Blogbat

You have a very strange way of framing this new law. The only thing it does is to add "sexual orientation" to the existing state law that protects people from bias based on race, religion or other traits. It allows people to file complaints with the Illinois Department of Human Rights if they believe they were denied a job, housing, public accommodation or credit because of their sexual orientation. Illinois is in fact the 15th state where gay people are explicitly protected by law against discrimination, and nowhere have these laws limited Churches in anyway to teach what they want to. So there is no 'dangerous precedent' as the so-called 'pro-family' fear machine would like you to believe. (why am I always considered a threat to families? I come from a loving family myself).
Now I know that conservatives, on their moral high horse, at best consider us only as folks who 'practice certain behaviors', 'choose to be dysfunctional' as you put it. And - yeah, I was waiting for it - there is of course the moral equivalence to alcoholism. Well thanks a lot, if I love my partner, that's the same as a destructive addiction. What kind of confused ethic is that?
I think it says a lot about the 'moral values' of modern day conservative thinking that torture of prisoners like in Abu Grahib or Guantanomo Bay is considered normal, necessary or even 'good', and granting loving couples legal protections, partner benefits or visitation rights (like in gay marriage or civil unions) is considered 'evil'.
By the way, support for the Illinois-bill in the House came from at least one unlikely source. Republican Joe Dunn had planned on voting against the measure. "As I listened to the debate, the opponents of the bill really pushed me away by the hatred and intolerance in their arguments." (quote: Naperville Sun)

First, you make several interesting points, so even though this will be lengthy, I will address them one by one:

“You have a very strange way of framing this new law. The only thing it does is to add "sexual orientation" to the existing state law…Illinois is in fact the 15th state where gay people are explicitly protected by law against discrimination, and nowhere have these laws limited Churches in anyway to teach what they want to.”

Actually Illinois is the first state not to provide an exemption for religious institutions of any sort and as such it does interfere with the ecclesiastical right to self-determination, which incidentally as I pointed out in the original post usually regards behavior, not orientation.

About your personal parenthetical question I’m sure most families of faith or secular consider you no threat as a person unless you act threatening, which is something both gay and straight people could do but we hope they won’t.

“Now I know that conservatives, on their moral high horse, at best consider us only as folks who 'practice certain behaviors', 'choose to be dysfunctional' as you put it. And - yeah, I was waiting for it - there is of course the moral equivalence to alcoholism.”

I never made a comment one way or the other about your “behavior”, I simply pointed out that it is the right of a church, a synagogue or any other religious body which feels it is following its convictions to restrict certain behavior. You might also note that my only direct reference to “dysfunction” was in regard to those “backwoods” churches where their theology is not behavior-oriented, but hate-the-person-oriented. So don’t paint me to be such a bad guy. Instead of being so defensive, first try to realize what I’m really saying. Another example of this was your assertion that I had postulated that being gay is the “moral equivalent to alcoholism”. That of course is untrue. What I really said was: If we allow the Illinois precedent to sit unchallenged, this is precisely what we would all be in store for, that is if excessive or even “normal” drinkers ever formed a militant organization focused on a very intolerant effort to change the doctrine of innocent bystanders instead of simply forming their own if they so wished. I think every sane person agrees that the congregations which prohibit the ecclesiastical employment of people who choose to get sauced -or anything else - on Friday nights are acting only on their principle and their unalienable prerogative to do so.” That “anything else”, if you read what was written above that includes heterosexual sex outside of marriage or anything else – in some churches it’s coffee, in Islam it’s alcohol consumption.

“I think it says a lot about the 'moral values' of modern day conservative thinking that torture of prisoners like in Abu Grahib or Guantanomo Bay is considered normal, necessary or even 'good', and granting loving couples legal protections, partner benefits or visitation rights (like in gay marriage or civil unions) is considered 'evil'.”

Again, my argument is simply to point out that religious organization have the right to disqualify people from employment based on behavior. Now recently a certain secular company fired several of its employees because it was discovered they smoked at home. Where is your outrage over this, Vince?

With regard to gay marriage, I made no comment however it might be pointed out that there are many gays who do not support it.

With regard to Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, I don’t address generalizations, but if you have a specific claim or allegation we can address them together then. As far as policy, we are in a war for our survival although some may not have gotten that memo from New York yet. But no, I personally haven’t been to either prison camp and have a pretty good alibi to back myself up ;-)

Vince, it strikes me that your response here is sincere and addresses some feelings of real concern or fear you might be having, but I challenge you to study the issue a little more closely, not make so many generalizations, stereotypes or even personal assumptions and also perhaps to read my posts a little bit closer so you understand what I really am saying.

Still, your comments were stirring and thought provoking and I appreciate your taking the time to express them.

Thanks Martin, for posting my comment and I appreciate your thoughtful reply. Fair enough, I made some assumptions in my comments which were not correct (sorry). Your response was very clearifying on what you meant.

