Next Week February 12: Department of Religion 19th Annual Lecture
Religious Liberty and the Culture Wars
Presented by:
Douglas Laycock
Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law
Peter W. Low Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia
Thursday, February 12, 2015
12:45 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Room 103
Sumner M. Redstone Building
Boston University School of Law
765 Commonwealth Ave
Boston, MA 02215
Co-sponsored by the Department of Religion and the School of Law
To register for this event, please click here.
Abstract: Religious liberty has become much more controversial in recent years. A principal reason is deep disagreements over sexual morality. On abortion, contraception, gay rights, and same-sex marriage, conservative religious leaders condemn as grave evils what many other Americans view as fundamental human rights. Somewhat hidden in the battles over permitting abortion and recognizing same-sex marriage lie religious liberty issues about exempting conscientious objectors from facilitating abortions or same-sex marriages. Banning contraception is no longer a live issue; there, religious liberty is the principal issue. These issues arise in academia as well as in the larger society.
These culture-war issues are turning many Americans toward a very narrow understanding of religious liberty, and generating arguments that threaten religious liberty more generally. Persistent Catholic opposition to the French Revolution permanently turned France to a very narrow view of religious liberty; persistent religious opposition to the Sexual Revolution may be having similar consequences here.
We can and should protect the liberty of both sides in the culture wars. Conservative churches would do well to concede the liberty of the other side, including on same-sex marriage, and concentrate on defending their own liberty as conscientious objectors; and similarly, supporters of rights to abortion, contraception, gay rights, and same-sex marriage would do well to concentrate on securing their own rights and to concede that conscientious objectors should rarely be required to support or facilitate practices they view as evil. But inducing either side to accept such live-and-let-live solutions seems to be a hopeless task.