Religious freedom and civil marriage

Several states are resisting implementation of the Court's decision on same sex marriages, by throwing up the "religious freedom" meme.

The most extreme example is this, in which a lawyer under Alabama Justice Roy Moore claims

Public officials are ministers of God assigned the duty of punishing the wicked and protecting the righteous.

Well, that's patently not true.  Alabama is NOT a theocracy and neither are these United States, and the oath to uphold the Constitution that they all took is not predicated on "when it agrees with my religious views."

In Michigan, efforts to protect "religious freedom" are renewed, including a demand that marriages only exist in religious settings.

Conservatives in the House have introduced legislation that would only allow religious clergy to perform marriage ceremonies and remove that responsibility from local clerks and judges. Other couples who don't want to use clergy for their nuptials could provide an affidavit of marriage to county clerks. The legislation also would allow marriage certificates to be shielded from public record laws.

"If this legislation becomes law it will protect our public officials from having to perform same-sex marriages and put the marriage licensing business back in the position of being in the realm of the churches and religious leaders," said state Rep. Todd Courser, R-Lapeer, in a statement explaining the bill he sponsored.

But that is putting religion front and center in a CIVIL contract.  That is WRONG.

In Texas, the Attorney General has suggested that clerks are free to refuse licenses on religious grounds.  The Dallas Morning News correctly states,

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have equal rights to marry. Top Texas leaders must stop standing in the way by encouraging government employees to invoke a personal religious exception when asked to provide marriage-related services, such as issuing licenses or officiating at civil ceremonies.

Denton County Clerk Juli Luke struck the right tone regarding Friday’s ruling by stating, “Personally, same-sex marriage is in contradiction to my faith and belief. … However, first and foremost, I took an oath on my family Bible to uphold the law, and as an elected public official, my personal belief cannot prevent me from issuing the licenses as required.”

Exactly.

State employees do not have discretion to selectively embrace the constitutional protections they agree with while rejecting those they object to, even on religious grounds. Constitutionally, governments — including their employees — must present themselves as religiously neutral. 

Look, this is not a religious issue.  Civil marriages are civil contracts.  I haven't noticed Roman Catholic clerks refusing licenses to previously divorced people, although such marriages are disallowed by their faith.  Nor devoutly orthodox Jews refusing licenses to interfaith couples.  This is only about bias against LGBT people.  And it needs to stop.

Opting out of Equality

From the New Yorker  (go read the whole thing)

In hindsight, no one doubts that allowing business owners to discriminate against black people during the Civil Rights era would have denied them full equality and hampered desegregation. (Arguably, the continued tolerance of discrimination by private clubs also undermines desegregation, though club membership is less essential to daily life than shopping.) Similarly, allowing private discrimination against gay couples is not an exemption from a new rule of full equality; it is a compromise that allows inequality to persist. Proposals to let magistrates withhold marriage licenses have the same problems, with the added insult that the discrimination is effectively coming from the state. If officials can decide not to implement laws they dislike, then equality under the law—for gay couples, at least —is just a slogan.

It's not Gay Marriage vs Church any more (voices of faith)

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Voices of Faith

I guess the media is finally coming around to understand that "Christian" is not a synonym for "anti-marriage equality".

Not when clear majorities of Americans generally, and of most Christian faith groups, support marriage equality.

William Eskridge writes in the NY Times:

My point is not that the Bible must be read in a gay-friendly way; it is simply that the Bible is open to honest interpretations that refuse to condemn or that even embrace such families. I am doubtful that Scripture speaks with one voice about how to define civil marriage.

....Assume that the Supreme Court interprets the 14th Amendment to mean that states can’t exclude gay couples from civil marriage. What will the faith traditions, which are adamantly opposed to same-sex marriage, do? The tolerant path I’ve suggested won’t unfold immediately, and different denominations will respond in different ways.

Some congregations will double down, not only reaffirming their understanding of traditional marriage but denouncing gay people even more fervently. The First Amendment gives them the right to react this way.

But if all 50 states issue marriage licenses on an equal basis, more same-sex couples will choose to wed. Some religious communities will take this as an opportunity to reconsider their views of those committed unions, and quietly welcome these families into their houses of worship.

