Religious freedom, like free speech, requires a delicate balancing act between the personal and public interest.
Legislators will host a public hearing Jan. 16 on a bill that would dangerously skew that balance: LD 1428. At first glance, the bill seems a reasonable statement about ensuring religious freedom by disallowing any state action that burdens the ability to freely exercise one’s religion. But we already have such protections, not only in the State of Maine but through the U.S. Constitution.
A closer read shows that this bill takes personal religious freedom much too far, by lowering the standard of what constitutes a “burden” on exercise of religious freedom. Instead of adhering to the current law, which requires equal treatment of all persons regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation and other identifying factors, this bill proposes to allow people to claim exemption from those laws.
If passed, this proposal would allow people to cite religion to avoid following the law: as a reason not to pay taxes for government activities they do not condone, or to ignore the law in their job, such as teachers who refuse to teach the approved curriculum of evolution, town clerks who refuse to issue gay marriage licenses, and pharmacists who refuse to dispense certain drugs, such as birth control.
Similar laws in 18 other states have already had terrible outcomes, and lawsuits are pending in these instances: a bus driver refusing to drive a woman to a Planned Parenthood in Texas; an unmarried Florida woman being fired from her job because she was pregnant; and a counseling student claiming the right to condemn patients for being gay, against professional standards.
There is no point in having laws if anyone can cite some sort of religious belief to circumvent them, and the government is not in the business of determining which beliefs are somehow more legitimate than others, so just about anything could be put forth.
This bill is an unveiled move toward theocracy in the United States and has clearly been proposed as part of a socially conservative movement across the United States that is seeking to combat the recent advances in civil rights, particularly for gays.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. David Burns, R-Whiting, says the bill is necessary in response to recent “attacks on religious liberties.” In an op-ed published this past November in the Bangor Daily News, he cites the following as being attacks: Demands that Christmas trees not be placed on public property and school plays make no reference to religion, an elementary school being was forced to drop the “blessing of the fleet” portion of its annual boat launching ceremony, and the removal of a World War II veterans memorial Christmas tree from a public park in Bar Harbor.
These are not attacks, however. They are well-founded efforts by law-abiding groups and individuals who are trying to uphold the separation of church and state ”“ a tenet that the founding fathers emphasized strongly as they formed this great nation. Provisions to keep religion out of the public square were made to protect the minorities, and it’s unfortunate that some of those in the religious majority (of Christianity) and others fail to understand that. Religious displays and ceremonies on public property or in public schools constitute a government endorsement of religion, which is illegal under the U.S. Constitution. It’s that simple. Government entities must respect the beliefs of all by endorsing the beliefs of none. And it’s worked fairly well for the past 200+ years.
Religion must always remain a personal matter and not one entangled with state law and public business. Whatever you believe personally, it does not give you a right to ignore state law and impose that belief on others. So long as the government is not forcing conservative Christian churches to conduct gay marriage ceremonies or their parishioners to take birth control against their will, freedom of religion has been maintained. Free exercise of one’s own religion does not mean requiring the rest of society to conform to it ”“ that’s a theocracy, when one’s religion becomes law, and it goes against everything the United States of America stands for.
Freedom of religion also implies freedom from religion, meaning that the religious beliefs of the majority must not be imposed on others. While we all value our individual rights, bills like this go so far as to overstep the system of governance upon which we have based our society, leading to a situation in which any law can be ignored simply by virtue of a personal claim.
It will not only be a huge step back for the civil rights laws we have already enacted, but will lead to costly legal battles for the state. We urge our legislators to respect the current laws and reject this proposal as they envision the civil rights violations that could ensue. We have made so much progress, let’s not allow a provision for people to single-handedly deny that to others.
Ӣ Ӣ Ӣ
Today’s editorial was written by Managing Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski on behalf of the Journal Tribune Editorial Board. Questions? Comments? Contact Kristen by calling 282-1535, ext. 322, or via email at kristenm@journaltribune.com.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
