The Cathoholic

Brown Victory Cheers Catholic Pro-lifers

Last night's  Republican victory in Massachusetts' special election has thrilled pro-lifers worried about the effort to mandate federal funding of abortion through the passage of Obamacare. Here's my exclusive for the National Catholic Register that offers the Catholic, pro-life angle on Brown's sudden surge of support.

Update: Here's Phil Lawler's excellent analysis of the Scott Brown victory and what it means for the future of Democratic politics in the Bay State.d

D.C. Same-Sex Marriage Vote & Religious Freedom

In the wake of the D.C. City Council vote approving legal same-sex marriage, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. is poised to make a drastic retreat from its work with the needy. Why? Because the proposed law, which must still be approved by Congress, provides a narrow exemption for church-run social agencies. Archbishop Wuerl has refused to provide benefits to spouses in same-sex unions and he will not approve the placement of children with same-sex couples.

The archbishop has been criticized by gay rights activists, but also by some local Catholics who argue that he should adopt the "San Francisco option," and simply provide benefits to some other individual residing in an employee's household. Wuerl, however, does not believe this is an acceptable solution. Check out my article on this breaking news in the National Catholic Register.

Same-Sex Marriage Bill & Religious Freedom

Vermont is not the first state to legalize same-sex marriage, but writing in National Review Online, marriage expert, Maggie Gallagher notes a key difference in this piece of legislation -- it acknowledges the threat such bills pose to religious freedom.

Gallagher writes that "the Vermont same-sex marriage bill was a breakthrough in another way that has received zero attention in the press: For the very first time, a legislature has formally acknowledged that gay marriage poses a serious threat to the religious liberties of Vermonters who disagree with the government’s new definition of marriage; and the gay marriage movement has permitted — if not exactly trumpeted — that legislature’s enactment of some imperfect, yet substantive, religious-liberty protections, rather than the “fake religious liberty protections” generally offered to deflect voters’ attention from the real issues at stake.



"Same-sex marriage is quite different from bans on interracial marriage in one powerful respect: It asks religious Americans to surrender a core belief — not only Leviticus (disapproval of gay sexual acts), but Genesis (the idea that God himself made man as male and female and commanded men and women to come together in a special way to image the fruitfulness of God). "

Gallagher confirms that Christian leaders are under increasing pressure to recant or suppress their faith and/or moral values-based opposition to same-sex marriage.

"Witness Rev. Rick Warren, who on Larry King Live this week came very close to recanting his opposition to Prop 8. What he did is what many good people will do in the face of the massive campaign of intimidation and harassment designed to silence Christians and others of goodwill who support marriage: He dodged. Rick said, more or less: I am not now and never have been an anti-gay-marriage “activist.” 

Gallagher respects Rick Warren, "who did nothing more than speak from his pulpit to the members of his own church on Prop 8, is what lies in store for many good men and women. The deal they will be offered by the government and the culture dominated by same-sex marriage is: Mute your views on marriage so you may continue your other good works. Many good and brave people, to preserve their ability to save lives in Africa or protect the poor in this country, will take that deal."

Some religious groups and individuals may choose to place other moral or social justice priorities above a defense of traditional marriage, but it will be difficult to avoid the coming collision between gay rights and religious freedom. Gallagher points to this statement by the influential UCLA law professor,  Eugene Volokh: 

“It seems to me plausible that judicial decisions banning opposite-sex-only marriage rules would likewise come to be extended — by legislatures or by courts — to go beyond their literal boundaries (a decision about government discrimination) and instead to justify bans on private discrimination,” Volokh wrote. “It seems quite likely that they will spill over into diminishing any constitutional (or RFRA-statutory) claims to engage in such discrimination by private entities, including Boy-Scout-like organizations, churches, religious universities, and other institutions.”

On Good Friday, the Washington Post reported on the increasing anxiety of church groups that foresee mounting pressure on their freedom to preach traditional Christian teaching on marriage.  

The impact of legalized same-sex marriage on religious freedom has been a critical issue for the Becket Fund, a non-profit legal research group that looks at religious freedom issues around the world. Last year, the Becket Fund published an important study on this subject that made the follow points:

"The study found that all 50 states prohibit gender discrimination in some way, and only 37 states have explicit religious exemptions to these provisions, many of them quite narrow. This lack of robust exemptions could become a problem if (as has happened in some instances) religious objections to same-sex marriage are treated as a kind of gender discrimination. In addition, 33 states prohibit at least some discrimination based on marital status, and only 13 of these states provide religious exemptions, some with a wide latitude of exemption, others with only narrow exemptions. Of the 20 states that prohibit sexual orientation-based discrimination, 18 provide exemptions for religious objection.

