Archbishop Duncan's Stand for Religion Freedom

[david at virtueonline.org]

Archbishop Duncan's Stand for Religion Freedom

A reflection by Brian Walsh 
http://www.anglicandoma.org/ 
February 8, 2012


 In an open letter on January 11, ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan took a public stand that many Christian clergy and laity should increasingly be prepared to take. 

The highly ecumenical letter was signed by 35 Christian and Jewish leaders. 

In it, the leaders reaffirmed the monumental importance of America's blemished-yet-nonetheless-exemplary history of affording religious freedom to persons of all religious faiths. 

The letter was an exceedingly timely expression of Jesus' admonition that His followers are the salt of the earth and light of the world.  Recent legal and policy decisions have grown increasingly hostile to religious freedom.

As recent news and commentary attest, such decisions include the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' regulation mandating that religious schools, religious charities, and other religious employers fund "free" contraceptives, sterilization services, and prescription drugs that can terminate pregnancies. 

The concern for religious freedom expressed in Archbishop Duncan's letter stems from legislators' and judges' step-by-step imposition upon Americans of a new definition of "marriage," one that officially sanctions men wedding men and women wedding women.  

The 35 Christian and Jewish leaders emphasized that these aggressively secularist decisions invite the "peril" of state and federal officials "forcing or pressuring both individual and religious organizations ... to treat same-sex conduct as the equivalent of marital conduct." This is no idle speculation. 

For example, in just the past two months, federal appeals courts in Cincinnati and Atlanta have issued opinions in two cases (Julea Ward and Jennifer Keeton) involving university counseling students expelled for refusing to affirm the moral rectitude and goodness of sexual conduct outside of marriage.  

Julea Ward was entering the final term of her Eastern Michigan University counseling program and held a 3.91 grade-point average. 

EMU does not dispute that Ward was willing to counsel gay and lesbian clients as part of her program's clinical studies.  

What she was unwilling to do was to affirm in her counseling sessions that sexual conduct between members of the same sex is morally good.

For that reason, Ward's faculty advisor instructed her to refer a gay client to another counselor, but Ward was expelled for doing so. Although what will happen with Julea Ward's claims against EMU and with her counseling career remains to be seen, the Cincinnati appeals court held that Ward is entitled to let a jury decide her case. 

In a case with some similarities, the Atlanta appeals court did not grant Jennifer Keeton a similarly hopeful result. 

Although the opinion has little weight as legal precedent, Keeton lost her initial bid to have to have Augusta State University reinstate her to her counseling program.  

Far more concerning for supporters of religious freedom is the February 7 decision on marriage in the Perry case by the federal appeals court in San Francisco. 

The court declared that the people of California violated the U.S. Constitution when they voted to add to their constitution the statement, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."  

The appeals court acknowledged that the official meaning of the word "marriage" carries "extraordinary significance."  

But it decided there can be no "legitimate reason" for California's 2008 amendment that revoked the judge-made "right" of same-sex unions to be officially recognized as "marriages."  

The Perry case is likely to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. A majority of justices could decide to "find" a new fundamental right in the Constitution and declare that "marriage" must include unions between members of the same sex. If they do, the violations of religious liberty experienced by Julea Ward and Jennifer Keeton are likely to become commonplace.  

Followers of Jesus know that, just as government is not our savior, it is not the ultimate provider or protector of our natural, God-given rights. Further, the Church of Jesus Christ can and does flourish even where government opposition is rampant. 

But just as we have a God-given responsibility to provide for the current and future material needs of our children and grandchildren (e.g., Prov. 13:22), we also have a God-given responsibility to care for the spiritual and moral well-being of future generations.  

It would be dishonoring and sinful to squander a financial inheritance our parents had given us to oversee for our own and our children's benefit. American religious freedom is an enormous inheritance with which we have been entrusted for the benefit of ourselves and future generations.   

It has been said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.  It appears the time has come when we may no longer safely delegate the responsibility for that vigilance to our top leaders. Many of us must instead be prepared to take the type of public stand for religious freedom that Archbishop Duncan has taken.

Brian Walsh is the Executive Director, American Religious Freedom at the Ethics and Public Policy Center