The issues before you tonight are the right of people to have a roof over their heads and the right to work without being discriminated against. But, importantly, the ordinances also attempt to balance vital issues of religious freedom. In essence, the Church agrees with the approach which Mayor Becker is taking on this matter.
In drafting these ordinances, the city has granted common-sense rights that should be available to everyone, while safeguarding the crucial rights of religious organizations, for example, in their hiring of people whose lives are in harmony with their tenets, or when providing housing for their university students and others that preserve religious requirements.
The Church supports these ordinances because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage.
Before going on, let me be clear that I do not doubt the inspiration of the Church leaders. They are called by God and act at His bidding. I, however, am struggling to understand why they said what they said.
The first difficulty I have in understanding the statement is that it seems to propose that religious organizations should get special protections that are not available to individuals. Specifically, the statement proposes that religious organizations should be permitted to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in hiring and firing workers and in housing but that individuals should not be able to so discriminate. This seems very strange to me, because the Constitution secures the rights of individuals and only by extension does it secure the rights of organizations--by protecting the right of individuals to associate as they exercise their rights.
The second difficulty I have is with the phrase "the city has granted common-sense rights." This position--that government grants rights--is contrary to the basic principles on which the United States was founded. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence clearly states that individuals are "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."
The third difficulty I have is with the way the Church framed the debate: "[t]he issues before you tonight are the right of people to have a roof over their heads and the right to work without being discriminated against." This is a statement that could have come straight from a speech by President Obama. It proposes granting rights to some individuals that other individuals must work to provide. Perhaps this principle is best stated by Hans Verlan Andersen in chapter three of his book "The Moral Basis of a Free Society":
By very definition a right cannot exist in one person unless there is a corresponding duty in another. Unless there is someone who can be compelled to do or refrain from doing something to give the right meaning, it has no substance.
…
The substance of a right consists of the power to compel the wrongdoer to make restitution and the substance of a duty consists of being compelled to perform it. Unless the performance of the duty is enforced, the right is without a remedy and the failure to perform the duty without a penalty. It is the enforcement which brings both into existence and gives them substance.
I have a couple of other concerns about the statement but the three listed above trouble me the most.
Since the Church is true, I'm taking it as given that the statement is inspired. Yet I am strongly resisting the possible inference from this statement that the principles that have guided my political philosophy are incorrect or unimportant. So in an effort to understand I have considered the following possibilities--none of which I find very satisfactory. If you have other suggestions, I welcome your comments.
First, the statement may have been drafted by uninspired bureaucrats to achieve a particular result that the Church desired.
Second, the statement may not have anything to do with true political principles but rather is an effort to reach out to a hostile, angry group of people to facilitate the spread of the gospel.
Third, just as in the Nephi beheading Laban scenario, true principles of law are suspended to achieve a higher purpose. This doesn't mean the principles are not true.
What do you think?