"Based on the data, The Becket Fund concludes that if same-sex marriage is recognized by courts or legislatures, people and institutions that have conscientious objections to facilitating same-sex marriage will likely be sued under existing anti-discrimination laws—laws never intended for that purpose."

Religious Freedom & Islam

Here's an interesting interactive map produced by Newsweek based on data collected by researchers at the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom. The map correlates the status of religious freedom--and other civil liberties -- with the faiths traditionally practiced in those countries and regions. A while back, I summarized the Hudson Institute's fascinating report on religious freedom in Touchstone Magazine.   While Hudson senior fellow Paul Marshall and his colleagues argued in the report that Christian countries had the best record of securing religious freedom, and that religiously free countries also tended to secure a spectrum of civil liberties, the Newsweek artcle, "Radical Islam" by Fareed Zakaria, arrives at a somewhat different conclusion. 

Indian Christians under siege

Last week, the impressively tough Indian Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Cuttack - Bhubaneswar came to Washington, D.C. to speak out about on-going violence   against Christians in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, where forty Christians have been killed since August, according to the Indian Bishops Conference.

Christians in Cheenath's archdiocese have been under pressure from Hindu fundamentalists and state "anti-conversion" laws  for years, the archbishop told an audience of journalists and religious freedom  scholars and activists.  But the recent violence was provoked by the August killing of a local swami, a Hindu leader. Though news reports pointed to Maoist rebels as the likely perpetrators, Hindu mobs blamed Christians, and attacked their villages and churches.

The primary victims of the recent violence are typical Christians in this isolated region:  poor tribals and Harajans -- once called "out castes." According to the archbishop, the low social and economic status of local Christians has complicated his efforts to gain political traction on two key goals:  the criminal prosecution of individuals responsible for the anti-Christian violence, and government compensation for the destruction of Christian homes and churches.

By all accounts, the archbishop faces an uphill battle,  but the day after his press conference, he received some good news:   the Associated Press reported that  criminal charges
had been filed against ten men for the rape of a nun, an assault that took place last August.

The excellent Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom  and The Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Program to Protect America’s Freedom  co-hosted the archbishop's presentation. A while back, I wrote an article for Touchstone magazine summarizing Hudson's important and fascinating survey: "Religious Freedom in the World 2007."

The Hudson survey raised a number of issues of special relevance to the on-going problem of religious freedom in India, one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. For example, the West's experience with religious and economic freedom can help Indian leaders understand the practical utility of defending civil liberties for religious minorities: "Free markets and economic prosperity are correlated with religious tolerance because free societies permit the seamless integration of “personal commitment, belief, and action.”

The survey's authors urged "governments, global financial institutions, and corporations to press for improved human rights in countries seeking foreign aid and investment." The most immediate goal,then, would be to increase pressure on the Indian government and the Orissa state authorities to complete the criminal prosecution of individuals responsible for the ant-Christian attacks and to provide financial aid for the rebuilding of Christian homes and institutions. A long term goal sought by human rights activists is a reappraisal of India's state anti-conversion laws that have been used as a shield for attacks against Christians.

Archbishop Cheenath's compelling presentation also brought to mind a long-ago visit I made to Bihar,  another isolated Indian tribal state facing similar problems.  I wrote about that visit and the transformative impact of Christian missionary work in Bihar for First Things.  But I couldn't "name names": Christian missionaries there feared provoking Hindu  violence.

As I wrote in First Things, Christian conversions in Bihar had undermined the power of Hindu landlords: on-going Hindu-Christian conflicts were partly due to the increased economic independence of new  Christian communities. The key was Christian baptism, one ancient Belgium missionary told me. Baptism banished the paralyzing fear and superstitious practices that discouraged the search for real solutions to the tribals' predicament. The Hudson Institute report noted the complex intersection of religious, social and economic rights, and my experience in Bihar confirms that insight.   My daughter, Justine and I are writing a column on religious freedom in India for the National Catholic Register that should be published within the month.