With greater tolerance and acceptance of gay married couples, more religions will, slowly, modify doctrinal discourse to match social discourse — exactly the way they did for their previous disapproval of marriages between two people of different races. ...

And most importantly,

Today, some progressives harbor inaccurate stereotypes about religious people as anti-gay and intolerant. The Episcopalians, Unitarians, Presbyterians and many other faiths are falsifying those stereotypes. Just as American religion is changing, so, too, are the ranks of those who are pushing for equality.

As one Prop8 proponent conceded, we will be more American on the day all of us can marry equally. 

Nuns walk out

In Marin County CA, nuns who teach in a Catholic high school walked out, because they were offended that students were handing out flyers about GLSEN's Day of Silence. For those who don't know, this is a nationwide day of protest against bullying, where students who support LGBT rights simply say.... nothing. The nuns, however, feel that it is offensive and anti-Catholic. That is, that standing up in silence somehow is offensive to the nuns.

When some Marin Catholic High students began handing out Day of Silence-related stickers and flyers on campus Friday morning, the five nuns felt “felt compromised, offended and uncomfortable,” Sister Clare Marie, one of the teachers, later wrote in a lengthy e-mail to her students.

She said the sisters “do not support bigotry or any kind of prejudice,” but that they were compelled to act out against an event promoted by a group that “believes actively in promoting homosexuality in all classrooms, K-12.”

Her e-mail also accused the group’s members of speaking out “against Christians who do not share their views” and handing out materials that “say that any church which teaches homosexuality is sinful is an 'oppressor’ and should be opposed.”
....

 Okay, first of all, this is not about recruiting kids to be gay.  They are, or they aren't.  It's standing up to bullying, like the anti-gay flannel shirt bullies in the school in Pennsylvania.

The next day, a group of students walked the halls at McGuffey High raising awareness of what they unimaginatively dubbed “Anti Gay Day.” Some had “anti-gay” scrawled on their hands and a Christian cross etched on their flesh with a black marker to show how committed they were to being Jesus’ truest disciples.

Others let their freaky flannel fly on social media, where they “tagged” known and suspected LGBT students at their school with homophobic insults and Bible verses. A few GSA-affiliated students found pithy, but hateful, flyers saying “ANTI-GAY” stuck to their lockers....

.... What had a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person ever done to them except get out of the way whenever these boys strutted en masse down the hall?

 But more than that, the sisters personify something identified by Irish equality campaigner and drag queen, Panti Bliss:

So now ... gay people find ourselves in a ludicrous situation where not only are we not allowed to say publicly what we feel oppressed by, we are not even allowed to think it because our definition has been disallowed by our betters.

.... And a jumped-up queer like me should know that the word “homophobia” is no longer available to gay people. Which is a spectacular and neat Orwellian trick because now it turns out that gay people are not the victims of homophobia – homophobes are.

Poll: Americans reject RFRA laws

From the HRC

According to MSNBC, the NBC News poll “found that 63% of Americans say business owners should be required to provide products or services to individuals who are gay or lesbian, while 37% say the business owner should be allowed to refuse if homosexuality is against their religious beliefs… Across all ages and races, Americans say a business must serve gays and lesbians no matter the owner’s religious beliefs.”

This is the second poll released this week showing strong support for LGBT Americans to be protected against discrimination. Earlier this week, a poll released by Reuters/Ipsos showed similarly showed, that voters are rejecting so-called Indiana-style “Religious Freedom Restoration Act" (RFRA) bills that allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT citizens.

So, why is one of the major parties so out of line with what Americans want, and why aren't they being called on that?

Speaking of polls, did anyone notice NOM's amicus brief to the Supreme Court? It was all about trying to argue that all the polls supporting marriage equality are somehow wrong.  But, NOM, even if you were right (and you're not) it doesn't matter.  Perhaps you missed the part about the SCOTUS not caring about public opinion, but about law....

