By Derek Monson
Supporters of a “no compromise” approach to LGBT nondiscrimination argue that we already have sufficient protections for religious liberty. They cite the First Amendment and Utah’s majority-Mormon population to bolster their case. Unfortunately, their argument is undermined by the realities of “no compromise” approaches to nondiscrimination law.
The facts and details of the experience of a Salt Lake City police officer and his role at the Salt Lake pride parade in 2014 are a case in point. This officer arranged, as is common police practice, a swap of duties with another officer working the parade. In the officer’s view, his original entertainment/celebratory role of doing motorcycle maneuvers at the head of the pride parade amounted to endorsing values that his conscience and faith disagreed with. Instead, the officer sought to perform a public safety role, such as protecting parade watchers from traffic. The officer had fulfilled similar public safety duties on other occasions for Salt Lake LGBT rallies.
Because the officer had the temerity to ask that his religious views and values be treated with tolerance, respect and equality, his employer caricatured him as a bigot to the media, questioned his willingness to perform his duty and put him under internal investigation. This officer asked for religious liberty and was met with injustice and intolerance. And all of this happened in our own backyard.
This story illustrates some of the ways religious liberty is under attack today. If you publicly express views based on religious values you run the risk of being branded as intolerant and hateful, even as others express their own value-based views. And when nondiscrimination laws are put in place without robust protections for religious liberty, as is the case in Salt Lake City, it encourages a culture of intolerance toward people of faith who voice sexual morals in conflict with the homosexual lifestyle. And when that culture of intolerance develops, as it evidently has in Salt Lake City, trying to express your religious liberty can jeopardize not just your reputation, but your employment and ability to support your family, as well.
In light of these facts, those currently working on legislative efforts to protect both religious liberty and the LGBT community should not give away important religious liberty protections for families, employers and employees just to “get a bill.” Senator Stuart Adams got it exactly right when he said, “It’s more important that we get it right than we get a bill done.”
“Getting it right” means protecting an employee’s right to express religious beliefs and to ask for tolerance in the workplace, without fear of retaliation. It means protecting an employer’s freedom to establish reasonable rules based on religious values, for matters like employee dress standards or use of private bathrooms. It means churches, small family businesses and “expressive” organizations (e.g., private value-based schools and nonprofits) should be free to make employment decisions without fear of government investigation or sanction. It means protecting a public official’s liberty to decline duties that violate his or her conscience, as long as others are reasonably available to perform those duties. And finally, it means protecting a parent’s freedom to inculcate religious values and beliefs in their children, without government entities putting up unnecessary hurdles.
In short, “getting it right” when it comes to LGBT nondiscrimination and religious liberty means not backing down before supporters of the “no compromise” approach when they turn to their go-to tactic of attempting to shame others into submission. It means courageously standing – and sometimes standing alone – against such injustice and intolerance by genuinely seeking fairness for all, not just fairness for those who shout the loudest, or those you might want in your political coalition.
Read the entire article here: http://utahpoliticohub.com/support-religious-liberty-stand-no-compromise-approach-nondiscrimination/
