Perhaps there is also a linkage between gay rights and religious liberty in
the sense that both are largely about identity. Precisely because religious
and sexual identity are not entirely immutable (although neither seems to be
wholly a matter of unconstrained choice), the government can leverage people
away from being who they, in a deep sense, really are.
I heard one gay-rights speaker once conclude by saying something like: "This
is who I am; I can be no other." I don't honestly think she meant to sound
like Martin Luther before Emperor Charles at the Diet of Worms ("I cannot,
and I will not recant. Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me.
Amen.") Perhaps she didn't even recognize the resemblance. But, there it
is.
From: "Alan Brownstein" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
<religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>
To: "Law & Religion issues for Law Academics" <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>
Subject: RE: Catholic Charities Issue
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 20:45:50 -0800
Not only isn't it impossible to have both gay rights and religious liberty,
the core of both sets of claims have common foundations. It makes no more
sense for a gay activist to insist that a religious person should ignore the
duties he or she owes to G-d (a duty that, I believe, arises out of love and
principle) -- because the religious person can not reasonably be asked to do
that -- than it does for a religious person to insist that a gay person
should deny the love he (or she) shares with another person who he wants to
spend his life with -- because the gay person can not reasonably be asked
to do that.
Alan Brownstein
________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Douglas Laycock
Sent: Sat 3/11/2006 7:42 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics; Law & Religion issues for Law
Academics
Subject: RE: Catholic Charities Issue
It is not at all impossible to have both gay rights and religious liberty.
It is just that the gay rights activists mostly refuse to recognize
religious liberty (at least if any gay rights issue is in anyway
implicated), and the more conservative religious liberty activists mostly
refuse to recognize gay rights. Both sides want the symbolic victory of
having the state declare the other side wrong, and both sides want to be
assured they will never have to litigate a case at the boundary between the
two freedoms.
Alan Brownstein sketched a perfectly sensible way to resolve the
Massachusetts dispute in a way that protects both sides -- gay parents would
be free to adopt through other state-funded agencies, and Catholic Charities
would be free not to place children with gay parents. More generally,
strong gay rights legislation with strong religious liberty exceptions would
protect both sides.
Douglas Laycock
University of Texas Law School
727 E. Dean Keeton St.
Austin, TX 78705
512-232-1341
512-471-6988 (fax)
________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Rick Duncan
Sent: Sat 3/11/2006 8:22 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: Catholic Charities Issue
I think Marci and Doug are spot on. The state, as in Rust, says "this is
our program, take it or leave it." CC says, "okay, we'll leave it." CC
loses a part of its ministry, the state loses one of its best
adoption-service providers, and the kids stay in state custody longer (and,
for some, perhaps permanently, since CC was extra good at placing
hard-to-place children).
This is why some of us fight so hard against gay rights and gay
marriage--gay rights/marriage are incompatible (at least in certain
situations) with religious liberty. As in Massachusetts, the state has to
choose between religious liberty and gay rights.
Some states choose gay rights. I choose religious liberty. I was born and
raised in Massachusetts, but I couldn't live there now (and I don't think I
even care to visit--not even if I had Monster seats at fenway).
Cheers, Rick Duncan
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
What this dispute re: Catholic Charities illustrates is the danger of any
religious institution in relying upon government funding for its programs.
Government funding always comes with strings. In general, Catholic
Charities gets 86% of its funding from government sources, 14% from private,
with the vast majority of that coming from charities like United Way. A
tiny portion is paid by Catholics. I would assume that on its own dime, CC
can facilitate adoptions, but feel free to correct that assumption.
The question is whether it is going to accept the condition placed on it by
the government's money. &! nbsp;CC is not required to take the government's
money, right? This is the Solomon Amendment -- private institution that has
become dependent on government largesse insists that it is entitled to that
largesse and that the government should have no power to place strings on
the money. There is no First Amendment problem and certainly no
"substantial burden" under RFRA. If "substantial burden" means that
religious entities can force the government to give them money on their own
terms, we are quite literally on the other side of Alice's looking glass.
Marci
Rick Duncan
Welpton Professor of Law
University of Nebraska College of Law
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902
"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or
Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle
"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or
numbered." --The Prisoner
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