”Yet he chooses to restrict his practice to defending only certain people’s consciences.”

He chooses to defend people’s consciences from a certain kind of attack.

Look, I don’t mean to flog a good soldier for not being perfect. I admire Hasson’s work.

But I think you’re not getting my point. No, Hasson is not choosing to restrict his practice based on the kind of attack.

Imagine there are two employers who refuse to buy insurance that meets the standards of ObamaCare, and who refuse to pay the prescribed penalty. One insurer argues that the law’s provisions on birth control offend her deeply-held religious views, and object on the basis of conscience. The other argues that this type of government intrusion into interpersonal relationships offends her deeply-held libertarian views, and objects on the basis of conscience.

Government would bring the same kind of attack to each employer. As far as I can tell, Hasson would defend only one.

Can you give me an example of a religious trailblazer whose rights were specifically impinged upon by state interference, that the Becket Fund has declined to support since its inception?

I have no knowledge of anyone the Becket Fund has declined to serve. I suspect disclosure of that information would be restricted by attorney/client privilege.

He chooses to defend people’s consciences from a certain kind of attack.

How often do your religious trailblazers suffer at the hands of state power in the modern era? Can you give me an example of a religious trailblazer whose rights were specifically impinged upon by state interference, that the Beckett Fund has declined to support since its inception? (I know little about the subject, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you can come up with an example, or even many. But to find your objection plausible, I’d like to know that there really is person-based discrimination going on, rather than type-of-conscience-violation discrimination, which seems more like a specialization than a form of discrimination.)

I have a friend who’s owns a plumbing business. If I asked him to send his guys over to fix my wiring, I assume he would inform me that they don’t do that kind of work. If I then asked him why he lacks concern for the integrity of all the structures of my home, since he claims to be someone interested in maintaining people’s houses, I suspect he would give me a confused, if not worried, look.

Great. But does your friend give lectures advertising himself as a general maintenance man, or as a plumber? They’re both fine professions. But if he wants to avoid confusion, your friend might pick his advertising accordingly.

For example, imagine your friend advertises himself like this: “For the past 15 years we’ve provided prompt, reliable emergency services, as well as high-quality contractor work, because we believe everyone should have access to plumbing that is not merely code-compliant, but quite, efficient and reliable. We’re proud to offer our services to white households in the Tri-County Area.”

Now, your friend presumably has the skills, resources, and professed interest to offer services to households regardless of color. If he chose to restrict his practice in this fashion, I suspect people would notice.

Hasson has the skills, resources, and professed interest to defend people’s freedom of conscience. Yet he chooses to restrict his practice to defending only certain people’s consciences. I notice.

I have a friend who’s owns a plumbing business. If I asked him to send his guys over to fix my wiring, I assume he would inform me that they don’t do that kind of work. If I then asked him why he lacks concern for the integrity of all the structures of my home, since he claims to be someone interested in maintaining people’s houses, I suspect he would give me a confused, if not worried, look.

The Beckett Fund does one thing and not another. Why do they have to handle all possible matters that could impinge on the First Amendment in order to prove to you, nobody.really, or anybody else, that they’re consistent in their view of rights?

pentamom,

I think the point is that “free exercise” is only part of religious liberty as guaranteed by the First Amendment. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is really The Becket Fund for Free Exercise. As nobody.really says, that’s a fine thing, but (I say) they really aren’t defending religious liberty in its fullest sense. They’re defending the rights of religious believers. They are the flip side of the coin, in a way, from the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Of course, everyone here hates FFRF (and I am not too fond of them myself), but the First Amendment protects believers and nonbelievers alike.

Gandhi was not in a tradition? His struggle was fundamentally on the level of religious practice?

During his speech (and also in his book), Hasson claimed to be motivated to defend freedom of conscience. So I listed people who famously suffered for causes of conscience. I listed Gandhi because he adopted non-violence as a matter of conscience, breaking from India’s tradition of violently resisting British rule. And Gandhi suffered as a result.

I think Richard’s account is more reasonable — Becket exists to defend religious exercise (not anything else) against the power of the state (not against other forms of interference.) It is not other than what it is. Is that somehow objectionable?

Perhaps it’s just a labeling/expectations thing: As I say, I think it’s fine to defend people’s ability to practice traditional religions. I just note that it’s different than defending freedom of conscience.

And it’s different than defending freedom of religion – because all religions originate at some point. At the point of origination, practitioners of the new religion must, by definition, deviate from prior tradition. That’s the point at which religious observers are most vulnerable; that’s the point at which their practice can be said to most closely conform to conscience (and not merely to tradition); and that’s the point at which the Becket Fund would extend no assistance.

In sum: No, it’s not entirely accurate to say that the Becket Fund defends freedom of conscience or religion; it’s more accurate to say that they defend freedom to conform to religious tradition. That’s a fine thing to do. But no one should misrepresent what they do.

I think Richard’s account is more reasonable — Beckett exists to defend religious exercise (not anything else) against the power of the state (not against other forms of interference.) It is not other than what it is. Is that somehow objectionable?

[T]he Quakers preaching in Puritan land was hardly an example of “traditional, organized religion.” In that century, Quakerism was neither traditional nor organized — traditional, organized religion was represented by the Puritans. I think you’re reading it entirely backwards.

Perhaps; you can read Hasson’s account in his book, The Right to be Wrong: Ending the Culture War of Religion in America, Chap. 2, “Pluralism, Conscience and Community – reflections on the Pilgrim’s lack of progress” and Chap. 5, “Heavens No, We Won’t Go – reflections on how the Quakers invented conscientious objection.” (As the chapter titles suggest, Hasson is a very engaging writer!) There, he disparages the Puritan’s unwillingness to make accommodation for a Anne Hutchinson and other Quaker “conscientious objectors,” and alleged that Quakerism was sufficiently organized to have developed doctrinal prohibitions on military service, taking oaths, sacraments, ordained clergy, and much church structure – but not prohibiting proselytizing. But maybe Hasson’s wrong; beats me.

Anyway, this story prompted Hasson to found the Becket Fund and to defend “believers of nearly every tradition you can imagine….”

And that’s great. My question is, what makes contentious believers in traditions more worthy of defense than contentious objectors that blaze their own trails (and perhaps, like Jesus, are starting new traditions)? When Hasson defends some people’s consciences and not others, it appears that freedom of conscience is merely a smokescreen. His real interest is freedom of conformity — defending a person’s right to conform to dictates that can be documented from external sources. An external source, no matter how much I may embrace it, is not the same as my conscience.

American liberals have been moving in a strongly secularist and frankly anti-clerical direction since the 1970s and their goal is the same as that of the elites of the French Third Republic — the complete elimination of Christianity from the public sphere. The US Northeast and West Coast are a bit behind the vanguard of laicite, but they’re trying to catch up as fast as possible.

In short, as a sociological point, the Times is right — “religious liberty” has indeed become a conservative cause because liberals have decided that “religion” (viz. Christian churches) should have no public influence or authority any longer. Consider how Obama now always speak of the “freedom of worship” rather than the “freedom of religion”. As Peter Berger has recently said, liberals now believe “religion is to be an activity engaged in by consenting adults in private”.