Rights and Rights

Who can object to freedom of religion? In fact, to do so makes one sound like something more than a bit of a jerk. It makes one sound backward, almost like a dinosaur … in fact, was not freedom of conscience one of the objectives of the democratic revolutions that swept Europe and the Americas between the late-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries? To oppose freedom of religion makes one sound almost … well as if one were a supporter of the inquisition, as if one were about to try and burn heretics. In this sense, the opposition to Indiana’s supposed defense of religious freedom might sound odd to someone who has not paid close enough attention to it, who has not followed the debates about the boundaries between state and church in the US, and the degree to which religious folk  (usually, but not exclusively Christians) can define the framework of rights for that country.

I want to be clear from the state: the Indiana law -- or similar laws implemented in other states -- is not a defense of freedom of religion. That right was already specified in the US Bill of Rights. It was, in other words, part of the constitutional guarantees (along with free speech, the right to bear arms, etc.) that comes with being a US citizen. In enacting this law, the government of Indiana did nothing to further protect freedom of conscience or belief and, I will argue, a great deal to corrupt it through an overt and misplaced politicization of term. Passing this act is the equivalent of PEI passing a law that says “we are now making it illegal to murder people.” It already was, one would say, this law is a waste of time.

The trickery inherent in this law is only one problem with it. The most serious problems – evident by the backtracking we’ve already seen from Indiana lawmakers – is the way it confuses conceptions of rights and what they mean. I’ve tried to blog on this in my last entry but let me elaborate this point and add in some other comments.

The second problem, then, is the confusion of rights. Here, we need to ask “what are rights and why are they important?” The answer to this question is, in fact, complicated because it depends on the type of society in which you live. In stratified societies (say, like feudal societies) rights adhered differently to different people depending on their place in the social order. Thus, a lord had different rights than a peasant. There are also traditional rights that adhere, for instance, to indigenous peoples. In some societies, members of different religions have different rights. In some societies, for instance, the state enforces laws based on specific religions (but not others). What counts as a right, then, in legal terms if conditioned by the society in which you live. We can – and I would argue should – assert the legitimacy of universal rights that meet basic standards of decency and freedom. I assert that point as an ethical principle to which I (and, I suspect, most people) subscribe. But, in practical terms – in terms of the rights that citizens actually have right now – those are dependent on their society and what their government recognizes.

Not all societies recognize freedom of religion. Some societies have and continue to have established religions that are supported by the state. Adherents of other faiths do not have the same rights as adherents of the state-supported faith. They may have restrictions on their worship, suffer from prejudices that go unaddressed, have to pay special taxes, be forced to live in certain sections of town, etc. None of these things are historically unusual, even if I (to say this again clearly) disagree with them.

The conception of right that we use in Canada and the US today is not like this. Even if it honoured in the breach (and, it clearly has been), rights supposedly adhere (in our societies) to individuals by virtue of their individuality, humanity, and citizenship. Thus, a rich person has no greater right than a worker; a Christian no more rights than a Jew; a man has the same rights as a woman, etc. We subscribe, in other words, to an ideal that all citizens enjoy the same rights and that is, or so we are often told, what makes our societies more democratic and fair.

This, however, creates problems for a variety of reasons, some of which are well documented and we don't really need to discuss. One problem it seems to create, however, is what is periodically referred to in the media as a conflict of rights. What happens when my right conflicts with your right? Who gets to win out? What is more fundamental?

This is the wrong question. Conflicts of rights occur far less frequently than we might think. In Indiana, for instance, we don't have a situation where there is a conflict of rights (freedom of religion versus equality) at all. What we have is a failure to understand what freedom of religious means.

In Canada and the US, freedom of religion is not the right to discriminate. You have the right to believe whatever you believe but your right to enact your belief is bounded by the degree to which it affects other people. Thus, for instance, you might believe that the Bible justifies the slavery of Black Americans. I'd disagree with you, but there were people who believed that. Even if you believe this, you do not have right to enslave anyone. Likewise, your religion might call for human sacrifice. Sorry, you are out of luck. That is a crime and you can't use freedom of religion to justify it or get away with.

Here is the rub. Even if we don’t like what people believe, they can believe it. They have that right. But, the fact that you have right to believe what you will does not mean that you have the right to do whatever you want, however sincerely your beliefs are held. My right does not extend to the oppression of my neighbour because my neighbour – in a democratic society – enjoys exactly the same rights I do.

