Reference no: EM133809288

Question

Religious Freedom Laws

Since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, legal same-sex marriage is the law of the land. Many people are still unhappy about the decision. Some fear that recognizing same-sex marriage will violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.

You likely heard that the Supreme Court, in a case called 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (2023), held that Lorie Smith could cite her religious beliefs as a justification to decline to serve LGBTQ+ customers. Perhaps oversimplifying, it may be fair to say that "conservatives" approved of the 303 Creative decision and "liberals" disapproved.

The legal case comes down to a couple of questions:

Whose rights prevail? The right of people to exercise their religious beliefs, or the right of people not to be discriminated against in the community?

Do Public Accommodations principles established in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 apply to this case?
The basic anti-discrimination principle in the Civil Rights Act is that "public accommodations" (essentially any business open to serve whoever walks in the door, such as restaurants, theaters, hotels, etc.) cannot discriminate against members of protected classes of people. A restaurant, for example, cannot refuse to serve African-Americans or Muslims or women, even if their sincerely held religious beliefs require them, as they see it, not to serve African-Americans or Muslims or women.

Some people's sincerely held religious beliefs have long included the belief that African Americans were cursed by God (the biblical "mark of Cain" or, alternatively, the "curse of Ham") and thus discrimination against them is ordained, or at least approved of, by God. In fact, that was what I was taught in church growing up. That belief was an important element of the supreme court case Newman v. Piggie Park (1968), in which the owner of a barbecue restaurant cited his religious beliefs as the reason he should not be forced to serve African Americans in his restaurants.

Similar beliefs are still around today. Just one example: "I'm a Christian and my Christian beliefs are you don't do interracial marriage. That's the way I was brought up and that's the way I believe." (quoted in a story about a Georgia town refusing to hire a town manager because he was Black)

If someone's sincere religious belief mandates that they discriminate against African Americans and courts have said that's not OK, should sincere religious beliefs be the basis for discrimination against other groups of people, like, as in 303 Creative, homosexuals?

From the Piggie Park decision (from the district court opinion upheld by the Supreme Court):

"The free exercise of one's beliefs, as distinguished from the absolute right to a belief, is subject to regulation when religious acts require accommodation to a society. Undoubtedly, [the restaurant owner] has a constitutional right to espouse the religious beliefs of his own choosing; however, he does not have the absolute right to exercise and practice such beliefs in utter disregard of the clear constitutional rights of other citizens."

Remember, we're talking about laws that have to apply to everyone. No particular set of religious beliefs can bind everyone else, as we separate church and state in America.

Anti-discrimination laws generally have exemptions for religious institutions. Churches may therefore, within the law, refuse to host gay weddings if they choose.

Some have asserted that the logic of forcing a baker who objects on religious grounds to baking a wedding cake for a gay marriage is the same as forcing an African American baker to bake a cake for a KKK wedding or a Jew to bake a cake for a Nazi wedding. That's not actually an accurate analogy. Neither the KKK nor the Nazi Party is a protected class, because adhering to a political philosophy is not an immutable characteristic of a person. Any baker, black or white, can therefore refuse to bake a cake for a KKK wedding, or any Jew for a Nazi wedding, without being accused of legal discrimination.

So, what do you think? Should any business owner, or even any government official, be empowered to deny service to same-sex couples on the basis of their sincerely held religious beliefs?