Gay Marriage
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If you manage a large hotel, you can't refuse to rent rooms to a gay couple and you can't refuse equal access to your facilities to gay couples, like if they want to host a reception for a marriage or civil union. Shouldn't the same legal standards apply to smaller operations, like a bed & breakfast? Well, some Christians don't think so and now a couple of bed & breakfasts are being sued in Illinois.
The Beall Mansion in Alton told the Wathens via email that it "will just be doing traditional weddings." The owner of the Timber Creek Bed and Breakfast in Paxton wrote in an email to the couple: "We will never host same-sex civil unions. We will never host same-sex weddings even if they become legal in Illinois. We believe homosexuality is wrong and unnatural based on what the Bible says about it. If that is discrimination, I guess we unfortunately discriminate." ...
The couple filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights, which investigated and found "substantial evidence" that a civil rights violation had been committed.
The August finding allows the Wathens 90 days to file a complaint with the state Human Rights Commission or take civil action in Circuit Court. The Wathens' attorney, Betty Tsamis of Chicago, told the Tribune that her clients have chosen the latter path and will file lawsuits against both businesses as early as next week.
Source: Chicago Tribune
I doubt it took very long for the Illinois Department of Human Rights to reach their conclusions. I will admit that the case involving the Beall Mansion is a bit less clear-cut -- especially since they have since evaluated the legal situation and decided against hosting civil unions generally. In principle that applies to heterosexual civil unions as well, though in practice it will only end up applying to gay couples. Adopting a policy that is superficially fair but which everyone knows will have a discriminatory effect isn't legitimate, though.
But at least the owners of the Beall Mansion had the sense to frame their position in a neutral manner, even at the start. The owner of the Timber Creek Bed and Breakfast responded with an egregiously self-incriminating statement. Imagine if the same response had been written about interracial unions or interfaith unions -- does anyone doubt that they'd be guilty of violating the law?
But some Christians just don't care -- they are convinced hat no matter what the law might require, if they have a religious objection to treating certain people like fully equal citizens then they should be allowed to discriminate.
Steven Amjad, an attorney representing Timber Creek, said the state constitution guarantees religious freedoms. "These are business owners that have strong religious convictions. The Legislature has created this (conflict), and the courts will have to sort this out," he said. ...
Illinois attorney Jason Craddock, a member of the Alliance Defense Fund, a national Christian legal organization that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, also is representing Timber Creek. Craddock said cases such as this one involving the Wathens are critical for people of faith who believe their First Amendment freedom of religion is inviolable.
"I believe strongly that liberty of conscience, particularly religious liberty of conscience, is what our nation was built on and is something that goes deep to our souls," Craddock said. "Increasingly it's being pitted against the asserted rights of homosexuals. Now it's going beyond just asking for tolerance. Now we're getting into a situation where government is telling people of faith, 'You can't live out your faith if it happens to disagree with this particular group.'"
Jason Craddock isn't being entirely honest here -- but he's a lawyer and his livelihood depends upon misleading others, doesn't it? Key to all this is the manner in which Christian lawyers are trying to frame this as if it were a new development. The fact that it's not, that it's old standards and regulations being applied to new situations, is what these lawyers would rather use ignore or forget.
Do you think Jason Craddock would defend a Christian who wanted to discriminate against an interracial couple for religious reasons? Do you think he'd defend a Christian who wanted to discriminate against an interfaith couple for religious reasons? He should if he really believed his own rhetoric because those cases wouldn't be different in terms of basic legal principles. Of course, the courts would never allow it -- just as they shouldn't allow discrimination in this case, either.
But I'm sure that Jason Craddock and the Timber Creek Bed and Breakfast would prefer that the public not think about these obvious parallels. It makes them look bad by reminding people that homophobic bigots aren't really any different from racist bigots or religious bigots. They don't want the public to realize that putting a religious gloss on your bigotry doesn't sanctify either the bigotry or your discrimination. So long as the debate around faith-based discrimination is limited gays, it will appear "reasonable." As soon as it's applied to something like race, though, the injustice and immorality of it becomes unavoidable.
Be sure to watch how lawyers like Jason Craddock and other apologists for faith-based discrimination will emphasize the language of "belief" and "conscience" without ever mentioning action and behavior. This is because there is a strong tradition of protecting religious beliefs, but Craddock and others are trying to argue for a freedom of action which is quite different and which has never received the same level of protection.
Your right to believe anything might be inviolable, but your right to act on all your beliefs is not. It never has been, and never will be. Acting like freedom of belief and freedom of action are equivalent is dishonest -- and deliberately so. Acting like the first requires the second is also dishonest -- and, again, also deliberately so. That, however, is the sum total of arguments offered by people like Jason Craddock. It's all they have so they play it for all it's worth, which isn't much unless the audience isn't paying close attention.
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