What has gone on in Indiana and a number of other states is that this basic and simple understanding of what constitutes a right and the reasonable limits on it has been lost. In the name of Christianity, the government has enacted a law (which it is not supposed to do, of course, because the principle of the separation of church and state in the US) that allows Christians to discriminate against other people. In other words, it accords to one group of people the right – protected by law – to harm another group. This is a violation of the basic principles of rights in a democratic society and it is, I want to say this clearly, a step away from democracy. Rights are intended to enhance democracy in our society; not limit it.

If freedom of religion is not the right to oppress, marginalize, discrimination against other people … what good it is? Actually a lot. Rights fall into a number of different categories and accomplish a number of different goals. I probably go on too much about this in my courses so I won't here. But, freedom of religion is, oddly, designed to protect citizens from precisely the type of law that Indiana has enacted. It is designed to protect people from a the state enacting laws that favour some religious perspectives over others; that treat different people differently on the basis of belief. IOW, religious freedom is intended to ensure that what has happened in Indiana does not happen: that the state should not be, as it were, “in bed” with religion.

I’ve gone on too long so let me summarize. Several points are important:

• the freedom of religion law that Indiana passed is not needed because freedom of religion is already protected under the US Bill of Rights
• the law is actually not about freedom of religion but instead about providing legal sanction to discrimination on the basis of religious views. Generally, when the state shows favouritism to one group of people as opposed to others, we view this as non-democratic and, indeed, Indiana has taken a step away from democracy
• there is a level of misreporting when people talking about a conflict between rights (religion v equality). There is no conflict because in democratic societies all citizens enjoy the same rights, ergo one citizen does not have the right to oppress or marginalize another and assert that this is their right. Other non-democratic societies (theocracies, feudal states, for instance) allow or allowed this. Democracies do not. It is not that one right is more valuable or important than another; it is that each person is of equal value. 
• Freedom of religion is, ironically, intended to prevent precisely what the government of Indiana has done. It is designed and intended to stop the state from showing favouritism so that citizens are equal. In this way, Indiana has perverted the very right it claims to uphold. 

The real problem, I think, with perverting the law and conceptions of right in order to justify what is, in fact, prejudice, is that just about everyone and their dog can see through it. No one seriously believes that Indiana or Arkansas is trying to protect freedom of religion (because, as I said, this right is already protected and no one actually believes that their legislatures and executives are that dumb as to not understand that). Instead, what they see is that overt prejudice -- overtly making the argument that gays and lesbians are perverts or second-class citizens or criminals or mentally ill or despised by God -- is not politically feasible in America today. These arguments have become unacceptable to large and growing sections of US public opinion. Hence, what Indiana and other states have reverted to is prejudice by stealth: they are trying to find a way to maintain legal injunctions against gay and lesbian Americans after a slate of court rulings that say "no you cannot do that. It contravenes the Bill of Rights." 

Hence, the deception but I wonder if the deception does something further. I wonder if it makes people doubt the sincerity of politicians. After all, here is a case where language is clearly being twisted for ulterior motives. If the people who run the state will do this (will, in effect, try to deceive the public) ... what does that say, some people might ask, about politics? What does it say about those who win elections? Who are supposed to represent the citizens and the state? Who are supposed to have a degree of dignity and grace. 

I think, ultimately, it creates more political alienation ... and that is not good either. 

Oh ... Indiana ... What's Wrong with Discrimination?

I broke, sort of, away from my series of posts "What is going on with Christianity?" to comment on the recent Indiana making it legal to discriminate against gay and lesbian people. What is, some might ask, wrong with discrimination? In asking that question, I am not actually trying to be cute or fully or flippant. I suggested that one of the things people calling themselves "Christians" are asking the Indiana government to do is use the legal system to enforce their bigotry. And, I suggested that if any other religion were doing this ... just about everyone and their dog would be up in arms about it, as witness suggestions regarding state support for Sharia law in Canada. Why is this important? After all, someone might say, if I want to not serve someone coffee ... that is my right, is it not? I enjoy religious religious freedom. I should have the right to refuse to serve someone if I so desire in my own private business. Have not, someone might even say if they happened to have read this blog, you, Andrew, defended the rights of private institutions to limit what goes on under their roofs in the past?

I don't agree with any of these statements and I suspect most people who might happen to read this blog don't either but for the sake of argument -- and so we can be clear about our arguments -- let's have a look at this line of logic, as it were. There are a number of points that are really important to note.

