Holocaust denial tomes? Christian Identity handbooks? The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
What if that same clerk is a Jew?
What if that same clerk is a Holocaust survivor?
Are there certain people who should be spared this sort of trauma if it can be avoided?
July 21st, 2008 at 12:49 pm
jdb - I don’t see the trauma involved in the situation. Your assuming the act itself causes problems for the clerk. Is the mere act of selling something with which you (a hypothetical you, not you jdberger) disagree traumatic? Doesn’t that make sound like you’ve got the problem not the purchaser?
Also, the B&N clerk doesn’t know me and has no idea why I’m making my purchase. Maybe I’m a researcher debunking Holocaust denial. Maybe I’m a historian tracing anti-semitic writings. Maybe I’m trying to figure out how to counter the ideas of the Christian Identity movement. The clerk could in fact be undermining the very things they believe in by refusing to sell me the books.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Glendon - of course you wouldn’t see the trauma. As a white man who wasn’t exposed to the Holocaust, how could you?
Would a black clerk at B&N be justified in refusing to ring up “Nigger” by Dick Gregory? Do you see the potential trauma, there?
Your motives for purchasing the books don’t really count, here. The clerk has no way of ascertaining them.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Not if they took the job to which they now refuse to perform!!
July 21st, 2008 at 2:00 pm
jdb - You may not like the book, you may not like what it says, you may even dislike the person buying it, but provided they behave appropriately you need to suck it up and do your job. You’re just selling the book - you’re not being told you must read it, agree with it, endorse it, or in any way forced to absorb the content of the book; you selling the book to a purchaser places no onus on you to change your beliefs or values or behaviors. You’re not being asked to break the law. You’re being ask to do the job you applied for and were hired for. If selling the book (or the bacon or the contraceptives or the alcohol) required you to change your values, beliefs and behaviors, I might agree but that’s not the case.