IN JUNE, THE SUPREME COURT held that a Catholic agency can exclude same-sex couples from its government-contracted foster care program, despite a city policy banning LGBTQ discrimination. Assertions of religious freedom carried the day in the narrow ruling of Fulton v. City of Philadelphia; at the same time, broader precedent remains, requiring religious groups to respect generally applicable anti-discrimination laws. The court deferred the deeper challenge of how to square vigorous claims of religious liberty with hopes of inclusion for LGBTQ people.
As people of faith, how do we make sense of these competing claims—for equality and nondiscrimination, bedrock human rights principles, and for religious freedom? For guidance, Christians can look to our own record on religious freedom, theological insight on human rights, and, above all, the ethics of Jesus and Paul.
Let’s begin by affirming that religious freedom deserves its place in the inner sanctum of basic rights. It is a hope that once emboldened persecuted communities to flee Europe and helped inspire the allied struggle against fascism. It remains indispensable for religious minorities the world over—like the Iranian Christian seminary student who fears grave persecution, or Sikh and Jewish communities suffering violence in this country.
As an American Christian, I have never faced religious persecution, but returning to church this spring after 15 months of pandemic restrictions reminded me how sacred is our liberty to worship. I did not feel whole when I couldn’t hear words of scripture professed in community and elevated in song. The service touched a profound need, and the tears flowed.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that Christians were leading proponents of religious freedom at the United Nations’ founding. Dr. O. Frederick Nolde championed the transatlantic ecumenical movement for global human rights protection, convinced, as Kolten Ellis writes, that religious liberty was inseparable from a “holistic bundle of human rights, all of which flowed from a Christian social ethic.”
Ironically, though, theological debates arose last century regarding the propriety of rights-based frameworks for Christians. Some claim individual rights constitute an egoistic approach that cannot be squared with a Christian view of life lived in relationship. Others, as Nicholas Wolterstorff observes, argue that “We should not be talking about rights; we should be talking about love.”
Religious rights may be a case in point. In Christian Human Rights, Yale historian Samuel Moyn explains how religious freedom was used from the outset primarily to protect European Protestants against one another, rather than to extend liberty to others. In this country, religious freedom has been wielded in ways that reinforce Christian and white privilege. Observing that U.S. religious freedom now works as “a privileged weapon of the religious right,” Moyn wonders: “Is it possible that the norm is poisoned at the root?”
We should neither dismiss nor champion religious freedom (and human rights) without carefully considering how they (and we) might be redeemed. Scripture proclaims that our noble purposes are only as righteous as the spirit we bring to them. Paul says if we are to do anything—however benevolent or miraculous—it is only pleasing to God if done in love (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Paul recalls Jesus’ emphasis on love as the sum of the law and the gospel (Luke 10:25-28). This biblical imperative is our beacon in the fog of conflicting rights claims. For the Christian advocate, an ethic of neighbor love must inform the way we assert our own rights and the regard we afford the rights of others.
If the thought of rights used selfishly or at cross-purposes with love has prompted some theologians to urge abandoning them altogether, this should caution Christians against pressing to maximize religious claims at the expense of the marginalized.
Religious freedom clearly encompasses vital core practices of our faith: discerning and proclaiming our beliefs, worshiping in community, honoring sacred rituals. In all these areas, the U.S. provides formidable safeguards. We saw this during the pandemic, when the Supreme Court pushed back restrictions on houses of worship.
Less compelling are claims to use taxpayer support for a program many desire (like foster care), yet offer services selectively. Harder still to justify are attempts to turn away LGBTQ people from housing, employment, or public establishments—essential life goods. However sincere the religious beliefs that underlie such exclusion, its logical result (when evangelized, in particular) is grievous harm.
If we take Christian love seriously where rights are concerned, we may even prefer to suffer for those long shunned, rather than insist on vindicating our own beliefs. There is, for the faithful, a fate worse than being a victim of a rights violation, and that is being a perpetrator.
Allyson McKinney Timm, a human rights lawyer, is founder and executive director of Justice Revival.
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