First, legalized bigotry has a bad history ... a really, really bad history. As a person who studies history for a living (well, a good part of the time that is what I do), I'd like to believe that history is important. A better knowledge of history can, I think, do a number of things and I write periodically about these for another web site. I won't get into all that here but one of the things a better knowledge of history can do is show us how the implementation of similar ideas operated in the past and their effects. For instance, many of those people who opposed same sex marriage argued that it would, in effect, bring the downfall of civilization (you might notice that they have stopped saying that). I pointed out that we'd heard all that people. Equality between men and women, women working outside the home, equality between black and white, and many other things, were all supposedly going to cause the demise of the family or something approximating Bill Murray's Ghostbusters rant. Because civilization did not collapse in the past when changes were made that promoted equality, we had little reason to believe, I argued, that the prognostications of demise would be anymore right this time.

Likewise, I would argue that anytime religion has been used to justify bigotry, this have not turned out well. Religion, for ill, has been used to justify slavery, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and all matter of other things. When Religion breaks boundaries and tears down the walls of society -- say, in the anti-apartheid movement or during the American civil rights movement -- it has had a positive and long-lasting effect. When it has been used as a cure-all justification for prejudice (God does not like ...), its effects have been historically noxious. What is more, this noxiousness is widely recognized by later generations. It is not a secret. We celebrate those Christians who resisted the Nazis and struggle to help Jews during the Holocaust. We condemn those who recycled anti-semitic garbage and so helped to do the Nazis' work for them. We recognize that the efforts to find justifications for slavery in the US led Christians to fracture their denominations, let them away from the words of Jesus, and toward ever more contorted views that ultimately contradicted the very religious views they claimed to uphold.

I suspect these laws in Indiana and elsewhere will end up like this. They will be aspects of American history at which people look back with a certain level of embarrassment, something for which later Christians will have to apologize.  The first thing I would ask people to develop, then is some sort of future-oriented historical perspective on this issue. In fifteen or twenty or thirty years ... will you be the person who defended segregation or the person who challenged it? Will your religion lead you to embrace all people or will you use it to exclude people? How do you want to be remembered, as the person who campaigned for civil rights (marking with Martin Luther King Jr) or as the person who threw rocks at small children just trying to go to school?

What I am trying to say is that history does not simply tell us what we can or should believe. It provides us with a way of thinking about the choices we will make. This is an example where one has a choice in terms of how one will be remembered in the future, what your children or grandchildren will think of you.

This is important, I would argue, secondly, because the argument that is being made -- that somehow religious freedom is at stake -- is shakey. What we have, if I might be frank, is actually not a battle or conflict of principle. We have one side, in this battle, that is not animated by principle at all but rather is trying to find some sort of language thought which it can assert that there is a principle behind their bigotry and that their bigotry can somehow be maintained. In other words, we have people who are fighting, as it were, against history and against the image of themselves that (as bigots) that will be cast by history.

Why say this? Because, I suspect, we all know that a freedom of is not a freedom to impose your will on someone else. Freedom of is not, and never has been, the right to discriminate or marginalize, or construct certain people by virtue of innate characteristics as second class citizens, less worthy of simply getting a meal in a restaurant than, say, me. Again, we have historical parallels and those did not end well. Freedom is about a number of things. I would argue that simply formulations that we learn in intro politics classes (negative versus positive liberties, say) are useful but don't capture the complex meaning of those terms particularly as exercised today. Freedom is the right to do something, in Mill's classic formation, so long as it does not negatively affect another person. At that point, your freedom must stop because you are interfering with another. In return for this production (the right not to have someone interfering with our lives), we agree to be bound by the same rules. I will not interfere in someone else's life.

This situation in Indiana a clear example where that line is fractured. What the proponents of "religion freedom" are claiming is the right precisely to interfere in others lives. If I do not like gay people, I have the right to refuse to serve them or permit them in my establishment. The converse, of course, is not true nor is it true for other groups ... a point I will get to in a minute.

Freedom of religion is a very important freedom in our society. I don't know of many (or, perhaps any) people who oppose it. It is the right to practice one's religion (provided it does not harm another) unhindered by the state or society. Thus, for instance, one cannot make a law that prescribes some religions as illegal and its members subject to arrest. All religion perspectives -- including those who do not believe -- have the right to their perspectives and not be discriminated against because of their beliefs. I cannot, for instance, refuse to hire someone simply because he or she is Catholic or Hindi.

