Good News, Bad News (For Freedom)

Even when the political class gets something right they still manage to get it wrong. According to an October 6, 2009 AP online article written by Jessica Gresko and available online on Earthlink, the District Of Columbia city council is about to make same sex marriage legal in the District. The council apparently has enough votes to pass the legislation and it is likely that Congress will approve the idea. Congress gets to review all DC legislation and even the Congressional Republicans quoted in the article, who are opposed to same sex marriage, felt that it would not be stopped by Congress.

This is good news for freedom in this country. We are all Americans and should be treated as such regardless of our sexual orientation. Denying marriage rights to a subsection of the population is discrimination no matter how you cut it and no matter what your position is on the gay life style. Everyone should have the exact same rights regardless of religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, heritage, height, weight, eye color, etc. Just because you do not want to participate in a life choice should give no one the right to deny that choice to others (see the "George Orwell 's 1984" section on page xxiv in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" for a discussion on how the political class turns groups of Americans into competing "tribes" in order to deny freedom to Americans).

You would think that this is a victory for freedom and the political class finally got one right...until you read what one of the provisions is in the bill: according to the article the legislation "specifically says that religious leaders and institutions are not required to perform the marriages or rent their space for same sex ceremonies unless they let the public use or rent the space." As I read this, if a church whose religious tenets include being against homosexuality and they rent out their space to Boy Scouts or Girls Scouts organizations, rent out their space to gain some incremental revenue for their church, loan out their space to local charities or service organizations, etc., they would have to allow gay marriage ceremonies in their facilities. Thus, granting freedom to marry to one group of citizens would also restrict/impinge on the freedom of religion rights of other citizens. The only choice of these churches would be to cut off revenue streams and restrict the use of their facilities to worthy community groups or be forced to do something their religion prohibits.

Freedom gained, freedom lost in the same stroke. This is a very dangerous path to go down, starting the tear down of the separation of church and state with the state starting to dictate religious policy. Very, very dangerous. Thus, even when the political class does something good, they also foul it up in the same breath by doing something stupid, dangerous and downright repugnant from a freedom of religion perspective.