Freedom of Religion Does Not Equal Discrimination

I'm outraged that Indiana and now Arkansas have both effectively legalized discrimination against LGBT.  Officially, they're stance is that so-called "freedom of religion" gives people and businesses the right to discriminate on the bases of sexual orientation.

Freedom of religion, as truly understood, is wonderful and extremely important.  I think the conservative gay-hating jerks behind this legalized discrimination have abused the concept of "freedom of religion" specifically to muddy the waters.  I suspect that they hope that this will make it hard for progressives like me to speak out against their twisted machinations. 

In fact, I think they're creating a dangerous fork (as in the move in chess where you threaten two pieces at once) in this debate.  If we progressives proceed without caution, we could either wind up arguing against true freedom of religion or against true LGBT rights.  I think these conservatives hope we'll take the bait, fall into their trap and argue against our actual beliefs.

I'm writing to prove them wrong.

True freedom of religion is one of the most important human rights.  Every religion and every person has a right to their religious beliefs, worship, spiritual advancement, ethics, and values.  Without the freedom to believe what we will about the Sacred, we have no true freedom at all.  So, we must hold this right sacred while simultaneously explaining why it's not freedom of religion to oppress the LGBT community.

There are quite a few things that are not true freedom of religion, though.  In fact, there are quite a few things that are the polar opposite.  None of us (I hope) think that freedom of religion gives any religion the right to burn members of other religions at the stake or commit human sacrifice.  Far from it.  True freedom of religion means that we have to respect the rights of others.  It means that we get to believe what we believe, practice what we practice, follow the ethics and values we follow only because we respect the rights of others to do the same, perhaps in very different ways.

Freedom of religion came about in the west after hundreds of years of religious warfare.[1]  For centuries, Europe was plagued by endless, bloody war among various Christian denominations.  Those who lost, got burnt at the stake (or some other nasty death).  Those who won, went on to fight some other religious foe.  At the height of this insanity, John Calvin (who gave his name to Calvinism) and some others burnt Michael Servetus, founder of Unitarianism, at the stake for alleged "heresy".

Freedom of religion means that we cannot do nasty things to others just because we have a religious disagreement.  This should be clear to all of us.  However, let's take an example that's one we can more easily imagine in a modern, First World milieu.  What if it were race or sex we were talking about instead of sexual orientation?

Does anybody these days believe that people or businesses have the right to discriminate against somebody on the bases of race or sex?  There probably are some bigots who do, but I'd hope most of us would be outraged by any such suggestion. 

Just because we have freedom of religion, and just because we now know that burning people at the stake is wrong, doesn't mean we get to, say, go around punching people who's religious beliefs we disagree with.  The same certainly holds for oppressing a given race or sex (and I'm going to argue sexual orientation, as well). 

White business owners don't get to refuse to hire a black person just because the white guy has a fundamentally racist religion.  The same is also true for black business owners with regarding white guys, by the way, as for any combination of races.  Male business owners don't get to just refuse to hire women because they have a religious conviction that women shouldn't work.  Ditto for female business owners with male workers.

Because of the Civil Rights movement and Women's Rights, we can see this fairly clearly (at least I hope we all can).  It should be clear, too, that the same holds true for LGBT.

I'll point out that, while straight white male politicians in places like Indiana and Arkansas might be toasting their success at legalizing discrimination against LGBT, this actually sets a very dangerous precedent that even the most racist white person, the most sexist man or the most homo-phobic hetero should worry about.  Of course, I'd hope that people would avoid being any of those things, because they're wrong, but, if I can't appeal to people's ethics, I hope to at least appeal to their self-interests.  I realize that, currently, the law only allows for discrimination against LGBT folks, but it's a slippery slope that can lead to other forms of discrimination, as I've said.

This sort of legalized discrimination is a double-edged sword.  For example, Black Islam is, last time I checked anyway, specifically an anti-white religion.  They see white people as demons.  Do Black Muslims have the right to discriminate against white people on religious grounds?  I don't know of an equivalent man-hating religion or hetero-hating religion, but there could be one.  Would a business owner in such a religion have the right to refuse to hire men or heteros?  I hope we'd all agree that the answer is no to that as well.[2]

Freedom of religion has historically been defined in the US as peaceable.  In other words, people only have freedom of religion if their religious practices are peaceable.  This means that people can't, say, conduct human sacrifice.  That would be murder, no matter how much they may sincerely believe it.  Refusing to hire someone based on their sexual orientation (or their race, sex, religion, etc.) is another form of harm.  While it may not be quite as egregious as human sacrifice, it's still non-peaceable, and, therefore, not covered by freedom of religion.

So, just to be perfectly clear: freedom of religion stops when people use religion as a reason to harm others, oppression is a form of harm, therefore, freedom of religion ends at the point where people start oppressing others for religious reasons.

People have the religious right to believe that being gay, Lesbian, bi or trans is wrong.  They have the right to abstain from those things, even if they desire them.  However, that's where their freedom ends.  Once they start hurting other people by refusing to hire them solely on the basis of their sexual orientation, they are, and aught to be,[3] no longer covered by freedom of religion.  Our laws aught to reflect this truth.

True freedom of religion is a sacred part of America and of human rights.  It must be protected, but so must ensuring that it's exercise is only peaceable in nature and that people of all religions refrain from using religion as an excuse to hurt each other.  Anyone who tries to twist that around the wrong way to make it look like hurting others because of religion is somehow freedom of religion, is un-American and anti-human.

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[1] Which, of course, succeeded centuries of a single church in western Europe dictating religion to everyone, so that religious oppression followed religious oppression.
[2] Unless, of course, there's some reason why a minority group needs its own space... I could well imagine an organization that is women only in order to create woman-only space, but that's a special case.  I'm talking, here, about general cases.
[3] I took this stylistic construction from the Declaration of Independence, where the Founders declare rights both as human rights, above any government ("are") and the legal enforcement thereof that was, at that time, lacking in the American colonies ("aught to be").