Religious Freedom Endangered

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - March 31, 2006

During the past six weeks, as faithful Catholics and the Church hierarchy have been describing the moral issues involved in the adoption of children by same-sex couples, a rising groundswell of legal experts and social commentators have been sounding the alarm about the threat to religious freedom posed by the Commonwealth's anti-discrimination policies.

If the Massachusetts bishops' request for a exemption to the 1993 anti-discrimination law is not granted, they say, not only will Church adoption agencies have to cease doing this very important charitable work, but a very dangerous precedent against freedom of religion will be established.

The real issue, these experts assert, is not whether same-sex couples will be able to adopt children in Massachusetts, because such couples would still be able to go to the multitude of non-Church agencies where, by huge margins, they already choose to go. The issue is not even whether the Church is right in her teaching on adoption by same-sex couples. It is whether Church agencies, in order to stay in adoption work, will be forced to have to violate Church teaching and workers' consciences to do so.

John Garvey, dean of Boston College Law School, wrote in a Boston Globe op-ed: "The issue is not whether the Church or the state has the better of the debate over gay families. When freedom is at stake, the issue is never whether the claimant is right. Freedom of the press protects publication of pornography, blasphemy, and personal attacks. Freedom of religion is above all else a protection for ways of life that society views with skepticism or distaste."

He went on to describe that traditionally the courts have given more weight to the constitutional right to freedom of religion than to statutory anti-discrimination laws. Even though Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act forbids employment discrimination on the basis of sex and gives no exception to religious institutions, Garvey detailed, the courts have always interpreted the Act to exempt churches on account of the right of religious freedom. Otherwise, for example, churches, synagogues or mosques with an all-male clergy could be forced to institute or ordain women contrary to their religious beliefs.

The present policy of the Commonwealth, however, gives more weight to the anti-discrimination statute than to the right of religious freedom and that is ensconcing a very dangerous trend, as John Leo, the respected veteran columnist for U.S. News and World Report, penned in a recent column: "The state is in effect using its licensing power to bring the church to heel -- no gay adoption, no license to conduct adoptions in Massachusetts." He then went on to note that the pressure on religious institutions to accept dominant secular norms is increasing. This is seen in "laws requiring Catholic institutions to provide contraceptive services and 'morning after' pills to female employees" and "attempts to force religious hospitals to do abortions and provide abortion training."

Kathleen Parker, a fellow at the Reason Institute and national columnist for the Jewish World Review, asked, "If the church can be forced to adhere to state laws regarding adoption in spite of prohibitive doctrine, can the church also be forced in other areas, perhaps to conduct same-sex marriages?" Priests, like adoption agencies, need to be licensed by the state for their marriages to recognized. If Catholic adoption agencies cannot refuse same-sex couples, she queries, for how long will priests be able to do so?

She describes the stakes: "What this unhappy battle really is all about— a battle in which all Americans have a stake — is freedom of conscience." It's about trying to control the Church and force her, by legislation, either to eliminate her charitable work or change or violate her teachings.

They and others, like Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe and Professor Charles Glenn of Boston University, have been sounding a wake-up call to everyone to notice what is really involved. It is not surprising that the dominant secularists do not adequately appreciate the right of freedom of religion, because many of them are simply not religious. But it is important for all who are, and for those who respect those who are, to realize that unless an exemption be granted to the Catholic Church to continue adoption work in accordance with Church teaching, the right to religious freedom will suffer a serious blow.

Those who believe in this right, even if they might disagree with the Church's teaching, ought to rise up alongside the bishops to defend it.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.