Indiana steps in it

So, Govenor Mike Pence signed a "religious freedom" act, in a room where he was surrounded by religious in habits and notorious anti-gay campaigners.  And now he's having to defend this mess against a righteous backlash.

Indiana's law goes farther than any other law for several reasons.  First, most such acts reflect acts of government that impinge on an individuals exercise of religion.  And they do not superseded existing anti-discrimination protections.

Indiana's law applies not just to individuals, but to for-profit companies, and not just to government interactions, but to interactions between citizens.  It is broad and sweeping.

Ed Kilgore writes,

So Indiana is trying to create a genuinely plenary zone of sanctioned discrimination, including every kind of entity and protecting discriminators from legal action from any direction. The first point carries it beyond SCOTUS interpretation of the federal RFRA in the Hobby Lobby case as covering "closely held" corporations, but not all for-profits. And the second means Indiana isn't just protecting religious folk against the all-powerful government, but against the very targets of their discrimination.

He adds,

If Pence was more adept as a communicator, he might have tried the "grand bargain" defense: "religious liberty" protections are in effect a surrender by cultural conservatives who will stop trying to ban things they don't like in exchange for an assurance they can quietly live their lives according to their faith. But Indiana's example is actually blowing up that argument as well. The more they talk about it, advocates of broad-based "religious liberty" laws sound like those conservatives back in the day who offered to accept the Civil Rights Act of 1964 if the public accommodations section was removed.

In 1964, a South Carolina Barbeque owner named Maurice Bessinger argued that his religious beliefs meant that he did not have to serve blacks in his restaurants (and he also felt slavery was religiously justified.  The federal court found that religious beliefs did not justify discriminatory behavior in public accommodation.  Why is this different?

Oh, yeah.  Teh Gayz.

Own the discrimination

In Oklahoma, the extremist legislature is working to pass a bill that would allow any discrimination as long as it's religious in  motivation.  Basically, if you claim religion, you get to be exempt from laws.  An amendment to the legislation has been proposed that would require you to post explicitly what minority groups you choose to discriminate against.

Dislike Jews?  How about blacks?  Women a problem?  What about gays and lesbians?  And of course, the group everyone opposes, the transgendered.

I say, yes.  Make them post a sign.  Make them own their bigotry:  No fags allowed. Let them be proud of it. 

More:

The amendment to HB1371....would require religious businesses to come out of the closet.

“Any person not wanting to participate in any of the activities set forth in subsection A of this section based on sexual orientation, gender identity or race of either party to the marriage shall post notice of such refusal in a manner clearly visible to the public in all places of business, including websites,” the amendment states.

“The notice may refer to the person’s religious beliefs, but shall state specifically which couples the business does not serve by referring to a refusal based upon sexual orientation, gender identity or race.”
....
Ryan Kiesel, director of ACLU of Oklahoma, also praised the amendment, saying that it “very pointedly exposes the absurdity of creating a new era of legalized segregation.”

A Mormon Shell Game

Yesterday the headlines blared that the Mormons (or Latter Day Saints, LDS) had come out in support of non-discrimination rules for housing and employment for gay people.

Today, people are noticing the catch.  The so-called support comes with a large poison pill, the recurrent theme of "religious freedom".  That is, they want people who express religious objections to gay people, to still be free to discriminate.

Andrew Rosenthal: 

The Associated Press explained: “Mormon leaders still want to hire and fire workers based not only on religious beliefs, but also on behavior standards known as honor codes that require gays and lesbians to remain celibate or marry someone of the opposite sex. The church also wants legal protections for religious objectors who work in government and health care, such as a physician who refuses to perform an abortion, or provide artificial insemination for a lesbian couple.”

Substitute the word “black” or “Jewish” or “Catholic” or, say, “Mormon” for LGBT in these statements, and everyone would be outraged.

Or, as Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for LGBT rights, put it: “All Americans should have the right to be employed, receive housing and services in environments free of discrimination. We await the day the church embraces that fully, without any exceptions or exemptions.”

Hobby Lobby, the gift that keeps on giving. 

Unhinged

Is it just me, or is the anti-equality side getting increasingly unhinged?

