Ugh. I was sort of afraid something like this would happen. However, I don't think anything quite like that will happen in America. Certainly, there's a worry I've felt about permitting gay marriage (which I support): the worry is that a government's law have educative effects--if the gov't says that gay marriage is permitted, then people will think gay marriage is morally permissible. And then, religious groups (like Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) that have scriptures condemning homosexual behavior will be seen as advocating hate-speech. And then, being a member of any of those denominations will seem like being a member of the KKK.

Now, obviously, this is something of a doomsday scenario. As a matter of fact, I don't think anything like that will happen. But the reason I don't think that will happen is that religious groups will change their interpretations of their doctrines. There will be a lot of pressue to interpret, say, the Bible's condemnations of homosexuality as applying just to male prostitution or pederasty (as, for example, Peter Gomes already--in my opinion, unjustifiably--interprets the New Testament), and not to homosexuality at all. And then the religious groups--of a large portion of them--will be able to integrate peacably into society.

I'm not sure that's a bad thing, but I do think it highlights that many laws, simply by allowing something, will place a greater burden on some value-systems than others. In other words, there is no such thing as government "neutrality" regarding moral systems.

Ugh indeed.

This is probably a dimwitted musing, but you've reminded me of something I mull over from time to time. Which is the difficulty some people have in just letting things be. They can't just get rid of nonsense and remove barriers, they have to pass new laws encouraging the reverse. (Can't just toss out Jim Crow; must enforce affirmative action, for example.) Whassup with such people? Live and let live isn't good enough for them? Why do they have to turn "live and let live" into a crusade? Is there such a thing as a personality type that can't live without a crusade? And what can we do to drive this personality type into extinction?

In his article, David Frum riffs on a comment. The burden of the comment is that there is no reason why religious belief (as opposed to any other kind of belief) should be singled out for any exemption from laws governing expressions of thought.

As Frum points out, this is true, and simply highlights the inherently illiberal nature of the gay rights push as currently constructed. A purely philosophical argument against, say, gay mattiage is just as objectionable as a religious argument, and must be excluded from the academy. Intellectual freedom is just as much threatened as religious freedom.

I would turn the argument around. Instead of asking why religious freedom should be singled out for exemption from law, I would ask: why should homosexual behaviour be singled out for protection from criticism? Everyone makes lifestyle choices, and its hard to make a choice that isn't criticised by someone, somewhere. We all face these criticisms. Why do gays get the benefit of state protection from criticism we all face?

What do you expect from the country that persecuted Catholics for not obeying the state religion? The current state religion is political correctness and therefore in line with traditional practices—there’s one for all you traditionalist conservatives-- the state plans to persecute those who don’t agree with them.

This is absolutely ridiculous. No one is arguing that private institutions may not continue to practice their idiosyncratic beliefs. What is, however, at stake, is whether or not public funds and resources can be used to push forward illiberal goals.

People are free to believe whatever they wish about the moral status of women, homosexuals, ethnic minorities or practitioners of other religions. When they are receiving public funds, however, which represent the advocacy and the monies of these people, however, it becomes something different.

Want to have an all-white university? Fine, but you should receive no local, state or national taxes. Want to have a blacks only fraternity? Fine, but it'll have to be an off-campus organisation not officially sanctioned or administered by the university.

I suppose that the flip argument should be made: why should the public fund and sanction organisations that have as part of their central tenets beliefs that are not in accordance with civil rights laws and the moral beliefs of the majority of the country?

I am a gay man and a believer in free speech, in fact, in the whole Constitution, including the Second Amendment. I find the notions of hate speech and hate crime extremely dangerous. They are simply secularized versions of laws against heresy and blasphemy, and recreate the state's support of a particular kind of faith, this time the cryptoreligious worldview of "inclusion, diversity and sensitivity".

I regret that so many of my tribe have gone from asking to be let alone to enforcing their own vision of the good life on everyone else. Their sense of their own righteousness is as chilling to me as the bigotry they ascribe, rightly or wrongly, to conservative Christians. In a sad replay of so much of human history, the victim is turning into the tyrant.

Canada is an example of how badly this can go. I hope the unique arrangements of our American tradition will protect us from this.

Hello Indicus,

The British Law would make it an offence to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality when one provides a public service. Their definition of a public service is a service performed to the general public, such as renting out a hall, printing, teaching, running a hotel and so on. It is not limited to actions which are publicly funded. In other words a Christian printing firm may be obliged to print works promoting the gay lifestyle to avoid causing an offence. Likewise a hotel owner could be prosectuted if he refused a gay couple a room. No public funds involved this is a law which affects private businesses.

EssEm: we are wholly at one. Very well said.

Leaving people alone may seem perfectly reasonable to libertarians (though not to modern liberals as the above example demonstrates), but as Aristotle would say, attempting to enforce one's vision of the good life on everyone else is a manifestation of man's nature as a social and political animal. And as Tocqueville pointed out, the desire for equality (especially its modern abstract character) is by far the strongest impulse in modern democratic regimes, so why should anyone be surprised when the struggle to be left alone quickly progresses into a struggle for equal dignity (isothumia) that requires suppressing any public affront to that dignity?

I suppose it is rather naive of me to imagine that any group will be satisfied with being left alone, as Perseus points out. I did not meant that being left alone was the sum of gay political aspiration. This is a comment, after all, and I was telegraphing, as I am now.

Reactions to Gen. Pace are painfully instructive. He holds that gay sex is immoral and therefore should not be condoned by the military. The Human Rights Campaign, a gayleft advocacy group, demands that he apologize for his affront. Never seems to have occurred to them to challenge him to a debate on ideas. Isothumia indeed. And the evacuation of meaningful civic dialogue. We become more and more like touchy 18th century noblemen.

They passed the laws in question in Britain. Should I be surprised?

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13534