Annoying the right people

The leadership of my church recently re-iterated a call to balance social change with religious freedom. Not unexpectedly, they met with criticism. It’s pretty much a given that you’re going to tick off someone these days, no matter what you do or say. After all, a recent poll supposedly found that 82% of those surveyed would prefer a meteor hitting the stadium during the Super Bowl over either of the competing teams winning. (I could write an entire post about that, mind you.) We are in an era where the more gray things become the more some people try to deal in absolutes. The goal is increasingly becoming not to avoid offending anyone, but to offend only the right people.

As I said, the Church’s stance drew criticism–from both sides. A few of the Church’s apostles met with the media to further clarify and address the issue.

LDS leaders knew they wouldn’t satisfy everyone when they held a news conference Tuesday to call for fairness for both LGBT people and religious people.

So criticism from both ends of the spectrum didn’t surprise Elder Dallin H. Oaks and Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But people who prefer all-or-nothing solutions on either side are avoiding the hard work of balancing LGBT and religious rights, they said Thursday in a visit with the Deseret News.

Elder Oaks and Elder Christofferson said LDS Church leaders will be disappointed if their proposal for laws that protect LGBT people from discrimination while safeguarding religious rights doesn’t influence the national debate.

While they expressed gratitude for people on both sides who responded favorably, they said the criticism is a sign they got it right, and that their position is needed.

I especially agree with the third paragraph. Calls for all-or-nothing solutions are not only lazy, but intellectually weak. It demonstrates the lack of serious thought and a definite lack of imagination. If you cannot conceive of situations that would challenge any all-inclusive law, you’re not really trying. An example given in the article is in the realm of housing and discrimination. Certainly in most normal situations there’s no reason why a landlord would deny housing based on sexual preference. But consider the situation of a widow renting out rooms within her home. Should the same laws apply there, or should she have some say over what behaviors she will allow in her own house?

I see nothing wrong with calling for people in good faith to come together to see if we can’t work out a better way of living together. I hope that’s something we can do. Those who want to paint either side with a single brush are intellectually dishonest, and not the sort of prejudiced people we want directing the national debate. As Elder Christofferson said:

“In general, the idea of saying ‘this is just a license to discriminate’ or ‘you’re seeking a license to discriminate’ is a way of avoiding the hard work of finding a way to balance competing values that are both critically important. Frankly, what we’re saying is, we gotta do the hard work. We can’t just throw out a slogan and get away with that. It’s not good enough.”

And yes, that goes both ways. We also can’t sit back and claim that any gain by the LGBT community is just an effort to stamp out religious freedom. In response to criticisms by a columnist in the New York Times, claiming that the Church’s position is just an effort to gain legal permission to discriminate against gays, Elder Oaks had this to say:

“When I heard that I can tell you my reaction,” Elder Oaks said. “I thought, well that illustrates how much we need to have people educated about the principles we are teaching of fairness and balance, because that’s a very unbalanced statement.

“I would be ashamed to make a comparable statement saying that nondiscrimination is just trying to wipe out religious freedom,” he added. “That would be the equivalent. I’d be ashamed to make that kind of a statement, and I’m sorry that a responsible voice in the New York Times made it. I’m hopeful that he’ll see that’s not our motivation and that’s not the intended effect of what we’re doing.”

We don’t need more extremists on either side of the debate. What we need are people willing to come together and work out the details. There is nothing wrong with compromise. What far too few realize is that by allowing for compromise now you may very well be protecting your own future, too. The laws that give you what you want today may just as easily be subverted by someone else to take away from you tomorrow. I know it’s hard to see that, as we all love to think “Oh, that’ll never happen,” but as social taboos continue to fall, our society will continue to accept behaviors that they used to see as unacceptable. Surely there will be behaviors gaining acceptance in the future that homosexuals will see as offensive and something they wouldn’t want to have to allow in their home just because they’re renting out a room and are legally obligated not to discriminate. Set the laws too severely in one direction and you may later find yourself on the wrong side of that same law someday.

And this, too, goes both ways. Religious freedom should not trump all, either. The dangers of that should be quite apparent in the Muslim nations of the Middle East. Compared to the goals of the LGBT community here in America and the goals of the theocracies of the Muslim world, I and my Church stand far, far more closely aligned with the LGBT community than we do the Muslim theocracies. And, in many ways, we stand apart from many of the conservative and religious leaders here in liberal America:

Some conservatives and faith leaders worry the LDS Church proposal would open the door to anti-discrimination laws that could hurt religious believers.

“That’s very much like taking a position that religious freedom is an absolute and there are no exceptions,” Elder Oaks said, “and it should override in any and all circumstances the values of nondiscrimination. We don’t believe in that extreme, any more than we believe in the extreme voiced by the New York Times.”

The free exercise of religion is critical to Latter-day Saints, but they recognize exceptions for things like safety and public health, he said.

“There’s great danger in thinking religious freedom is abolute and overrides everything about nondiscrimination,” Elder Oaks said. “And there is great danger in thinking nondiscrimination in absolute and overrides religious freedom.”

One should also not equate the Church and its stand with the example set by some of its members who engage in politics. As a recent Utah transplant I find myself regularly alarmed by political positions espoused by some of the members of the church that exceed the Church’s own statements on the matter. As mentioned before, this was not the first time the Church has made statements in favor of non-discrimination in public interactions, and yet several bills to accomplish just that have encountered opposition in the political process. There are extremists in every group. I acknowledge that, and I’m embarrassed and alarmed by those who adhere to “my camp”. Whenever given the opportunity I vote against them.

Just this morning on the way to work I listened to a recent talk given by Elder Oaks in our recent General Conference. He emphasized that while we as members of our religion have an obligation to vote our consciences on political matters when given the opportunity, he very clearly stated that when the majority will goes against us we have a civic and moral duty to continue to be kind and patient with those who disagree with us. We are still expected to work with them on issues where we can agree. Some battles we will lose–and have lost–but that shouldn’t mean we refuse to work together in the future on issue of common interest and in smoothing relations between us and working out the rough spots where rights sometimes collide.

The extremists in both camps would have us believe that these issues are insurmountable, that either they win and we lose, or we win and they lose. That way lies madness, and lays the groundwork for forces that bear both sides ill will to divide and conquer. If you think that whether or not someone can refuse to bake a wedding cake is a critical issue, just imagine how difficult life would be if those who think gays should be publicly executed should gain control. And they are trying to.

When that day comes I would prefer to be able to fight shoulder to shoulder with my LGBT friends and allies in defending our right to quibble over who gets grandma’s spare room than fight alone against those who would execute us both for who we are. It would be absolutely foolish if we all lost everything we hold dear just because we were still fighting over relatively small things that could have been worked out.