Where's the wall?

[pat]

What would you think if a private religious event came to your city, and your city council passed a resolution commending the organizers for bringing the event to town? And applauding what they stood for?

I don't know about you, but I would be appalled. A local government body has no business taking positions on matters of religion.

Do you agree?

Then you should be equally appalled at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Last week, they passed a resolution condemning as an "act of provocation" Battle Cry for a Generation, an evangelical youth event held in ATT Park last weekend.

Yes, it was anti-choice.

Yes, it opposes same-sex marriage.

It doesn't matter. This was a private religious event. Those are religious positions. The Board of Supervisors has no more business condemning the evangelicals than the city council of Houston would have condemning a national meeting of Dignity.

If we progressives believe in the wall that separates church and state, then we damn well better act like it. Tom Ammiano is free to protest all he likes on his own recognizance, but when he speaks in his public capacity as an elected official to condemn people's religious beliefs he crosses a very dangerous line.

Comments

[ame-chan.livejournal.com]

I would tend to agree with that. It is a line that should be held on both sides.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure...

If there was a religious cult that promoted racism, sexism, slavery, rape and murder at a private religious event, would it be nobody's business to condemn them? If the Nazi party re-defined itselof as a religion worshiping the divine fuhrer would their views on jews expressed at private religious events be protected from criticism?

I'm painting extreme possibilities here, but I do not think that private religious views, when abhorant, are immune from criticism by public bodies. Whether this applies in your case, whether anti-choice and anti-smae-sex-marriage views are in the same class as the possibilities Iisted above, isn't clear to me. I guess your mileage varies...

[ame-chan.livejournal.com]

I think it would be perfectly reasonable to condemn racism, sexism, slavery and murder and one could do that without dragging G-d into it. It's one thing for an official to say "I deplore X, Y and Z actions because they are harmful." and another entirely to say, "I deplore X religion." Elected officials talk about the former all the time and that's fine, the line for me is when they draw G-d into the discussion.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I don't know the context in which the SF BoS condemned this group. I'd be inclined to agree with you if they said they deplored x religion, in its entirety, but if instead they deplored sexist and homophobic attitudes expressed by this group, then that would be fine by me.

Mind you, I think its possible that there are some religions that are deplorable in their entirety - my hypothetical nazi religion being one of them, but then that is a straw man...

[dangerpudding.livejournal.com]

If there was a religious cult that promoted racism, sexism, slavery, rape and murder at a private religious event, would it be nobody's business to condemn them?

Those things are all illegal, private property or no. So, it would be someone's business to stop them.

If the Nazi party re-defined itselof as a religion worshiping the divine fuhrer would their views on jews expressed at private religious events be protected from criticism?

If all they're doing is expressing it at private religious events? They aren't protected from criticism by private citizens, but free speech means that the government has no right to say anything.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I don't live in the US, so am not sure how laws on incitement work, but in the UK we do have laws against 'incitement to racial hatred' which the hypothetical nazi religion would be guilty of here.

Surely its not right for someone to say 'all xs are evil, they deserve to die, should be rounded up and shot or expelled', where x is a hated racial group? This kind of speech threatens society at a deep level, and even more so if its done in the name of a religion.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Nazis can -- and have -- engaged in exactly the sort of speech you're talking about. It is protected by the First Amendment. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on how you view the world, I guess. Restrictions on incitement are restricted to where the speech creates "a clear and present danger," which general statement such as "all xs should be rounded up and shot or expelled" would not create. (Actually, speech of the "All xs...." type is not uncommon in America today, in conservative talk radio circles: just replace "x" with either "Democrat" or "liberal.")

Nazis march... other people counterprotest. The only role that the government -- i.e., the police -- play is to prevent violence from breaking out.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I'd say that people who are inciting violence - kill all liberals, kill all democrats, kill all moslems, kill all gays, that kind of thing - are inciting violence no matter whether they are sitting behind the shield of religion. I'd be surprised if there are no 'incitement' crimes in the US that cover this, but I guess its possible. Calls for expulsion, re-education, imprisonment etc. for those same hated groups are a tougher call. I draw my own line at calls for violence, but others may, and do, differ.

