• Tim Sherratt, “When Religious Liberty and Other Civil Rights Collide,” Capital Commentary, March 7, 2014:

“Balancing religious liberty with other civil rights and liberties is a delicate business in a society marked by multiple worldviews. That balancing act, however delicate, is fundamental to public justice. Media do the public a great disservice in failing to present the issues in their full complexity. Editors ought to have more courage and more respect for the capacity of their readers, listeners, and viewers to absorb complex narratives.

“Perhaps the media merely reflect the larger political culture. Perhaps no value is as elusive as genuine pluralism. To arrange constitutional liberties in such a way that people of different points of view may enjoy their freedoms alongside others with contradictory beliefs comes at a cost. As Stanley Carlson-Thies of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance notes, ‘[Pluralism] means not all individuals will consider themselves welcome in or well served by every organization in our society.’

“I think Carlson-Thies’s words would be greeted by howls of disapproval from the giddier critics of SB 1062 celebrating Governor Brewer’s veto last week. Today’s campaigners for fundamental rights insist that these rights be accompanied by universal approval. But that kind of thinking only encourages the demonization of those who hold different views.

“Christian churches, businesses, and charities will naturally want the maximum protection for religious conscience. But although they may experience renewed pressure on religious liberty-as many cases in recent years confirm-it is vital that they, too, demonstrate a mature grasp of the costs as well as the benefits of religious pluralism and a willingness to bear those costs for the sake of the common good.”

* * *

• Nathan Diament, “Why the Orthodox Union Supports Religious Exemptions to the Contraception Mandate: It’s not because they oppose contraception,” Tablet, Jan. 28, 2014:

“In Europe today, religion has been relegated to something only to be exercised in private. What you do in your home and in your church is your business, but society expects you to leave your religion behind when you come into the public sphere-be it the workplace, school, or house of government. Thus, a believer is not entitled to an accommodation or an exemption from any demands society at large wishes to make, like banning public wearing of headscarves or kippot. This has not been the American view.

“While our First Amendment’s establishment clause demands no legal endorsement of religion, there is a longstanding tradition of welcoming faith into the public arena and-most relevant here-including exemptions and accommodations for religious dissent in a wide array of laws so that, as much as possible, people of faith are not forced to choose between their conscience and compliance with other laws. To do otherwise is to relegate religious belief and action to second class status among our civil rights-something Jews, and all people of faith and conscience, must resist.”

* * *

• Milton Friesen and Cheryl Clieff, Strengthening Vital Signs Through Urban Religious Communities (Cardus, March 2014).

Note: For several years, the Cardus, the Canadian Christian think/action tank “dedicated to the renewal of North American social architecture” has been exploring the community-serving roles of churches and other faith-based organizations in Calgary and how the city government can better understand, strengthen, and partner with those religious organizations and initiatives. This is the latest publication. It focuses on how the roles and insights of religious organizations can better be taken into account by, and influence, the Calgary city-planning process. It is a beginning, but sophisticated, analysis, and includes concrete steps that city officials and faith-based organizations can take to deepen and extend their engagement with each other for the good of the city.

* * *

• Ross Douthat, “The Terms of Our Surrender,” The New York Times, March 1, 2014.

Reflection: Well worth reading and pondering: same-sex marriage will inevitably be declared the constitutional requirement throughout the US and persons and organizations with a different view of marriage will be penalized and marginalized (an outcome that can be regarded, Douthat notes, as a just repayment for a long and sordid history of mistreatment of gay people).

The social logic is compelling–this really is the trajectory we’re on–but this isn’t all of the story. It is not illegal to think that man-woman marriages are real marriages and can be flourishing marriages and a good basis for a flourishing family. When such marriages do flourish in fact, they will be an attractive, embodied, continuing witness to that conviction. And no matter how successfully that conviction currently is being redefined as merely an expression of bigotry and discrimination, the freedoms of religion and speech and assembly are bedrock American principles which cannot be squared with compelling believers with such a conviction to conduct their lives and organizations as if it were not true. Some form of principled pluralism will have to be the way that the values of equality and religious freedom are reconciled in our society.