It’s OK If They’re Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs Just NOT THOSE Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs!

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KEYWORDS: The Supreme Court, sincerely held religious beliefs, John Roberts, Prejudice Norm Theory, Rights, LGBTQ+, Protected Classes, Legitimate State Interest

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Now that the Roberts Court has stood in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shot our democracy dead, we now realize that it doesn’t matter if a lifetime appointee loses any supporters. By gutting a long list of settled law and precedence, they’ve turned jurisprudence inside out. When the highest court in the land doesn’t even try to follow the law or our legal norms and traditions and openly uses twisted legal logic that only a conspiracy theorist’s mother could love, then the rule of law is dead. We now live in the rule of doctrine, dogma, and disinformation. Without the rule of law, no democracy can exist. We are all just dead voters walking.

There are three things that will be considered in this post: (1) the general way we go about adjudicating conflicting rights and interests, (2) the implications that Prejudice Norm Theory has for this ruling, and (3) other applications of the ruling.

Legal Stuff

According the legal experts on all of the pontificating pundit shows and the #SistersInLaw podcast there are things that the courts consider when someone’s rights are in question. I’m no legal anything, I’m just reporting what I’ve heard lawyers on the Interwebs saying, so correct me in the comments.

Limiting Rights

Rights are not sacrosanct. I remember the sisters were emphatic about this one on one of their recent shows. They also described a judicial test for determining how to determine whether a right can be limited.

• LEGITIMATE STATE INTEREST: Your rights can be limited if the state can demonstrate having a legitimate interest in doing so. It’s why we have hate speech laws. It why we have laws governing protests. Exercising your rights can be limited if it can be demonstrated that there is a likelihood of causing irreparable harm.
• NARROW APPLICATION: The laws limiting a person’s rights have to have a specific and narrow application. It has to be tailored to that situation that the state has identified as being a legitimate interest, like inciting others to violence by using hate speech.
• PROTECTED CLASSES: The courts have determined that the state has a legitimate interest in protecting classes of citizens that have regularly been harmed because of their membership in that class. You know like voting laws that have been specifically designed to suppress the Black vote were illegal under the Voting Rights Act, but laws that gerrymandered districts to suppress an opposing political party’s vote weren’t because political party membership is not a protected class. Protected classes are generally have these characteristics:
  • Easily identified by something like skin color or religious paraphernalia
  • Either not changeable like race in spite of Michael Jackson’s efforts, not a choice of the person like sexual orientation , although conservatives are trying hard to argue that it is, or not reasonable to ask someone to change just to conform with a majority like religion. Notice that language does not fall into these categories, so some states have decided that to compel state institutions to supply government documents in widely spoken languages other than English like Spanish and Mandarin, but others have not.
  • Have a history of being discriminated against and harmed by the majority.

Rights in Conflict and the Public Sphere

As is readily apparent from the previous section, rights can come into conflict. What are the rights in conflict in this case?

On one side, conservatives are claiming that their god will condemn them to hell fire and damnation for all eternity if they so much as knowingly look at or acknowledge that gays and trans people even exist. How can the state compel them to condemn their soul to eternal damnation? How is that even fair?

On the other side is the notion that gay people have a right to exist and pursue life, liberty, and happiness just like everybody else, which just might could include getting married and having wedding cakes, photographs, and websites. They shouldn’t have to question whether or not they will be rejected because of who they are when they ask a business to provide the service they are in the business of providing or a government agency to provide a service, like issue a marriage license, that they exist to provide.

The courts have addressed these situations in the past. They have generally said that if you are offering services in the public sphere that is in the market place as a business, then you cannot systematically discriminate against a protected class of citizens by refusing to serve them. You can say no shirt, no shoes, no services, but you cannot say, no Blacks, no Hispanics, no dogs (although, you can actually say, just no dogs).

The solution the courts have generally supported is that if for some reason you do not want to sell your product or service to a protected class of person, then you shouldn’t be operating in the public sphere or the market place. You are either all in or you’re all out. It’s America, baby, we don’t discriminate.

The challenge here is my religion versus your class of person. The Roberts Court has elevated religion to denying fellow citizens the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Essentially, if your mere existence makes a person unhappy because of their sincerely held religious beliefs, then you don’t get life, liberty, or happiness. Too bad, too sad, hate to be you.

