Because of the importance of this matter, I feel I should write a much longer post than I currently foresee this turning out to be but, the idea is just so simple and obvious to me that I don’t think it needs to be overdone. Last week, in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Supreme Court misinterpreted the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. What I find fascinating is that the misinterpretation stems from the implication of a preposition that is not even in the relevant part of the text. When speaking about the religious freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, most people tend to think about it as a freedom “of” religion – a right to practice your religion as you see fit without intrusion or hindrance. This is essentially what was intended. Along with prohibiting the establishment of an official religion, ensuring “the free exercise thereof” allows people to practice their faith as they choose. The problem with the Supreme Court’s decision is that it has embraced an increasingly common belief that one’s freedom “of” religion also includes a freedom “from” exposure to ideas that contradict their faith. This is not only contradictory to the text of the First Amendment clauses related to religion but also logically inconsistent with the basic ideas of the entire amendment.
In an open society, with freedom of movement, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech, any person is inevitably going to come in contact with someone with beliefs different than their own. A protestant who disagrees with a Catholic’s belief in the miracle of transubstantiation is free to disagree, and free to express said disagreement, but is not free to limit the Catholic’s practice or expression of their beliefs. It’s a simple as that. A world history teacher must cover this disagreement in teaching about the Reformation but they are not violating anyone’s religious freedom by discussing it and explaining the views of the different sides. Catholic and protestant students alike will be exposed to religious ideas contradictory to their own because they are necessary to learn about important historical events.
Just as both Catholics and protestants exist, and so will encounter each other and each other’s beliefs, LGBTQ people exist and so people will encounter them. Just as the protestant does not have a right to insist on never encountering Catholics, the fact of their existence, or the basic ideas of Catholicism, those who disapprove of LGBTQ people based on their religious beliefs to not have a right to insist they should never be made aware of the fact that LGBTQ people exist. Unfortunately, many Americans have conflated their freedom “of” religion with the belief that this also carries with it a freedom “from” anything that is contradictory to their faith. Even more unfortunately, the Supreme Court has increasingly been willing to support and encourage this view. The fact that legal scholars have endorsed the idea that a child being exposed to a book with a queer character is having their religious freedom violated boggles the mind. No one is telling them their faith is bad or wrong. They are simply reading them a book that includes characters representing people they are likely to encounter in their lives. Aside from learning basic facts and skills, a critical part of a good education is exposure to a broad range of ideas, subjects, and perspectives.
The precedent that parents can insist on a freedom “from” this exposure based on their religious beliefs undermines a fundamental purpose of education. More significantly, it is contradictory to the basic idea of what it is to be a free and open society. No one truly has freedom “of” if some are guaranteed this kind of freedom “from”. While the plaintiffs in this case come from different religious backgrounds, it is safe to suggest that the freedom “from” effort in the U.S. has been largely led by conservative Christians. This is quite ironic considering the intent and the effect. The point of exposure to different types of people and ideas is to learn empathy. Those who have read their red letter Bible will know that empathy was the guiding principle of Jesus’s teachings. So, in order to express their own view of religious freedom, fundamentalist Christians have helped push for a ruling that is not only against the text and spirit of the First Amendment, but also fundamentally un-Christlike. All because they have imagined a preposition where it does not exist so that they can feel safe in their bigotry.