I agree with everything Alan says, and say much the same thing in my chapter.
/Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty/ is not opposed to gay rights or to
same-sex marriage. About half the contributors are, and about half are not,
but that disagreement among them is not the point of the book. The book
assumes that same-sex marriage is or will be the law, and asks what issues that
raises for religious liberty.
Quoting "Brownstein, Alan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> If we are talking about conflicts between gay rights and religious
> liberty, surely this is a coin that has two sides to it. Many gay
> people see religion as a sword that is being used to burden their
> liberty and equality rights. What we have are two groups claiming
> basic autonomy rights with each seeing the other side as a threat to
> be feared, rather than as people with basic liberty interests that
> need to be accommodated. When we have one side of the debate arguing
> that to avoid potential conflicts with religious liberty, gay people
> should be denied the right to marry or to be protected against
> discrimination in housing or employment, it is hardly surprising that
> the other side of the debate is going to offer little sympathy to
> requests for religious accommodation.
>
> I continue to believe that while there will be some real conflicts
> between religious liberty and gay rights in some circumstances, at a
> deeper level these two assertions of autonomy rights can and should
> be positively reinforcing each other. Sometimes this happens
> inadvertantly. The Equal Access Act has helped gay and lesbian clubs
> be recognized at schools. But this was done over the opposition of
> people who insisted that freedom of association and speech for
> religious students should not be extended to gay students. To have
> the mutual reinforcement of autonomy rights (that I think is
> possible) happen at a broader, practical level, however, there would
> have to be some commitment to compromise from both sides.
>
> Minor shameless plug, Doug. Take a look at the Findlaw column
> (published last Friday) that Vik Amar and I recently
> wrote.
>
> Alan Brownstein
> UC Davis School of Law
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Douglas Laycock
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 7:13 AM
> To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
> Subject: Defamation of Religion - and Gay Rights
>
>
> Mr. Diamond is quite right to see gay rights as the likely source of
> this kind of litigation in the US. Marc Stern at the American Jewish
> Congress (and a participant on this list) has a great chapter
> forthcoming on litigation to date over conflicts between gay rights
> and religious liberty and free speech. The Canadian speech cases are
> terrifying; the US cases in the context of schools and employment are
> quite unprotective of speech.
>
> This chapter is forthcoming in a book (now comes the shamless plug)
> that I edited with Robin Fretwell Wilson at Washington & Lee and
> Anthony Picarello, formerly at the Becket Fund and now the General
> Counsel to the Conference of Catholic Bishops. The book is Same-Sex
> Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts, due out from
> Rowman & Littlefield in September. Other contributors are Jonathan
> Turley at GW, Chai Feldbum at Georgetown, Doug Kmiec at Pepperdine,
> Charles Reid at St. Thomas (Minnesota), Wilson, and me. I won't
> vouch for my chapter, but I'll vouch for all the others.
>
> Quoting Paul Diamond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>> The issue of 'defamation of religion' and/or 'hate speech' is a disturbing
>> and confusing legal development in the United Kingdom/ Europe. It may be
>> something that Americans are not over concerned about due to the strong
>> protections granted by US Courts under the First Amendment.
>>
>> However, I believe this is a subject that US academics and attorneys need to
>> address. I make no political point, but if there is a Democratic White
>> House and Congress this November, surely 'sexual orientation' will be added
>> as a category of 'hate crime'. This development will be solely 'home grown'
>> and it will no doubt be developed by US Courts upon European Human Rights
>> decisions: Lawrence/Roper etc.
>>
>> Restrictions on speech arose first in Germany in holocaust denial laws
>> (premised that the truth must be protected/preserved) in circumstances of a
>> pressing social need; to the current situation where truth is not a defence
>> if the subjective 'feelings' of the adherent are distressed.
>>
>> One of the disturbing aspects of 'hate crime' law in the United Kingdom is
>> not the Court decisions (which are poor enough), but the abuse of the
>> executive to determine free speech permissiveness. This is done by a
>> combination of police intimidation (arrests, but subsequent release of
>> individuals- Police has wide 'qualified immunity' in UK) and use of State
>> agencies (BBC, awards, grants) to attack certain groups and protect others.
>> Very often the Courts simply do not enter the free speech debate, but the
>> citizen knows what can be said and what can't be said. Readers of the List
>> will rest assured that these laws are never enforced in relation to
>> criticism of the US/ Israel which are can be in openly racist terminology..
>>
>> The best that can be said is that it is an attempt by the State to micro
>> manage debate and to civilise discourse, but in the light of the above, this
>> is not convincing.
>>
>> One of the absurd aspects of the concept of 'defamation of religion' is the
>> failure to recognise the inherently competitive nature of religions- surely
>> the greatest freedom of all is the freedom to go to Hell and be told about
>> it!!!!
>>
>> Paul Diamond, barrister.
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Esenberg, Richard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> To: "Law & Religion issues for Law Academics" <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>
>> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> Sent: Saturday, August 02, 2008 4:38 AM
>> Subject: RE: LOFTON / Re: Defamation of Religion
>>
>>
>>> I agree with Robert Lipkin that there is a thing called religion as
>>> difficult as it may be to define. Certainly, there are things that we can
>>> confidently say is not it.