The third significant problem that I have with this law is that it makes a mockery of what is, in fact, an important freedom, defended by the constitution and protected by the courts. I think people's spirituality is so important to them that the state should interfere in this freedom only in the most limited way possible and only in remarkably extenuating circumstances. In other words, we should do our level-headed best to not mess around with other's spirituality. But, this does not give me the right to harm others in the process. By turning a very important right into a form of prejudice, we politicize that right, we turn in from a right into a tool of discrimination. This undermines the right and, frankly, leads people to question its sincerity. In other words, the law does not advance religious freedom (if that is even its aim) but actually hinders the operation of that constitutional protection by turning the idea into a tool of bigotry, rather than the noble right it should be.

Fourth, the operation of this law -- that it is OK to discriminate people if you believe you are right in discriminating -- is actually silly. People periodically say to me "yeah, Andrew, but regardless of what you think, these people sincerely belief that God hates gays and lesbians. This truly does harm their values." To which I reply ... so what? The sincerity of belief is never at question when it comes to the protection of rights. The people who thought blacks were inferior, fit to be a labouring slave class, sincerely and honestly and deeply believed that. The Nazis who thought Jews were a cancer on the body politics, sincerely, truly and deeply believed that. They were not just trying to find some sort of language to trick people and win an election.  The constitution does not say "you have these rights unless someone else sincerely believes that you do not."

Pick another example to see how silly this sounds. "You have the right to free speech unless I happen to believe you don't and as long as I am sincere in my belief, you will be denied free speech." "You have the right to due process of law, unless I happen to honestly believe that you should not have this right. In that case, you don't." You can see immediately what is going on here. You longer have any rights because those rights are not rights but contingent on what others belief and, trust me, someone will also sincerely believe that you should be denied some right. The defense of this law, then, on the basis of the sincerity of its adherents is, well, a silly argument that demonstrates only that those making it have not really thought through their arguments in a very close way.  Thus, the issue of sincerity is never at question and to state that it is, is to miss the point. To accept this argument is to place all rights in jeopardy.

This is not idle chatter on my part. If such rights were accepted by the courts, they become matters of precedent which can bind other jurisdictions and lower courts. The precedent that is being established is something, I suspect, more than the proponents of this law think. I think they think they are establishing this rule: it is OK to discriminate against gays and lesbians. But, what they are actually establishing is this: it is OK to disciminate. And, I think Americans and Canadians should ask themselves this question: is this what we want? We have spent the better part of the last couple of generations fighting against discrimination, against second-class status, against segregation, and all that is associated with that. Do you, I ask Americans, really want to say "you know what, for all that, my desire to not sell a sandwich to a lesbian is so great I am willing to say 'discrimination is OK.'" Where does it end? If we establish the principle that it is OK to discriminate ... where do we stop it? Gays and lesbians ... Blacks ... Jews .... I know people at my work who would discriminate against Christians if they could. The constitution prevents them, but I know people who would not hire a Christian if they could find a legal way to do it.

I oppose that but, oddly, those who say "discrimination is OK" my defend this right -- the right to discriminate against Christians on the basis of religious freedom -- if they want to be taken seriously. Thus, the same principle that defends the marginalization of gays and lesbians, if we accept it, can legitimately be used to refuse service or employment or admission (say, to a school) to anyone ... as long as you sincerely believe that your religion tells you do that. This is, I would argue, a disturbing development and one that I do hope Americans will avoid by nixing such laws right off the bat as opposed to trying to find ways to uphold them.

There are, then, a variety of good reasons to be concerned -- if you were an American -- about the Indiana law. It has no historical perspective and sooner or later its proponents will end up with the image of those people who defended slavery and segregation. They will appear as bigots and you might want to ask yourself, if you favour this law, is this how you want to be remembered? Will you be happy if your granddaughter thinks of you this way? In addition, this law makes a mockery of religious freedom and actually subverts a very important principle by politicizing it and turning it into a tool of bigotry. Third, this rule violates the first principle of freedoms (that they cannot negatively affect others). Fourth, it creates a slippery slope, precedent being what it is, the principle that is being established is that discrimination is OK. Before anyone embraces that principle, I urge you think about its implications.

Finally, let me return to the question I asked above: do private institution have the right to self-regulate. I've argued yes with regard to free speech. I (Andrew Nurse) cannot walk into someone else's house and claim that they have to listen to what I have to say. Thus, for instance, one cannot stroll up to pulpit when the pastor is preaching on Sunday morning and say "look, while I have your attention, can I offer you the deal of a lifetime ... its called Amway ... and ...." The church, as a private institution has every right to say "not now, no, this is not the forum." They cannot stop that person from speaking elsewhere. But, they can say "not hear."

