The June issue of The New Era includes an article entitled “Why Religious Freedom Matters: What’s at Risk.”
As I read through it, I had two primary thoughts. On the one hand, I applaud the church for attempting to educate teenagers about their civil rights and responsibilities. This is an important topic, and one that our teenagers should be exposed to.
On the other hand, though, I’m perplexed and bothered by the actual delivery. The content ranges from accurate to irrelevant to speculative to flat-out wrong. So while conceptually, I think this article is both necessary and important, it ultimately fails spectacularly.
I’ll be completely honest here: I mostly don’t want to discuss the content. I’d rather focus on two things that, if improved, would exponentially increase the value of the article.
Conflating Private and State Action
The first big problem I have with the article is that it doesn’t separate private actions from state actions. And while both state and private religious discrimination are invidious, in most cases, they’re analytically distinct, and cramming them together isn’t terribly illuminating. If I were writing this list (which I wouldn’t, btw, for reasons I’ll go into in the next section), I’d probably group job loss, hiding religion at work, working on the Sabbath, and faith-based clubs in the private action column, and most of the rest in the state action column. At the margins, there may be questions about where to categorize an issue (for instance, is loss of professional certification a state or a private action?), but, for the most part, the two aren’t hard to distinguish.
And distinguishing them is important, if we’re going to deal with them. Having the state refuse to allow you to adopt based on your religious beliefs and practices is significantly different from your neighbors’ not allowing their kids to play with your kids because of your religion. The first raises questions of law, while the second raises questions of social norms. The solution to the first may well be a lawsuit (or lobbying, or running for office), while the solution to the second may be becoming a better neighbor. Both are bad, both are discriminatory, but only one, frankly, invokes questions of religious freedom.[fn1]
What If?
When I was a kid, I was a big fan of Marvel comics, and in my collection, I had several What If? titles. The basic premise was, we’ll take something significant that happened to a superhero and tweak it. What kind of impact would that tweak have? What would it change in the trajectory of the hero we know so well?
The examples the New Era provides remind me of these What If? comics. Basically, every bullet point starts with “You may” or “You might” or “You could.” Some examples (like pressure to resign) are based on actual things that actually happened. Some are based on things that religious individuals have worried about, and some on things that others have suggested should happen. But the thing is, few of them are likely. Take, for example, the idea that churches will lose their tax exemptions. It won’t happen.[fn2]
But there’s a real problem here: the possible is intermingled with the unlikely is intermingled with the impossible. And essentially, it starts reading to me like the boy who cried wolf. If I, the person interested in religious liberty, am not willing to take the time to figure out the real threats, why is the person I’m trying to convince going to bother listening to me?
For this, too, there’s an easy solution: point to real examples of violations of religious freedom. They’re not hard to find! Check this:
State Action:
- Russian government’s classifying Jehovah’s Witnesses as “extremist” group.
- French laïcité.
- U.S. Muslim ban.[fn3]
- Using zoning rules to prevent mosques.
Private Actions
It’s Not About Us
One last thing: many of the examples I provided probably don’t pose any direct threat to Mormons or Mormonism. (Okay, Russia probably does, and we’ve faced discriminatory zoning with temples and churches, but that’s basically it.) That’s intentional on my part. I recognize and understand the power of “First they came …” But what if you can guarantee a fire break, guarantee that, even if they came for the Muslims and for the Jews, they won’t come for the Mormons? I don’t think that reduces the importance of arguing for religious freedom; in fact, in some ways, focusing on issues that will not affect us strengthens the perception that we’re interested in religious freedom as a right, unconnected from our selfish preferences. And that, too, is an important lesson to teach our teenagers (and, frankly, ourselves): we don’t merely advocate for things when those things will benefit us personally; we advocate for right things precisely because they’re the right thing.
So kudos to The New Era for addressing an important topic. I hope it returns to the topic soon, and that its next attempt is done in a more nuanced, accurate, and valuable manner.
[fn1] And I know, the article doesn’t say anything about neighbors not letting their kids play with yours. Perhaps the better example—though it lost the parallel structure that I thought adoption and kids enjoyed—is that you could be fired or pressured to resign for donating money to oppose same-sex marriage. That may not be ideal, but in a marketplace that’s trying to appeal to a certain customer base, that monetary donation may send a message that the clientele doesn’t want. Note that your employer cannot fire you for belonging to a church that opposes same-sex marriage; that would violate federal law. But as long as you’re not being fired for your religious beliefs, it seems to me that pressure to resign is not something we want to deal with through by law, both because it would shield people from the consequences of their actions and because it would significantly infringe on speech rights.
[fn2] Every time I say this, somebody chimes in to say, But it’s different this time!!!1! The world has changed!!1! The past is out the window!!11 So how about I revise that statement a little: churches could lose their tax exemptions for opposing same-sex marriage. But also, the Skrulls could come to Earth and take it over. But the likelihood is infinitesimal. I mean, if we just look at incentives, what incentive would the IRS have to revoke a church’s tax exemption? It’s a ton of work, it’s not going to provide any additional revenue, and it will only make the IRS less popular than it already is (see, e.g., the Lois Lerner thing). So it could, conceivably, happen. But it won’t.
[fn3] Yeah, I get why the church wouldn’t want to raise these politically-charged examples. But we use what we have.
Filed under: Current Events, Modern Era, Politics, Society & Culture Tagged: private action, religious freedom, state action, teenagers, the new era, what if?