Prejudice Norm Theory and LGBTQ+ Rights

When a racist hears anything that they can remotely consider to be confirming of their racist beliefs, they are empowered to act on them, which they do at their next opportunity. Science fact. This tendency is known as Prejudice Norm Theory and is the reason we don’t tell racist, sexist, homophobic, and other disparagement-based jokes. We don’t want to play on negative stereotypes because “disparagement humor functions as a releaser of existing prejudice,“ in other words, we don’t want people acting out on them.

By ruling that the sInCeReLy HeLd BeLiEfS of the plaintiff precludes her from providing a specific service to a class of people, SCOTUS has declared open season on the LGBTQ+ community. The homophobes of the country now feel they have permission from the courts to openly discriminate. The Republican Party has already made trans people and drag queens their scapegoats, but the SUPREME FUCKING COURT now says it’s okay.

Most people will learn of and about this decision through news reports and social media. They’ll see a short minute-long broadcast or read a headline or see it on Tik-Tok or whatever. They won’t get any more than a sincerely held hatred of homosexuality is grounds for prejudicial behavior out of it. They will feel understood and supported in their homophobia.

As a result we’re going to see these things in short order:

• “NO LGBTQ+ ALLOWED” signs will begin to appear in store windows just as sure as mold won’t grow on McDonald’s french fries.
• STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS will be used to justify the murder of LGBTQ+ folks.
• DISCLOSURE OF SEXUAL ORIENTATION before sales of items or employment will be asked for.
• CONVERSION THERAPY will be forced upon people.
• ANTI-LGBTQ+ VIOLENCE will increase even more than it already has.

That’s the first problem with the ruling. It will embolden people to act on their prejudice and seek legal ways to justify discrimination. The other problem is the application of sincerely held religious beliefs.

Prejudicial Application of Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs

There have been several well-known court cases that have been decided against the sincerely held religious beliefs of their participants that might have to be reconsidered. Here are a few that I remember and can imagine. Add yours in the comments.

• Marrying children as young as ten years old. It seems to me that there was a case in the ’90’s or so where a Muslim Somali refugee was brought up on charges or at least discussed for them for attempting to marry or claiming to have married a ten year old girl with her parents permission. Would SCOTUS rule in this person’s favor today? Not only did this man have ample evidence of his personal sincerely held religious belief but he has centuries of explicit evidence for his religion holding that belief.
• Having multiple wives a la the Church of Latter Day Saints. Didn’t we prosecute the leader of a renegade sect for trying to secretly have multiple wives. Again, not only do these folks have ample evidence of their own steadfast belief in this practice, but generations if not centuries of evidence for their religion. Is SCOTUS now going to allow those of us with religions that allow multiple spouses to now have them? Are we going to issue an official apology to the Church of Latter Day Saints?
• The Mark of Cain is a term that I’ve heard members of the Pentecostal Church describe Blacks with. It is their sincerely held religious belief that they use to justify their racism. Do Pentecostals now get dispensation for discriminating against Blacks in all of their jobs and public appearances because of this sincerely held religious belief?
• Santeria and other voodoo style religions believe in the blood sacrifice of animals, which is generally outlawed, but since it is a sincerely held religious belief, would SCOTUS rule in their favor if a case were brought?
• Exorcisms that result in death occur every so often, so can the Catholic priests and other practitioners who participated and were charged in causing the deaths now be freed? Are we now going to excuse any future deaths that occur during an exorcism because it happened while pursuing sincerely held religious beliefs?

Somehow, I think we all know the answer to these questions is no. You are not excused from the consequences of these sincerely held religious beliefs because you don’t love Jesus right is the answer. Only those who love Jesus the way the Supremes say you should get to do as they please because of their beliefs.

A Religious Solution to a Religious Problem

In the past when religion has presented a problem, it has been up to the religion to provide a solution to the problem. So, what could the religious solution to the problem some “Christians” have in providing services to the LGBTQ+ community?

I don’t know, but do you remember that time when some cynical Jews wanted Jesus to say they should not pay taxes to Caesar because sincerely held religious beliefs and Jesus said, Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and render unto God that which is God’s?

Do you remember that? Isn’t that passage widely considered to be explaining the relationaship between government, society, and sincerely held religious beliefs? Doesn’t that mean that god understands that the mean secular government is going to force you on occasion to do things that are against the teachings of the Bible and that you should just go ahead and do them?

Do you remember that time when Jesus said that god would forgive all of your sins and that none of us are perfect?

Ain’t that the Christian solution to this problem?

Image Attribution

“Close up eye red – Jesus – Cross” by Gerardofegan is licensed under CC BY 2.0.