We Need More than a Defense of Religious Free Exercise

Writing at Public Discourse, Ryan Anderson makes a compelling case that, even as we celebrate a few welcome wins for religious liberty at the Supreme Court, we still need to address the substantive questions at the heart of our culture-war debates.

It’s an important point, and one I considered in a post right after the Court’s incomprehensible ruling in Bostock last month. That decision, I argued, illustrated why it’s a problem that religious Americans too often have retreated into defending religious-freedom rights rather than defending our beliefs themselves. Religious liberty is a fundamental right worth protecting, of course, but fighting for the right to practice one’s faith is not the same as making the case for why doing so, especially in the realm of sexual ethics, is not bigotry or discrimination, as many on the Left increasingly maintain.

Take, for example, the case of the Christian baker Jack Phillips. Arguing that he has a First Amendment right not to be forced to use his artistic expression to celebrate a same-sex wedding is one thing, and it’s all well and good as far as it goes. But defending the rationality of his belief in marriage as, by its very nature, a union between one man and one woman is another, equally important effort. Although there is obvious value in a legal defense that relies on the First Amendment, religious Americans outside the courtroom should’ve focused far more than they did on arguing not only that Phillips has a right to free exercise and free expression but also that his belief in traditional marriage isn’t bigoted and that it isn’t discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation to decline to celebrate a same-sex wedding ceremony.