I agree there is a conflict between basic freedoms here, i.e. the ecclestical right to self-determination, and an individual's right to self-determination: to be who they are, to love and be loved in return and not to be treated unfairly because of this.
Still I think the aim of the IL-law is not to force any doctrine on people or to force them to change what they believe (that indeed would be tyrannical). I don't think this law will work out this way, because religious organisations will select people that share their convictions, and this includes views on sexuality, morality and behavior- as is their right to do so. And vice versa: I don't see how for instance Dr. Dobson would apply for a job with a gay lobby group, and then would file a law suit complaining he's discrmiminated against because he's a Christian. In my view, this law simply affirms and extends a basic principle of the rule of law, that all citizens have a right to equal treatment. I'd say an exemption for churches is not necessary, because their right to express their views is already granted. You have two legal principles (religious freedom / equal treatment) that can exist next to each other.
Let me give you an example of something less controversial than gay rights: for instance, a church can teach that a woman is subordinate to a man, because this is how God created things and intended it to be. As a consequence of this conviction, churches can decide a woman cannot be a priest or a preacher or a pastor, or that they have to cover their hair during service. Still, I've never heard Christians being afraid that the equality of men and women under the law, or laws against gender-discrimination would be somehow a threat to their religious freedom.
My 'outrage' is not so much about people who have moral objections to homosexual behavior (which can be a sincere conviction), what angers me is if I see the so called 'pro-family' organisations that are so actively campaigning against a worldly law that intends to protect me. Imagine all those things that can truly destroy families (like divorce, unemployment, disease, addictions) and this is what they pick: it's evil for families if the law protects me from discrimination because I'm gay. That was what brought me to The Abu Grahib / gay marriage remark. It was just an example to illustrate what I see in conservative media outlets: for people who claim they have such good moral values and their opponents are moral relativists, nihilist, elitist etc.- the priorities seem a little strange.

By the way, I think you're a very good writer, as I read many interesting, very well-written and thought provoking posts on your blog (found it through Beautiful Atrocities). I might be a lefty, but I like to read smart stuff from many directions.

*I always appreciate sincere and deeply-felt (and, as you see from the length of this reply, thought-provoking) comments regardless of the political position of their authors - and I can really see your concerns here. Also thank you for your comment about my writing. I once told Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities that I hoped one day when my blog grows up it would be as well-written as his.

A free country can be such a balancing act. It is like a ship that if it leans too far in either direction a lot of folks wind up with spilled drinks and get pretty upset. If it lists extremely far in one direction, people will begin to fall off and may be seriously injured. And were the ship to continue in its one-sided tilt, it would capsize and sink, destroying everyone on board.

My objection to an otherwise fine law is that it is poorly-written and that poorly-written laws can often tip the ship (which is a completely different animal than rocking the boat). In my opinion such a thing threatens the equal balance of civil liberty so vital to any democracy or free republic.

My big gripe with this law is that unlike many similar such laws across the United States, this one does not provide a legal out for religious organizations.

Let’s face it, (and I know we both agree here) there are religions where just about any imaginable prohibition exists. And that’s usually fine: neither you nor I nor most folks will see the reason in banning say (to use a corny example), the ownership of a cow (speaking of tipping), and most folks will just shrug and say, “It’s not that they don’t like me for having cows, they just believe they found something spiritually meaningful and the cow-ownership shtick was the trade-off”. But the law (which sadly is also why we must have laws at all) must protect everybody from those one or two morons out there (and you know they exist if you’ve ever seen the crowd at a playoff game) who believe that this odd cow-theology is a bunch of bull and must be overthrown at any cost.

Any good law needs to be very carefully worded so it adheres to the spirit of the constitution that provides for its existence. And heck, to save the tax-payer future court costs.

The reason for naming my post what I did however is that there are certainly those on the lunatic fringe of the Left who look to control religion at every turn because they find it to be in competition with their own beliefs. And while I absolutely think we need to insure that secular employers hire purely on the basis of the candidate’s knowledge and skill as are pertinent to the applied-for position, we must also be very careful to make sure in such a quest, as with everything that it doesn’t go beyond such an intent.

*Now as for prisoners of war, I think you come from the standpoint of wanting this to be a just war that is seen as one above contempt. I agree and I think war well-fought has no political orientation. But that said, I think we do a lot of things to the enemy that hurt him far worse than interrogations and embarrassing poses though. In combat for example we kill them. The United States is doing this because we don’t want any more of our own civilians killed – so I think on the greater point there is no one-size fits all solution where we can either be merciful or unmerciful. Rather in a life-and-death field of competing intentions, one usually simply has the luxury of choosing for which side he will ultimately show mercy. In war, mercy for one is often injustice for the other. I favor we err on the side of American lives when that choice must be made. War is hell and armies exist to kill people and break things, many have said. But - just as in WWII when soldiers are out of the combat zone there is certain behavior which is unbecoming and the military does take such matters very seriously. However, from the standpoint of international law (if there really is such a thing), terrorists caught in anywhere have no legal protection under the Geneva convention because they are neither a recognized army nor signers of that accord. But even with that the United States treats and interrogates its prisoners (be they civil or military) far better than any other country on earth. France for example gives its civil magistrates the authority to detain French citizens for up to four years without a trial. Of course China won’t do that – you’ll just run across the bones of your missing relative in a ditch somewhere with a couple of bullets still rattling about in their skull.
It has also been the tradition of every country to give no comfort to insurgents or terrorists because of the toll they exact on civilian populations and the authorities trying to re-establish stability, food and water to a region. After the formal Nazi surrender of Germany in 1945 (and for about three years thereafter) we faced a horrendous insurgency in that country that threatened more chaos, murder and mayhem. To stop this we rounded the terrorists up and summarily executed them. The message was received. The insurgency stopped and peace and rebuilding were allowed to take place in Germany -what is now one of the most prosperous and egalitarian nations in the world.

Well, that’s my spiel. Now that the Left AND Right brains of the world have solved the world’s problems, I’m off to get lunch. :p