02-12-2012, 08:37 PM
Individual freedom is the unrestricted ability to do whatever one has the mental and physical capacity to do. If there were no actions that a person could do that would infringe another person's individual freedom, we would not need compromises to individual freedoms as guidelines to have functional societies of individuals. But people wish to do actions all of the time that infringe on the individual freedoms of other people, so those compromises to individual freedom as guidelines are necessary. We hope to achieve compromises that fairly balance the clash of freedoms. The really hard part is figuring out what is fair, since it necessitates appeals to values and the values of individuals in large, diverse societies are very diverse as well.
One of the things that makes "religious freedom" tricky is that the term can be applied in conceptually unique ways to either established religious affiliations around a supernatural, or morality encompassing, world view with associated doctrines, or it can be applied to individual conscientious objection to particular legal guidelines - the conscientious objection based on a supernatural/moral world view. I'm sure there are other ways to take the term "religious freedom", but I want to focus on those two as a way to demonstrate a problem with trying to treat them the same way.
The Republicans in Congress today called for a law "that permits any employer to deny birth control coverage in their health insurance plans". (They are just making a show to keep the social conservatives on their side and riled up.) That implies that they want to establish this religious freedom based on individual conscientious objection as well as to established religious institutions. That sets off my slippery-slope meter. Keeping religious freedoms to within established religious doctrine means that there is much less diversity of values over which to make compromises. Opening it up to individual conscientious objection means that the amount of diversity of values over which to negotiate compromises is bound to be huge. That is the slippery slope.
If the kind of law the Republicans want to pass were to have been effect when I was 21 years old, I would have argued that I should have been able to have a conscientious objection to being drafted into the army to fight in Vietnam War. I definitely had an individual conscientious objection to the Vietnam War and I would have claimed that if someone can opt out of providing contraception coverage for their employees for reasons of individual conscientious objection - as a form of religious freedom, then I sure has hell should be able to claim religious freedom to not be drafted to fight in a war I have conscientious objection to. (A note: you have to have a conscientious objection to ALL wars, not just a particular war, to qualify for a conscientious objector status.)
Now you could say that the objection to contraception health insurance coverage by an employer is also a matter of doctrine, so that is different. Two things - one, there is plenty of Christian doctrine one could use to argue for an individual conscientious objection to the Vietnam War. Two, I doubt we want to get into the position of saying to one employer, "Well, you are Catholic and your church has a doctrine against contraception so you can opt out," but to another employer, "Sorry, you may have a religious conscientious objection to contraception, but it's not part of your church's doctrines so you are not exempted"? There's no way the Supreme Court would allow that. The exemption would not have to depend on being doctrine - opening it up to individual conscientious objection.
So, slippery-slope. If we get wider open to the notion of religious freedom as individual conscientious objection, then I think we are clearly playing on the edge of a very slippery-slope.
I suppose some people may think that this is an easy position for me to take - reasoning that religious freedom should be more constrained. But actually, arguing against considering individual conscientious objection as religious freedom diminishes a powerful mechanism I, as an atheist, could use to get much more freedom to exempt myself from government policies than I, as an atheist individual conscientious objector, would be able to do if religious freedoms were limited more closely to established church doctrines.
One of the things that makes "religious freedom" tricky is that the term can be applied in conceptually unique ways to either established religious affiliations around a supernatural, or morality encompassing, world view with associated doctrines, or it can be applied to individual conscientious objection to particular legal guidelines - the conscientious objection based on a supernatural/moral world view. I'm sure there are other ways to take the term "religious freedom", but I want to focus on those two as a way to demonstrate a problem with trying to treat them the same way.
The Republicans in Congress today called for a law "that permits any employer to deny birth control coverage in their health insurance plans". (They are just making a show to keep the social conservatives on their side and riled up.) That implies that they want to establish this religious freedom based on individual conscientious objection as well as to established religious institutions. That sets off my slippery-slope meter. Keeping religious freedoms to within established religious doctrine means that there is much less diversity of values over which to make compromises. Opening it up to individual conscientious objection means that the amount of diversity of values over which to negotiate compromises is bound to be huge. That is the slippery slope.
If the kind of law the Republicans want to pass were to have been effect when I was 21 years old, I would have argued that I should have been able to have a conscientious objection to being drafted into the army to fight in Vietnam War. I definitely had an individual conscientious objection to the Vietnam War and I would have claimed that if someone can opt out of providing contraception coverage for their employees for reasons of individual conscientious objection - as a form of religious freedom, then I sure has hell should be able to claim religious freedom to not be drafted to fight in a war I have conscientious objection to. (A note: you have to have a conscientious objection to ALL wars, not just a particular war, to qualify for a conscientious objector status.)
Now you could say that the objection to contraception health insurance coverage by an employer is also a matter of doctrine, so that is different. Two things - one, there is plenty of Christian doctrine one could use to argue for an individual conscientious objection to the Vietnam War. Two, I doubt we want to get into the position of saying to one employer, "Well, you are Catholic and your church has a doctrine against contraception so you can opt out," but to another employer, "Sorry, you may have a religious conscientious objection to contraception, but it's not part of your church's doctrines so you are not exempted"? There's no way the Supreme Court would allow that. The exemption would not have to depend on being doctrine - opening it up to individual conscientious objection.
So, slippery-slope. If we get wider open to the notion of religious freedom as individual conscientious objection, then I think we are clearly playing on the edge of a very slippery-slope.
I suppose some people may think that this is an easy position for me to take - reasoning that religious freedom should be more constrained. But actually, arguing against considering individual conscientious objection as religious freedom diminishes a powerful mechanism I, as an atheist, could use to get much more freedom to exempt myself from government policies than I, as an atheist individual conscientious objector, would be able to do if religious freedoms were limited more closely to established church doctrines.