In South Carolina and Texas, lawmakers are trying to pass laws that would refuse to pay the salary of a government employee who legally issued a marriage license to a gay couple .

One activist is calling for the National Guard to be called out to prevent marriages from happening.

More anti-gay laws, under the "religious freedom" meme, are popping up.  Most striking is the one in Virginia proposed to allow anyone to refuse service to any LGBT person.  Need a paramedic?  Too bad, this one won't do CPR on a gay person.  (Its chance of passage is slim, but still...)

Get a grip, people!  Gay people are getting married. The sun still rises.  End of story! 

What is religious freedom, anyway?

Perhaps what you think and what those against us think religious freedom means, are two different things.  

Rob Donaldson, writing in LGBTQnation:

To Mr. Bruni, or to Robert Boston, author of “Taking Liberties: Why Religious Freedom Doesn’t Give You the Right to Tell Other People What To Do,” it is the “right of people to believe what they do and say what they wish — in their pews, homes and hearts.”

But conservative Christians disagree. To them, it goes much further....

..., they see it in what they believe is the loftier context of how God views everyone’s acts, as either virtuous or sinful. Whether or not such acts are legal under American law is, to them, secondary. They think Mr. Bruni and his allies would define religious freedom so narrowly, as an “interior and private” thing, excluding religiously motivated acts, that it becomes “no freedom at all,” in the Mormon church’s words.

The problem with this view is that, taken to its logical conclusion, it becomes precisely what the Supreme Court warned against in 1879: it would make religious belief “superior to the law of the land, and . . . permit every citizen to become a law unto [themselves].”

He concludes,

as long as the parties in this debate fail to agree on the very definition of “religious freedom,” they will continue to waste time and energy talking past each other about how to protect it. 

I think this can be described simply as a conflict between religious freedom (the interior, private view), and religious privilege (the exterior practice).

See more of our discussion about religious freedom.

Religious Freedom redux

 Last week Michigan's legislature passed a sweeping "religious freedom" bill that allows one to refuse service on religious grounds to Teh Gay:

While Bolger insists the bill is meant to protect, say, the Muslim butcher who wants to prepare food in line with halal practices, or the Jewish mother who doesn’t want an autopsy performed on her son, civil liberties advocates warn it could be used as a defense for the landlord who wants to evict a gay tenant, or the pharmacist who doesn’t want to provide birth control, all because of sincerely held religious beliefs. 

This emboldened Kansas to revive its own bill:

Last session’s religious freedom bill extended to public employees, meaning that county clerks, for example, could refuse to serve same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses. Some attorneys read the bill as being broad enough that it would have extended to all public employees, including police officers, who could theoretically refuse to help a same-sex married couple based on their religious beliefs.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article4336207.html#storylink=cpy

As one person commented,

“Take out the word ‘gay’ and put any other word in there and is it acceptable? Put ‘Muslim,’ put ‘African American,’ put an ‘interracial couple’… does it sound better? Does it sound worse?” she said. “We’re not talking about churches. We’re not talking about forcing a minister to marry someone in a church. That’s protected.”

 Everyone who supports this so-called "freedom" which is really religious privilege, should be forced to put a sign in their window:  We don't Serve Fags.  I wonder how good their business would be if they had to own their bigotry.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article4336207.html#storylink=cpy

You can't be "nice" and deny equality

As we move into the end game of the marriage equality issue, our opponents are trying to figure out how to live with us married LGBT folk.  (Mostly, they are trying not to , on the basis of religious freedom).

Some of them are trying to tell us there's nothing personal, that they may oppose our marriages but hey, they aren't anti-gay bigots.

Here's an oldie but a goodie, on how you can't be "nice" while denying equality. 

First, the author begins with a discussion of a writer named Halee Gray Scott , who wants to separate her anti-marriage equality views from that of a more openly homophobic man, Charles Worley.

Worley wants to deny LGBT people their basic civil rights and legal equality because he hates them. Scott wants to deny LGBT people their basic civil rights and legal equality for other reasons.

