Pete Buttigieg was the candidate that most of my liberal family members supported early in the 2019 Democratic primary. Young, moderate, religious, status quo, veteran. Someone the country could unite behind.
In a CNN town hall, when asked about whether the Bible teaches us to deny services to the LGBTQ community, he had a lot of very reasonable things to say:
Religious liberty is an important principle in this country, and we honor that. It’s also the case that any freedom that we honor in this country has limits when it comes to harming other people. We say that the right to free speech does not include the right to yell “fire” in a crowded theater. A famous justice once said, “my right to swing my fist ends where somebody else’s nose begins.” And the right to religious freedom ends where religion is being used as an excuse to harm other people.
This is an excellent political answer. Because every word of it is true, and your supporters can stretch the meaning to relate to the question asked. But if your opponents do the same thing, you can easily claim, “I never said that.”
What does it mean to do harm?
We have religious freedom in this country, but we do not have the right to stone adulterers, we do not have the right to execute our daughters to preserve family honor, we do not have the right to sacrifice virgins to appease the gods. “My right to swing my fist ends where somebody else’s nose begins.”
But is it harm to deny a service?
Do I owe everybody kindness? Does my right to religious freedom end when someone hears the words I say? Or do I have the right to hurt somebody’s feelings with what I consider to be the truth?
Do I owe everybody a job? Does my right to religious freedom end when I exchange money for the help I need? Or do I have the right to choose who I hire for whatever reason I think is important?
Do I owe everybody my services? Does my right to religious freedom end when I accept money in exchange for my labor? Or do I have the right to not take their money for whatever reason I choose to not want it?
The civil rights era was a singular time in history. The power of the federal government fell heavy on the heads of those whose bigotry shrouded half the country. And the general consensus is that it was right, in that case, to do so.
But is it still right today? Is it still right in this case? If an airline won’t hire muslim pilots, is there not another airline desperate for qualified applicants? If a baker won’t provide a wedding cake for a gay wedding, is there not an equally tasty option just down the street that would happily take the money?
I cannot deny that civil rights law opened up services to black people that they absolutely deserved, that they absolutely would not have had if not for the law. But I fear that modern civil rights pushes are taking away more rights than they are providing.
Not that I disagree with anything that Buttigieg said.