Its worth noting two recent cases here in the UK... Several individuals waving placards calling for bombings and killings during a demonstration against the cartoons of Mohammed were later arrested for incitement to violence, and Abu Hamza, a notorious extremist cleric, was tried and found guilty for, among other things, incitement to violence based on the content of several speeches given in mosques and on written and video material he was distributing. A similar prosecution of racist members of the British National Party, for incitement to racial hatred, was not successful.

I think the history of Europe, where racial and religious hatreds have killed millions over centuries, means we take this kind of thing somewhat more seriously than the US, but the US is not immune from this kind of problem as I think we're beginning to see.

[dangerpudding.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's right for that to be said about any group (or person, actually), but the issue at hand is what role the government can and should play in that. I may be a bit extreme, but I don't think that they should have one until specific or actual violence is threatened. If this hypothetical nazi religion starts hoarding ammo and explosives, or planning hostilities, official actions can be taken.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

The problem is that incitement to hatred along these lines gives a license to individual loons to take violent action themselves. You don't need to be organising things centrally to have an effect.

A good example of this is the individual who mounted a (thankfully brief!) bombing campaign against gay bars in London some years ago.

Incitement to hatred does have an effect, even if you can't draw a chain of command from one person's speech to another's violence.

If someone who goes to an anti-gay religious meeting a week later beats up a gay couple, how responsible is the speaker at the meeting?

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

I don't think anti-choice and anti-same-sex-marriage positions are on par with slavery, rape, torture or murder. Nowhere near. I don't even think your Nazi example holds.

In the fighting over abortion and gay rights, we have placed a lot of emphasis on the idea that people's views against abortion or same-sex marriage are religious views, and therefore people should have no right to use the government to impose those views on others. That knife cuts both ways.

As to whether there would be a case in which it would be appropriate to have a government body condemn a religious organization, it would have to be a pretty extremem case.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I'm not from your parts, as you know, but I think it would be just as fair to categorize some anti-abortion and anti-gay-marriage views as sexist and homophobic. That they may be inspired by religious positions is accepted, but the views themselves are inherently discriminatory and so come under the sexist/homophobic categorization.

Would you, for example, describe the taliban view on not educating women as religious or sexist? It is in fact both, and one should not pardon the sexism on the basis of religion.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

It is both, and is irrelevant to the point I was making. Catholicism has sexist elements, as well. People are certainly free to criticize religious organizations for their failings. I never said otherwise.

This post was about *government* intrusion into matters of religion, which in America is prohibited by the First Amendment. It is, rightfully, a big source of anger for progressives the way fundamentalists strive to mix religion and government. I was pointing out that what was sauce for the goos was sauce for the gander.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

As I've said above, I agree that government should not intrude in matters of religion. BUT where religions make statements that amount to illegal incitement, or to promoting practices contrary to agreed government policy, then it is right to point this out.

After all there are clauses in both the new testament and the koran which amount to respecting the law of the land, and that's all that this is asking.

Its fair for government to avoid intruding into matters of religion, but when religion intrudes into matters of government, that perforce is the government's business and it needs to comment.

[ame-chan.livejournal.com]

There are two very large contingents in the US. One is trying to get G-d into government in every way, and their beliefs are encroaching into law and government all over the place. The separation is becoming thinner and thinner and nigh unto nonexistent in places and that scares those of us who make up the other contingent. The one fighting like hell to keep G-d out of the courts, law, the government, the one trying to maintain a clear separation because that is what the law of the land specifies. The minute we (the latter group of people) bring G-d into it, then we're screwed because we just crossed our own line. We can't have it both ways.

I think, in a nutshell, that's at least one small part of what the original poster was trying to say.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

There is a fine line, I'll agree, but when religion is being used to justify abhorant views, then those views need to be challenged. Its fine to challenge those views as views and not as part of a religion, but people should not get a 'get out of jail free' card just because they think their views are backed up by god.

