Recent events focusing on conflicts between religious freedoms and the rights of LGBTQA individuals, including the passing of Indiana’s religious freedom law, demonstrate the importance of the problem. It has a long history. Multiple scholars have defended each side of the issue; however, Gidon Sapir and Daniel Statman’s article,” Why Freedom of Religion Does Not include Freedom from Religion” covers the thought process of those who are likely to defend any notion of religious freedom, even at the cost of undermining the freedoms of others. This article includes several sound arguments, but also contains others which are not. Specifically, it should be noted that there are no circumstances where a person will be free from the influences of religion. That is not the point though; the true point is that there should be lines drawn as to what religious authority can or can’t do.
The article begins with the construction that religious rights are to be protected due to several key aspects of religion. First of these aspects is religion’s ability to provide moral foundations and existential answers for society. The article says that religious individuals are on a higher moral grounding than their secular counterparts, which in turn allows religious institutions and persons “special protection.” The article attempts to subdue any unrest by admitting that non-believers have the right to not believe in a religion, but the argument that religious individuals are more worthy of protection and additional rights the author’s first step in the wrong direction.
Discussing conscience, the authors acknowledge that it is sometimes a force used by Christians to justify ignoring laws, and how a proper society allows for the conscience of antagonistic believers to be heard and followed on the basis of avoiding exclusionary alienation. While following one’s conscience in a faithful way is justifiable for those who do not threaten the lives, liberty, and happiness of others, it is not acceptable for faith to usurp the rights of others. This clear distinction is why Utah’s religious rights bill is vastly superior to Indiana’s; it allows religious institutions greater jurisdiction within their own folds while keeping secular zones free from religious prejudice. Indiana’s law so far seems to stand side by side with the authors of this article’s belief that religious whims trump all other factors. There’s a massive distinction between examples of honored religious freedoms, such as protection from military service requirements due to pacifism, and Indiana’s allowance of the denial of restaurant service.
The article later misrepresents the concept of minority groups by suggesting that religion itself is a minority caught within the hegemony of secularism. This suggestion is laughable since, while it is true that the state itself is supposed to be secular, the majority of people which it is composed of claim to be religious. Most Americans identify as Christian, and suggesting that they are a minority is a clear misnomer. Following that, the article suggests that religions need to be protected more than other (actual) minority groups, such as the LGBTQA community, because “a refusal to agree to requests by members of religious groups for preferential treatment does not immediately destroy their culture, but, in the long term, it makes it difficult for that culture to develop and thrive.”
This type of argument is pervasive throughout the article, and it clearly demonstrates the authors’ bias towards protecting the preferential statuses and hypocrisy of religious institutions. If these authors’ logic works for the protection of religious institutions based on their supposed minority status and the moral obligation of a society to make sure that such minorities feel welcome in the larger culture, why are religious institutions allowed to subjugate true minorities like the LGBTQA to prejudice and denial of service? The answer is that religion should not be granted extra priority simply because of its supposed moral high ground and potential positive influence.
The LGBTQA community faces these kinds of arguments all of the time, but no amount of biased philosophical analysis will change the fact that the denial of rights within the secular world should not be a privilege religious institutions hold. It is perfectly acceptable for religions to dictate certain behaviors within their houses of worship and their member’s homes, but zealots who sully religious freedom by cloaking hatred with it are sadly, often the loudest and most oppressive practitioners of faith when it mixes with politics.
