A Battle Between Gay Rights and Religious Expression

To the Editor:

Re “When Gay and Religious Freedoms Clash,” by Tish Harrison Warren (Opinion, Dec. 5), about the Supreme Court case involving a web designer who does not want to design websites for same-sex weddings because of her religious convictions:

Ms. Warren states that there a distinction to be made between general discrimination against a group and declining to participate in an act one finds immoral.

The designer states that she would not refuse to create a website for a gay individual; she simply does not want her services to be used for an event to which she is morally opposed.

But where do we draw the line? Can a dry cleaner accept an L.G.B.T.Q. person’s business, but refuse to clean a tuxedo that they will wear to a “gay” wedding? Will your hairdresser choose not to style your hair when you are preparing for a “gay” event?

Peggy Thomson
New York

To the Editor:

As a heterosexually married former Catholic priest, I have had the joy — under other auspices — to officiate at dozens of same-sex weddings. Some of my clerical colleagues have chided me, some supported me and some even clandestinely cooperated in the ceremony.

Yet I find it difficult to insist that a web designer must accept any request to create a website for something that is against his or her conscience. Certainly, if she were asked to create one for a white supremacist group or to support some kind of questionable political stance, most of us liberals would have no problem saying she should not have to do so. I don’t see how this is different, even though I disagree with her beliefs.

Surely, there are many competent business owners who support or are at least respectful of any given customer’s choices. It does not seem that all service providers have to accept whatever request comes their way.

I would say to my friends who face any such objection to shake the dust from their feet and choose another web designer who respects their choices and loving commitments!

Dave Pasinski
Fayetteville, N.Y.

To the Editor:

Tish Harrison Warren’s defense of the website designer who wants to discriminate against same-sex couples is distasteful.

Although Colorado’s public accommodations law includes both race and sexual orientation as protected classes, Ms. Warren insists that discrimination against same-sex couples must be allowed under religious liberty because Scripture condemns homosexuality.

Yes, the Bible declares same-sex sexual contact to be “an abomination,” instructing, “They shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them” (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13). Paul blithely reiterates that people with a same-sex orientation are “worthy of death” (Romans 1:26-32). This is nothing for Ms. Warren to brag about.

But then Ms. Warren claims that antiracism civil rights laws are OK because they do not violate religious laws. Yet both the Old and New Testaments promote and countenance slavery, including allowing the rape, beating and torture of slaves. Such passages were touted incessantly to sanctify chattel slavery in this nation. Although Ms. Warren denies the Bible’s role in slavery, by her logic, slavery would be a religious right.

Instead of condemning her Bible’s barbaric homophobia, Ms. Warren misguidedly argues that U.S. civil law and citizens should be subject to her cherry-picked Bronze Age morality.

Annie Laurie Gaylor
Madison, Wis.
The writer is the co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

To the Editor:

Tish Harrison Warren’s advocacy for allowing business owners to refuse to provide services based on their professed religious beliefs is an invitation to invidious discrimination carried out behind a veneer of “pluralism.”

A relatively small percentage of Christians continue to oppose interracial marriages, relying on vague biblical language and interpretive texts. The Talmud and resulting Jewish laws for many centuries declare marriages between Jews and non-Jews to be both prohibited and void under Jewish laws.

Should we permit business owners to refuse to provide services not only to gay couples, but also to interracial and interreligious couples? Should the owner of a bed-and-breakfast operating out of the owner’s home be permitted to prohibit such couples from staying under their roof, based on religious objections?

And what if the claimed religious beliefs are just a pretext for discrimination, and who would make such a determination?

Thomas F. Wieder
Ann Arbor, Mich.

To the Editor:

Re “Justices Weigh Religion Rights vs. Bias Laws” (front page, Dec. 6):

If the Colorado web designer had refused to create sites for divorced people, on the grounds that Jesus specifically condemned divorce in Matthew 5:31-32, would the Supreme Court even hear this case?

David Castronuovo
Rome

To the Editor:

The Supreme Court arguments on Monday were supposed to be about speech, not religion. Nonsense. At a telling point, Justice Samuel Alito asked counsel, “Do you think it’s fair to equate opposition to same-sex marriage with opposition to interracial marriage?” From the colloquy, his own answer emerged clearly: Religious objections to same-sex marriage are “honorable,” while objections to interracial marriage are not.

In the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision, Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that African Americans “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Fast forward 165 years, and Justice Alito’s message is plain: L.G.B.T.Q. people have no rights that conservative religious people are bound to respect.

James H. Stark
Hartford, Conn.
The writer is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut School of Law.

Why No Gun Control Laws?

To the Editor:

Re “As Shootings Continue, ‘the Votes Aren’t There’ for a Gun Control Law” (news article, Dec. 4) and the disheartening subheadline, “Any new limits will likely have to wait two years for Congress”:

Are we truly helpless to stop the incessant mass shootings in America? Why aren’t the votes there for gun control? Who exactly is voting against the will of the American people? Should not these members of Congress be called out for their intransigence in the face of such wholesale slaughter?

The mass killings will continue until the country at least minimizes the firepower available for these tragedies, but nothing can change until either the minds or the members of Congress who continually block gun control measures change.

With each mass killing, newspapers should begin publishing the voting record on gun control by the politicians in the state affected by that day’s massacre. Would such an act really be journalistically too political for the sake of our children?

David Simpson
Rindge, N.H.

Gains for Democracy

To the Editor:

The demonstrations for democracy and against Covid restrictions in China, and the huge protests for women’s rights and democratic freedoms in Iran, indicate that democratic values are trending.

The victory of democratic forces in the Brazilian elections and the better-than-expected showing of Democrats in our own point to the same conclusion: The appeal of democratic values remains robust and is a powerful antidote to authoritarianism.

Resistance to authoritarianism takes many forms: Voters vote, citizens demand rights in the face of brutal crackdowns, and in Ukraine people stand against invasion. But it is all part of the pro-democracy movement, worldwide.

Edmund McWilliams
White Oaks, N.M.
The writer is a retired Foreign Service officer.

A National Primary Day

To the Editor:

Re “Reordered Primaries Create New Gambits for the Political Chessboard” (news article, Dec. 4):

Asking which state(s) should go first in primary voting is the wrong question. We should instead ask: Why aren’t all state primaries on the same day? That would avoid the farce of candidates pandering to local interests, only to reverse their positions (or “pivot”) when they move on to the next state. To have honest candidates, we should have an honest process.

These are candidates for national office. There should be national election rules and a national primary day.

Michael T. Ferro
Endwell, N.Y.