See? See how very different they are? Same result. Same vote. Same fundamental discrimination enshrined in law. But Worley is mean. Scott is nice.
...
That sort of assumption — lumping her in with people like Charles Worley just because she wants the same legal outcome as they do — is hurtful. It wounds her feelings. Being compared to people like that is not nice.

And people should be nice to her, just as she’s being so nice to all the LGBT citizens whose legal equality she wants to nicely deny.

“I’m not asking for anyone to approve or accept my views,” Scott writes, magnanimously.

And it’s true. She doesn’t want anyone else to approve or accept her religious perspective. All she asks is that they allow her to write it into law....

Yeah, that's the part they miss.

But the argument is that you can't be NICE and still treat people badly.

Look, here’s the deal: It doesn’t matter if you think you’re a nice person. And it doesn’t matter if your tone, attitude, sentiments and facial expressions are all very sweet, kindly and sympathetic-seeming. If you’re opposing legal equality, then you don’t get to be nice. Opposing legal equality is not nice and it cannot be done nicely.

...

It’d be terrific if Scott’s heartfelt plea for “a hermeneutic of grace” toward Christians who oppose legal equality had also thought to include such a presumption of grace toward the human beings whose legal equality those Christians continue to deny.
....

Scott wants to carve out a space in which she can be unfair, but still kind. Such a space does not exist and cannot exist.

It's up to the supremes

From Scotusblog (Lyle Denniston)

With lawyers moving very rapidly, the number of appeals to the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage rose on Tuesday to seven, as state officials in Indiana and Wisconsin separately challenged a federal appeals court ruling against their bans, and lawyers for the couples planned to file immediate replies. The new cases landed at the Court five days after that decision; the states had the option of taking ninety days to file.
... 

The Court has the option of taking on either or both issues, and it also has the option of putting off any consideration for the time being, despite the heavy pressure from virtually everyone involved in the cases, who contend that the Court should not wait any longer to decide. None of the cases is a mandatory appeal. It would be highly unusual, however, for the Court to pass up all of the cases, when everyone is championing review now. 

If the Court opts to take on the controversy anytime up to mid-January, a final ruling could be expected before the new Term is completed late next June.

And guess what?  The case may well rest not on constitutional law, not on fairness, but on religious freedom.  Mark Silk at Religion News Service on an amicus brief filed for Utah:

The religious organizations make clear in their amicus brief that, besides addressing all relevant Fourteenth Amendment issues, the Utah case uniquely addresses the burden placed on religious liberty by SSM. Quoting from a 2012 letter from a coalition of anti-SSM religious leaders, they write:

Judicially redefining marriage powerfully conflicts with religious liberty because, among other reasons, such a dramatic change in the law inevitably will lead to “forcing or pressuring both individuals and religious organizations – throughout their operations, well beyond religious ceremonies – to treat same-sex sexual conduct as the moral equivalent of marital sexual conduct.”… 

Utah’s petition provides an opportunity to address whether avoiding religious conflicts and church-state entanglements is a sufficiently weighty reason, alone or combined with other interests, to warrant allowing States to retain the age-old definition of marriage. 

If the court did find such avoidance sufficiently weighty, I’ve no doubt that the next legal step would be to ask that all states be forbidden to permit SSM on religious liberty grounds. But the real significance of the brief, it seems to me, is that it represents an acknowledgment that SSM is becoming the law of the land, and that the battle has now moved to the securing of legal exemptions for religious objectors.

So, the logic here is that anti-gay archbishop Salvatore Cordileone's religions freedom demands that the state deny me my civil rights (not to mention any non-Catholic church's religious freedom to marry me).  The sad thing is, after Hobby Lobby, it's just what might appeal to the 5 Catholics on the bench in DC.

Catholics protests latest firing of gay church employee

From the Chicago Trib:

In an emotionally charged meeting Wednesday, parishioners of Holy Family Catholic Church in northwest suburban Inverness voiced opinions over the firing of their longtime music director, who lost his job after announcing his engagement to his male partner on social media. 

Many of the roughly 700 people who attended appeared to support Colin Collette, who received a standing ovation when he entered the sanctuary. ....