The difference with Indiana is that we are not dealing with speech. Restaurants, I fully agree, have the right to stop people from making speeches that all the customers have to hear. I cannot just go into my favourite eatery with a blow horn and starting campaigning for the Green Party. And, I think everyone understands that and agree with it. Thus, private institutions can regulate the behaviour of people who are on their premises. But, they cannot discriminate on the basis of innate characteristics or protected areas of right. Thus, for instance, I cannot refuse someone admission to Mount Allison (say, to go to school, hear a concert or listen to a public lecture) because of the colour of their skin, their sexual orientation, their gender, or their religion. I can tell them that you cannot start distributing political information about hydro fracking during the concert and would be completely with the bounds of self-regulation to do so. But, I cannot deny that person entrance because they are Black or Jewish or a man.

I might have done a poor job of phrasing the difference in the past and, if so, mea culpa. I apologize for confusing you, but I assume you see the difference. Behaviour and innate characteristics are not the same thing and so have different protections under the law.

To sum up: I hope we are passing through a period of bad ideas with regard to the "let's discrimination against gays and lesbians" idea but I suspect that the proponents of these ideas will be around for a while. In the US, they are attempting to introduce new restrictions on individuals, another historical oddity. Over time, democracy has expanded and those scope of equality has expanded. A society becomes more democratic when more people previously prohibited by custom or law from participation stated to participate, when boundaries were broken and society became more inclusive. These new laws look to restrict that inclusion. For the first time in generations some Americans are looking to find ways to make their society more restrictive and less equal. This is a shame.

Naming Bigotry or Sharia Law Comes to Indiana

There is good news and bad news for those of us watching the American state of Indiana after its recently passed law that makes it legal to refuse service to GLBT on the basis of one's personal beliefs. Oddly, this is very similar to what Christian doctors and dentists are asking for in Canada. If their views happen to infringe on who you are, some group that describes itself -- shakily I might add -- as "Christian" is claiming that they can deny you that right. Oddly enough the issue also turns around sexuality and sexual identity, which might be the subject for a more sustained analysis than I can give to it.  The bad news is that the law passed. If you are gay and walk into a restaurant in Indiana, the staff can say "leave, you're gay. It is legal to refuse to serve and we are." The good news is that just about everyone and their dog dislikes this law. Charles Barkley and Reggie Miller -- two individuals who have been hardly known for their politics -- have made strong statements against it. Likewise, a number of large corporations, some cities, and NFL have issued statements in opposition. The NCAA has noted that it may move its events out of the state if this law persists. I don't know whether they will or they will not but I am heartened to see groups and individuals politicizing around this issue. You can do far worse than stand up for equality.

What I'd like to do in this blog is a number of things. I have been writing a series of blogs about the current historical juncture at which Canadian Christianity finds itself. This issue is peripherally related because, as I just suggested, it is, in effect, what a group of doctors are trying to do in Canada. They are claiming that their religious freedom gives them the right to deny care to people on the basis of their personal views. What I'd like to do is the following:

1. Acknowledge that the Indiana law (one of a series that have been brought forward recently in the US) is in the US. Hence, it is likely not my place as a Canadian to say anything about it. I would, however, like to say something clearly and unequivocally as a Christian.

2. I'd like to suggest that this type of law is odd in the sense that it does legitimize prejudice under the rubric or freedom of religion, which was never the intention of freedom of religion laws or embedded constitutional rights, at least in Canada. I do not think it can be upheld upon court challenge if such a law were to pass some legislature in Canada and I'd like to explain why. Hence, I am also say that the suppose Christian doctors who want to deny care are not going to win their case.

3. Finally, I want to make a note of what this kind of case suggests or implies for Canada.

First things first: I said this is a previous blog but Christian is not about defending one's personal values. Indeed, Christian is about challenging those values. It is not about asserting that one is more moral or right or proper than another person. If you doubt me ... read some scripture. It is not about imposing a morality on society or claiming that society should follow your morality. In other words, I am deeply concerned that Christians are using God to justify their own prejudices and I don't think this helps our case at all. In fact, it makes us look like a bunch of bigots who have no time for people with whom we have personal disagreements based on *our* values. It is the wrong approach and one that Christians should reject. Christianity is about many things. I'd like to believe that is about love, relationships, care of the other, putting God first in one's life, and other things. But, it is not about bigotry or helping to defend or justify bigotry and it is never about providing the state with a religious rationale that justifies or upholds the marginalization of others. It is about breaking those bounds; not drawing the line tighter. We need more Christians to stand up and deny this law. We should not let someone justify their bigotry with recourse to God.

