When churches cross the line

There's been a lot of growing anger in California the last week at what is perceived at "religious interference" in the democratic process to ensure that Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage, passed as it did last week. Some have called for a tourism and trade boycott of Utah in retaliation.

Such animosity towards certain religious groups has long been a timed-honoured American tradition, however. Despite what some may believe, the separation between church and state has never been clear-cut. In the old days before the movie industry developed its film classification board, censorship boards existed and they were often overwhelmingly staffed by Roman Catholics who took their orders directly from a tiny cabal of Cardinals that met every so often and decided which movies were "morally objectionable." Little wonder why so many were suspicious of John F. Kennedy, and Al Smith before him.

Looking beyond the US and into other countries, we know we in Canada the historical strife between Protestants and Roman Catholics that only began to abate during the 1960s with two disconnected but concurrent events -- the Quiet Revolution and the Second Vatican Council. In the case of the former, it was a case of civil authority purging the church from government circles and creating a largely if not purely secular health and education system; in the case of the latter, a church attempting to adapt to the modern reality that its members did not live in hermetically sealed bubbles and mingled with people of other faiths out of practicality as well as necessity.

And it wasn't that long ago that restrictive covenants existed prohibiting Jews from buying homes in certain neighbourhoods and towns -- in fact many made a point of making such purchases so they didn't have to see who they perceived as their mortal enemy.

And we know about the religious wars in Europe, so let's not go there. Laws once existed which prohibited Protestants from marrying Catholics or vice versa or from either group married Jews.

Thank God, those laws have mostly bit the dust. Prejudice still exists in some quarters (some but not all evangelical televangelists have it as do those on-air personalities practising "British Israelism"), but the legal basis for it no longer does and that is a good thing.

In the California case, anger is directed at two groups in particular; namely the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (whose members are referred to as Mormons) and the Church of Scientology. It's hard to imagine two such completely different philosophies agreeing on anything but they somehow managed to find common ground on this issue.

In the case of the second, Scientology, it really isn't too surprising notwithstanding their long standing claim of supporting human rights. L. Ron Hubbard in his writings was pretty clear about what rights gays and lesbians should have. And it's not pretty.

It's the case of the former that's a bit more difficult to parse. Media reports indicate head office in Salt Lake City had urged its members to campaign for the measure. If individual members made contributions to the campaign that might be one story -- people may donate to any cause they wish without interference. If the Church made a specific policy directive with no further comment, that too is acceptable. If however the Church made such a contribution from its own church funds then that raises questions about breaching the church-state line and to a further extent whether its tax-exempt status should be revoked.

We're not talking about churches being forced to have gay marriages. The state would not be stupid enough to impose that kind of a requirement on them if for no other reason than after-school programs and other activities on behalf of the state are run by churches and they just don't want to lose that kind of expertise.

Rather it's the reverse; that is that a well-financed church backed lobby is attempting to impose its will on a state either willing to comply or not. It's hard to forget it wasn't that long ago that most churches were opposed to inter-racial marriage -- in fact, the now largest Protestant denomination in America, the Southern Baptist Convention, broke away from the main Baptist church in 1845 because of the latter's opposition to slavery and most whites in the South in those days, of course, believed slavery was ordained by God.

It's one thing for a civil official to express his or her moral objections to an action -- such as performing an abortion or euthanasia, or a clerk to performing a marriage between two people of the same sex. Usually, it's a matter of finding someone who will do so, and there almost always is someone.

It's another, however, for that official to be told they can't even if they want to. In this case, a public official is told he or she can't sign a marriage license because the two people who want to enter into a contract are not of the opposite sex. What is that clerk expected to do? Conscientious objectionism cuts both ways; and in this case signing off in defiance of the law would be considered by some at least to be an honourable act of civil disobedience.

To use one example to illustrate: Some countries subscribe to official pacifism, others to compulsory conscription. But those in the former category usually still have a militia or armed force to defend the homeland for those who want to serve; while those in the latter permit those who object to the military to engage in community service for an equal period of time. During times of war, militarized countries usually offer this option as well during the drafting process.

The other thing to remember is that it's just not the two churches in question. Many churches expressed objections (in various forms) to gay marriage. As well, while the Democratic Party was extremely successful in peeling off the "church vote" (which many once assumed was entirely Republican), they seemed to forget that those Democratic church goers tend to have the same views on moral stances as their Republican brethren. How did people expect the vote to go? People really shouldn't have been surprised that the Yes vote won not only in California but also in Arizona and Florida. This was an economic election, not a so-called "moral" one as 2004 was.

As I wrote last week, I believe the courts will have little choice to see this as an equality issue. They will have to go beyond their state constitutions and declare that a) the equal protection of the laws under Amendment XIV permit homosexual couples to marry; and b) that Article IV of the Constitution requires all states to recognize such unions no matter in which state they were contracted. This would make it a federal question with which the Supreme Court would have no choice but to make a definitive ruling; which I believe would affirm the above principles. In which case, the churches' opinion will amount to nothing; as it should when it comes to civilly contracted marriages or same sex-unions or whatever one wishes to call them.

As for financing the campaigns -- well as I said that's a different story. Church and state are separated for a specific reason. While one's faith may guide voting choices it should never be compelled by them and if they are then the church either needs to have a political arm separated from the church by a so-called "firewall" or else it should forgo its tax-exempt status all together.

For that matter, a constitution is no place to put such a broad statement of prohibition. Constitutions are supposed to stick to the basics and list some basic negative rights -- things government can't do. They're no place to put negative duties, things people are prevented from doing. That's a matter for the legislature to pass and for courts to interpret whether they've violated the negative rights in the first place.

UPDATE (5:11 pm EST, 2211 GMT): Slight punctuation edits.

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