The church pastor, the Rev. Terry Keehan, organized Wednesday’s meeting “in light of the many and varied emotions that so many of you have expressed,” he wrote in Sunday’s church bulletin.

He called it a “Town Hall Meeting for Listening and Respect” and described it as an opportunity to voice emotions about Collette’s departure. ....

In the bulletin, Keehan also wrote that he was concerned how the various emotions affect “our larger community.” 

“It is truly a very complicated and complex situation,” his message read.

Not complicated in the least.  The church doesn't want to employ gay people who marry.  And, the law says they don't have to--this man was a music director, and that's a ministry.  End of story.   So this is a pointless exercise. I'm not sure what the priest hoped to accomplish.

Hobby Lobby: A thumb on the scale

From the Advocate:

Of course churches, other houses of worship, and religious schools must have full control over their selection of clergy and those who teach religion and lead religious activities. But when an organization invites people of all faiths (and no faith) to apply for jobs doing nonreligious work (such as food service, janitorial, medical, and business functions), those workers need to be treated just as fairly as in any work setting. No child labor or cheating on wages. No toxic chemicals in the air. And no toxic discrimination either.

Once upon a time, Southern restaurants used religion to explain racial segregation. Businesses have cited the Bible to justify paying women less than men. Attitudes about race and sex discrimination have evolved through a powerful mix of advocacy and outrage. This past spring, bills to allow religiously motivated anti-LGBT discrimination appeared in too many states, including Kansas, Georgia, and Arizona. Because community advocates, corporate leadership, and elected officials stood together, fairness prevailed. Now, given Hobby Lobby’s thumb on the scale for religious interests, it is ever more important that civic, business, and affirming faith leaders create an urgent chorus of support for explicit, effective and equal legal protections for LGBT people at every level of government. Our extraordinarily talented, diverse American community deserves no less.

Voices of Faith: It's not discrimination if you can't discriminate

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Voices of Faith

I wonder if the increasingly hysterical anti-gay right wing ever listens to themselves.  They are claiming that if they are not allowed to discriminate against LGBT people, that is discrimination against THEM.

From Patheos,

So yeah, apparently we’re being “bullied” because in exchange for accepting government funds we have to agree not to fire people for being gay. 

Poor us.

So listen– I think we as Christians need to set something straight before we go any further:
It’s not discrimination when we are prevented from doing the discriminating. It’s not persecution when we are prevented from doing the persecuting. It’s not bullying when we’re told that we can’t bully others. 

It’s not any of those things. 

In fact, we should actually be embarrassed that we even have to be told that it’s wrong to fire someone for these reasons. Your place of business is NOT the same thing as your church– if you want to accept government funds, you’ll have to play by a set of rules that keeps it fair for everyone. Both for you, and everyone else

Why am I not surprised? Using Hobby Lobby against gays

From the Atlantic,

This week, in the Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court ruled that a religious employer could not be required to provide employees with certain types of contraception. That decision is beginning to reverberate: A group of faith leaders is urging the Obama administration to include a religious exemption in a forthcoming LGBT anti-discrimination action. 

Their call, in a letter sent to the White House Tuesday, attempts to capitalize on the Supreme Court case by arguing that it shows the administration must show more deference to the prerogatives of religion. 

"We are asking that an extension of protection for one group not come at the expense of faith communities whose religious identity and beliefs motivate them to serve those in need," the letter states.

Because nothing speaks to the love of God like refusing to hire a homo.

UCC files suit for marriage equality (Voices of Faith)

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Voices of Faith

From North Carolina's Charlotte Observer:

The General Synod of the United Church of Christ filed a lawsuit today in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, contending state law that defines marriage as a union between a man and woman restrict its ministers from performing their religious duties is unconstitutional.

North Carolina prohibits couples of the same gender from obtaining a marriage license and makes it a crime for ministers to officiate a marriage ceremony without determining whether a couple has a license. UCC attorneys say the law limits ministers’ choices, violates the principle of “free exercise of religion” and restricts the freedoms of religion and expressive association guaranteed in the First Amendment. The church seeks a preliminary injunction that would allow ministers the choice of performing a religious marriage.