>>>
>>> What I have a problem with is the notion that government can be neutral
>>> among religions or between religion or irreligion. In particular, I am
>>> skeptical that a useful test for whether it has done so - or has managed
>>> to come as close as it ought to be expected to come - is captured by
>>> whether it has managed to avoid explicitly religious language. The state
>>> lost the Sklar and Montgomery cases because it started to talk theology
>>> (theology toward which I have a certain amount of sympathy) but I can't
>>> see why the insult to those who read their faith differently would be any
>>> less exclusionary or stigmatizing for the avoidance of such language. If I
>>> am a conservative evangelical who regards biblical injunctions against
>>> homosexuality as authoritive, I don't know why I would regard myself as
>>> not being made a disfavored member of the political community or not
>>> believing that the state has acted to disapprove my religious beliefs
>>> because it has avoided theological language. To the con!
>>> trary, if the state engages my sacred text (even, by my lights,
>>> erroneously), it has treated me with more respect than if it dismisses my
>>> views as bigotry.
>>>
>>> This is why, I think, the whole defamation against religion concept is an
>>> idea at war with itself. Those who promote the idea seem to want to say
>>> that, for example, the relatively mild criticisms of Islam by Mark Steyn
>>> (if you want a different villain than CAIR, try Bill Donahue) should bear
>>> legal sanction, But, if they are right, we need to know why secular
>>> messages that are far more inconsistent with or dismissive of integral
>>> religious presuppositions, e.g.,, assertions by the San Francisco Board
>>> of Examiners about Catholic teachings on homosexuality and the moral
>>> authority of the Church.
>>>
>>>
>>> Rick Esenberg
>>> Marquette University Law School
>>> ________________________________
>>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 9:45 AM
>>> To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
>>> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> Subject: Re: LOFTON / Re: Defamation of Religion
>>>
>>> Insisting there is no religion--it doesn't exist--but "religion"
>>> can nevertheless be used intelligibly (as a bracket term). suggests that
>>> one has an elaborate argument that no matter how much it might vary from
>>> ordinary intelligent discourse, he or she wants to impose on you. I think
>>> I'll pass on examining that argument, but go right ahead and articulate
>>> anyway.
>>>
>>> Bobby
>>>
>>> Robert Justin Lipkin
>>> Professor of Law
>>> Widener University School of Law
>>> Delaware
>>>
>>> Ratio Juris, Contributor: http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/[1]
>>> Essentially Contested America, Editor-In-Chief
>>> http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/[2]
>>>
>>> In a message dated 8/1/2008 10:33:28 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>>> In point of fact, strictly speaking, there is no such thing that actually
>>> exists that is called "religion." That's why I put it in quotes.
>>> "Religion" is an abstract category that no one actually practices any more
>>> than someone plays "sports" or eats "food." Thus, I do not believe you can
>>> "trivialize" that which does not actually exist. As for creating
>>> "conceptual and practical confusion," I believe this happens when one
>>> talks about unreal things as if they are real. In any event, if someone
>>> denies that all governments are "religious" in origin, and based on some
>>> kind of "religion," let's test what I say. Name me a government that you
>>> say is not "religious" and I'll show you how it is. Thank you.
>>>
>>> John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
>>> Recovering Republican
>>>
>>> "Accursed is that peace of which revolt from God is the bond, and blessed
>>> are those contentions by which it is necessary to maintain the kingdom of
>>> Christ." -- John Calvin.
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
>>> Sent: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 6:52 am
>>> Subject: Re: LOFTON / Re: Defamation of Religion
>>>
>>> This certainly trivializes the concept of "religion." A government
>>> that persecutes theists, defames religion in general, and so forth is
>>> religious? I suppose the argument is that such a government simply adopts
>>> the "wrong" religion. I suppose similarly each individual is religious no
>>> matter what that person's view is about the existence of God or the
>>> practice of religion. Taking this route, however, creates both conceptual
>>> and practical confusion, but one is, of course, free to take it. To what
>>> end?
>>>
>>> Bobby
>>>
>>> Robert Justin Lipkin
>>> Professor of Law
>>> Widener University School of Law
>>> Delaware
>>>
>>> Ratio Juris, Contributor: http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/[3]
>>> Essentially Contested America, Editor-In-Chief
>>> <http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/[4]>
>>> http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/[5]
>>>
>>> In a message dated 7/31/2008 5:38:45 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>>> ALL government is "religious." The only question is: Which "religion" will
>>> a government be based on.
>>> <http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/[6]>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ________________________________
>>> Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy
>>> Football
>>> today<http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020[7]>.<http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/[8]>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
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>
>
>
> Douglas Laycock
> Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law
> University of Michigan Law School
> 625 S. State St.
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1215
> 734-647-9713
>
Douglas Laycock
Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law
University of Michigan Law School
625 S. State St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1215
734-647-9713
Links:
------
[1] http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/
[2] http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/
[3] http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/
[4] http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/
[5] http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/
[6] http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/
[7] http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020
[8] http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/
[9]
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[13] http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/
[14] http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
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[17] http://www.avg.com/
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