Religious Freedom and Discrimination

Exercising religious freedom while not discriminating can be a challenging issue. Freedom of religious expression is essential and not endorsing bigotry or racism its vital.  It is important for each one of us to respect, to love and to honor all people while not compromising our conscience in matters of religious conviction.

The 1st Amendment of the U.S. supposedly guarantees that the Federal Government cannot establish a National religion AND that it cannot prohibit the people from the free exercise of their religion. The Constitution provides the framework for the freedom of religious expression unless the practice of that religion undermines the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

In 1990 the Supreme Court reduced the scope of religious freedom which is guaranteed under the Constitution of the U.S. (1st Amendment). In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed into law a return to religious liberty. This is a Federal Law. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Religious Freedom Law could not be apply to State law. If States wanted these religious protections from government coercion they would have to pass their own religious freedom laws.

As of today, there are around twenty States that have such laws and a number of other States that have some kind of protection in place. From what I gather the Federal law and the various State's laws are essentially the same. However, the initial Indiana law had two major differences from the 1993 Federal law. According to Garrett Epps, in the Atlantic, March 30, 2015, there’s “nothing significant” about this law that differs from the federal one, and other state ones—except that it has been carefully written to make clear that 1) businesses can use it against 2) civil-rights suits brought by individuals.“. This created an uproar and I understand.

Here is the purpose of RFRA: Author Amy Hall states, “The point of RFRA is not to discriminate against gay Americans. It is supposed to prevent the government from discriminating against religious Americans.” These laws are to prevent state and local governments from infringing upon someone's religious beliefs without a compelling interest.

This is where religious freedom and differing values can clash as witnessed recently in Indiana and other places. There is tension here. Can the government or an individual force me to go against my religious convictions or can I use my religious convictions as a means for racism and bigotry? NO!

The solution to this dilemma in honoring both religious conviction and a person's civil rights it to recognize there is a world of difference between serving an individual and supporting their event. 

We are to respect and serve all people but that does not mean I need to support an event that is contrary to my religious convictions. For example, I am a pastor. I am not against anyone but try to show love and the love of Christ to all. I hold to the traditional time tested view of marriage between a man and a woman as defined by God in Genesis 2 and affirmed by Jesus in Matthew 19.

I have friends who have a different sexual orientation than I do. Do I reject them, judge them or deny serving them? Of course not! I enjoy them, serve and love them. But if they asked me to marry them in a same-sex marriage. I could not and would not. I would hope that as I have respected them as individuals, they would respect my religious conviction of not participating in their ceremony. And I hope that we would be able to remain friends. Here I stand.