I don't know how much of this is relevant to the original post now, though.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's what I was trying to say.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's how I see it. We really do need to separate them or let them be flung together. (That's a way in which we're quite different from Canada. They don't work hard to separate them, there, but folks also aren't trying very hard to fling them together.)

That evangelical group hired a private place to have a private function. Whether or not they're jerks, it's not Tom's place to spout off about them. It's not a city-sponsored function. And that's my opinion as a knee-jerk liberal.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

There is a long, long way from sexism to advocating violence. Only the most rabid anti-choice extremists advocate violence against abortion providers; with the exception of Fred Phelps and his nutjobs, who I don't classify as Christian, I know of no Christian group that opposes same-sex marriage that argues for violence against gays. (The conversion movement is another matter, but even there, that is seen as an entirely voluntary activity, not anything to be forced upon outsiders.)

There are rabid environmentalists who advocate and engage in violence -- should they be silenced as well?

[dangerpudding.livejournal.com]

Ugh. If and when that group is lead into the city streets to cause actual trouble, it might be reasonable to do something like that. Until then.. I've been to one of these sorts of events (different group, same idea, long story) and it was pretty darn calm. Lots of teenagers having experiences with group psychology :).

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Consistency is important *and* ethical, here.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

A while back they had some Christian youth event in Toronto. The attendance was enormous and the city actually pushed a bunch of money into it, so it wasn't even something as simple as a commendation. I was angry. A lot of people here were angry. Actually, most people I knew were angry. And then when the event actually came, streets were closed off, transit was all whacked out, all kinds of mayhem. In the end, the city had justified it by the amount of business it would bring to Toronto, but actually about half as many youth showed up as they'd promised, most of the things planned that streets were being closed for and so on were almost empty, the vast majority of businesses involved, especially those located in areas affected by the re-routing and so on, lost heaping loads of money, the city never made any kind of profit from it whatsoever. The major impact was just that for a week we all had to endure children singing Christian songs on the subway cars.

I was very, very, very unimpressed.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

I'd be angry, too. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing a city should provide is possibly police for crowd control if it will take place in a large out door venue -- and then they should charge the organizers. An example would be if the pope visited: you will need cops to handle the crowds at the event.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Yes, that makes sense. Of course, I think that they should have to for any planned event which required such services. I seem to recall a case a few years back where the police in a small U.S. town were going to refuse to provide escorts for a parade because it included a literacy float from a library that was reading Harry Potter during its children's hour; a book the police deemed unChristian. (My google-fu is failing me on linkage, unfortunately.)

[dangerpudding.livejournal.com]

*grin* I could see an argument that the Pope is the leader of an actual country, and thus gets treated as a diplomat (or foreign leader) rather then as a religious figure. But, y'know, that's really just *argument*.

[si-anenome.livejournal.com]

Good point.

As long as they are private events that do not impact the community in a negative manner.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree with you, Pat.

[princeofwands.livejournal.com]

The muddiest issue I see with this specific example is that much like the Boy Scouts of America, Battle Cry is NOT a religious organization, they are a social/corporate organization with a religious affiliation as one of their core target demographic criteria.

Without actually bothering to read the official condemnation (I did read this much from sfgate though (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/25/MNG6OHU6RR1.DTL)), I feel that this isn't as cut & dried a case of government interference with religion as you describe it to be.

Further, even if they *were* a religious organization, I think it reasonable for a government body to make a proclamation/condemnation about public practices and even tie them to an organization without being a condemnation of the organization as a whole. Kinda headed toward something like "While we respect their right to assemble and speak, their welcome in our city is neither an embrace nor endorsement of the organization or its members."

I do recognize that this belief puts me on a slippery slope teetering toward very hard to rationalize positions, but I don't believe that my unwillingness or inability to call out that line discredits my belief that this case is on one side or another of it.