Damon Linker is back for a second bite at the apple, but I still don’t understand his argument. This time, he reiterates that liberals are “cocky” and that we’re infringing on people’s religious freedom by requiring that contraception be treated as preventative medicine under ObamaCare and imposing anti-discrimination laws on gay-bashers.
Here’s the part that baffles me:
[Isaac] Chotiner and his fellow secular liberals may well be right that traditionalist views of sexuality are bound to evolve, with nearly everyone destined to accept and affirm the dignity of homosexual relationships. But given the commitments of these same liberals to personal freedom, shouldn’t they also insist that the evolution take place at its own pace, without being forcibly imposed by the coercive powers of the state.
It seems to me that legislatures pass new laws concerning things like homosexuality and contraception when the electorate has evolved enough to make the changes palatable. Mr. Linker doesn’t like when people compare gay-bashing to Jim Crow because he thinks the latter isn’t as well-supported by Scripture. But it’s still the case that the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were passed over the strong objection of a huge part of the country. You can consider those laws to be forcible impositions of coercive federal power if you want. Certainly that’s how the laws were experienced by a lot of people. But the truth is that those laws were reflections of an evolution that had already taken place in the country. Passing legislation that reflects a change in societal attitudes about race or gender or sexuality is something that comes at the end of a process. If you’re an advocate for women’s health or gay rights, you’re trying to change attitudes so that you can change the law. You can’t do it the other way around.
We don’t live in a system where everyone has to be convinced before we can make a new law. So, how are we supposed to let all these things develop “at their own pace”? It seems to me that they have been doing precisely that, and now we are here.
I think what Linker is worried about is this:
…the Hebrew Bible and New Testament clearly do not teach (either explicitly or implicitly) that buying, owning, and selling African slaves is next to godliness.
The same cannot be said about the normative teaching on human sexuality contained within the Judeo-Christian scriptures — and even more so, within the interpretative and theological traditions that grow out of them. In dismissing this teaching so casually, Chotiner ends up implying that traditionalist churches and religious communities are the moral equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan.
If that’s an accurate evaluation of their moral status, then we can expect that before long traditionalist religious views will be denied legitimacy by the courts, denigrated in the public schools, and thoroughly marginalized in our public life.
If by “traditionalist religious views” Linker means discriminating against gay people, he may be right. But, more likely, their right to be gay-haters will go untouched and their only real loss will be the marginalization they experience. If anything, they should be able to use their religion as a shield that will allow them to continue to make life difficult for gays in ways that are more effective than the tools that were left to the lovers of Jim Crow.
What I don’t understand is why I am supposed to feel so much concern for the freedom of people to discriminate or deny women access to needed preventative health care. Ku Klux Klan members had feelings, too. They had certain freedoms that were taken away from them. No one told me that I had to wait for them to “evolve” at their own pace. No one told me that I should give a shit about their “freedom” to believe what they believed.