Well done! See, the thing about religious freedom is, it's not meant to privilege one faith over the other.

Politically correct purges: JUST STOP IT

Does anyone remember Richard Grenell? He went to work for the Romney campaign and was hounded out when Evangelicals became outraged to discover he was gay. His being gay had nothing to do with the Romney campaign (after all, the anti-gay message is pretty strong in  Republican presidential campaigns) and nothing to do with his job. He was essentially not allowed to continue simply for being gay.

Cue the outrage: the man was hounded out of his job because he is gay.

Well, it's happening again.

Mozilla/Firefox has appointed Brendan Eich as its CEO: a man who supported Prop8 by giving a donation to the campaign. The company itself has a good diversity profile; there's no evidence that he's going to change that. In fact, he specifically that there won't be changes. But, based on a personal donation he made 6 years ago, some developers have called for a boycott of the browser. Simply because they disagree with the personal politics of the CEO.

Now, readers of this blog know that I was an ardent opponent of Prop8. As a gay, married Californian, I have a strong interest in this fight.

And I will tell you that boycotting Mozilla over the personal opinion of Brendan Eich against gay marriage is outrageous.

Look, we promote the idea that people who oppose marriage equality should live in peace in the secular sphere. It's the price of having a socially diverse civil polis. We promote tolerance. WE say we can live together even if we disagree.

Not if we're doing this sort of politically correct thought-policing, we can't.

This is no different than the firing of Richard Grenell. Or, to use another example from the news today, no different from the reversal of the World Vision charity which now says it will never, ever, hired a married gay person.

Indeed, it ties into the Hobby Lobby case currently before the Supreme Court, by saying a company has the right to control the personal behavior of its employees.

Their thoughts, if you will.

You will be assimilated, or you will be fired.

From the American Conservative: (my emphases!), an excellent piece on why we have to stop these purges:

Balkanized businesses, which only hire employees or leaders that are politically palatable to their donors and customers aren’t economically or socially efficient. Instead of creating weak-tie relationships across ideological divides, they segregate people who disagree, fostering a fear of contamination by association. This exclusionary approach raises the stakes of political conflict dangerously high. When the losing side of a debate is blacklisted, all disputes become wars of annihilation. 

When Eich donated to Proposition 8, his state was split on the issue; the measure passed by a 4.5 percent margin. If, less than a decade later, the losers of that fight are unemployable, the next group on the losing side of a historical shift has every reason to fight dirtier, while time is still on their side….

But neither side benefits from policing orthodoxy as tightly as these boycotts would do. World Vision made its policy shift in the service of this kind of neutrality; since some of the churches it worked with and the states it operated in recognize gay marriage, World Vision would respect, but not praise, their policies. That turned out to be unacceptable to its donors, who saw anything less than exclusion as tacit endorsement.

A healthy body politic requires that there be room to be wrong and still belong to normal society and commerce. A society that won’t live together can’t learn from each other.

Christian Charity will hire married gay people

Across the usual feeds this morning is the report that an Evangelical-founded Christian charity called World Vision will hire married LGBT people.

Based in Washington state and started by evangelicals, World Vision now has an international operating budget of nearly $1 billion and conducts economic development and emergency relief projects around the world. ... 

"I want to be clear that we have not endorsed same-sex marriage, but we have chosen to defer to the authority of local churches on this issue," Stearns said. 

World Vision requires employees to affirm, through the agency's statement of faith or the Apostle's Creed, that they follow Christ. Stearns said the agency will continue to follow that policy, including requiring employees to remain celibate outside of marriage. World Vision says it hires staff from dozens of denominations with different views of gay relationships.

Basically, they hire people who affirm their Christianity, and they require they be celibate or married.  So they are simply treating LGBT people by the same rules as straight people.  And that's all any of us want.

No surprise that the rabid opponents of equality are shrieking at this unGodly capitulation to the Devil.

And right after Chick-Fil-A COO Dan Cathy said he was stepping out of the culture wars, too -- because of how his anti-LGBT activities "alienated" market share.

And even Maggie Gallagher admits that we've won.

It's not over yet, but the direction is clear.