Second, that said, as I was thinking over this issue this weekend, what struck was the similarities between this law and the proponents of state enforced Sharia law in Canada. In Canada, a few years ago, we had a big (overblown) to do about whether or not the state should enforce Sharia law for the Muslim community. That debate still awaits a detailed and sophisticated analysis. Only a very small number of Muslims with more extreme views supported this idea (the state enforcing Sharia law) but it triggered a broad debate in the public sphere, the conclusion of which was this: the state should not enforce private religious beliefs. It is not the state's job to impose religious views on society by making them part of a public legal system. There was broad and deep agreement on this point ... when we were talking about Muslims.

Interestingly, when it comes to talking about Christians ... people seem to stop disagreeing, at least so vehemently and they stop using the same argument. Instead, the tenor of the debate shifts. We are no longer talking about the state enforcing religious law but about a person's religious freedom. In other words, the principle is the same, even if the discourse is different. I'd argue the same point, though. If the state should have no truck or trade with Sharia law; it should have no truck or trade with Christian law.

The argument about "religious freedom" is made to seem a bit more palatable because it sounds like we are defending a freedom: the right of a person to practice their religion. But, by that raises a very slippery and dangerous question that was fully discussed in Canada with the debate over Sharia law. One of one's religious freedom requires the subjugation of others? Can they make that case? Is that not, in fact, one of the aspects of the life under the Taliban that we (Canadians and Americans) supposedly opposed? The exercise of religious freedom required the subjugation of women. Neither the governments of Canada nor the US accepted this and, in fact, used it to defend the military action against the Taliban.  Refusing to serve someone a sandwich may not be the same thing but the principle is the same, is it not? Where my freedom of religion runs up against someone else's equality and freedom ... their equality and freedom must go.

The problem with this situation, of course, is pretty obvious. It does something much more than smuggle prejudice in through the back door. It drags it right in the front door, in full view, and sets up two standards. One for straight people; one for gay people. The law, in other words, falls unevenly across society and affects different people in different ways.  And, this is the primary resource that I do not think that Canadian courts will ever accept this law or some variant of this law.

The Canadian Constitution (the Charter, in particular) guarantees Canadians something that the American Bill is a bit uncertain of: equality before the law and equal treatment of the law. I'm not trying to shoot the US down here; I'm trying to highlight a difference between Canada and the US. In the US, there is clearly a constitutional guarantee to equality. This has been the ground on which US courts have struck down laws banning same sex marriage. A right one person enjoys under law cannot be denied to another person. Canada goes further. We have the same principle (coming out of the same legal heritage) but we have a guarantee of equal benefit of the law.

What does this this mean? Years ago, when gay and lesbian Canadians first campaigned for equality in marriage, the crown mounted a rather interesting defense that was, briefly, accepted by the courts. It went like this: a prohibition on same sex marriage is constitutional because gay and lesbian Canadians have the right to marry and it is the same right enjoyed by straight people. They just have to marry someone of the opposite biological sex. Hence, because a gay man can marry a woman (for example) ... his right to equality is satisfied.

The Canadian constitution and jurisprudence no longer accept this patently silly argument because it still upholds prejudice. Straight Canadians have the right to marry who they will (everything here, by the comes with the proviso "provided they are a competent legal adult") but gay and lesbian Canadians do not. The courts quickly recognized this as the crux of the matter: benefit of the law was falling unevenly and falling unevenly in a way that confirmed already established unequal power relations in society. It served to marginalize already marginalized groups and confirm and reinforce the power of groups that were already power. The right to equality had, in other words, stopped being a right to equality and had, instead, become a mechanism through which the state helped to guarantee, maintain, and enforce inequality based on some people's personal views. The courts in Canada, rightly, said "this is not the purpose of equality provisions"

Because the US lacks the same commitment to equal benefit of the law in its constitution as Canada maintains, I suspect that it will be more difficult to eliminate laws that maintain prejudice. It took a long time to eliminate laws that discriminated against blacks, for instance, and I suspect that it will take a while for US courts to make a clear ruling against bigotry. In Canada, I suspect the courts will make that statement early. In other words, the US situation should not be the Canadian situation and this is not just wishful thinking on my part. The differences in the constitutional guarantees of equality are significant enough and nuanced enough that it should be difficult to use the law to enforce private religious views.