Human Rights: A Zero-Sum Game

The recent New York Times article 'Will Same-Sex Marriage Collide With Religious Liberty?' is rare among mainstream media articles for its recognition of religious liberty as a human right.

Human rights are the language of humanism and although humanism derived from both Christian and atheist thinkers during the Renaissance in modern times it is almost synonymous with non-religious secular humanism or secularism. A googling of humanism turns up at least four national humanist organisations ([1], [2], [3], [4]) that all equate humanism with secularist, atheist, agnostic or generally non-religious worldviews. Interestingly these tend to offer "non-religious, civil, humanist funeral, wedding, affirmation, baby naming ceremonies", that is, they are virtually a drop-in replacement for religion. On the other hand a googling for Christian humanism finds every second link denouncing humanism as antithetical to Christianity.

Little wonder then you rarely hear of anyone speaking of religious liberty as a human right. The (secular) humanists see religion as an evil to be tolerated 'between consenting adults in private' while the Christian establishment tends to see human rights as a concept derived from an anti-Christian worldview.

So it's rare to read:

For Professor Sunstein, same-sex marriage does not raise qualitatively new issues so much as intensify existing tensions "between antidiscrimination norms and deeply held religious convictions."

For Professor Feldblum, the only honest position is to admit that "we are in a zero-sum game in terms of moral values." In her view, the dignity and equality of gay people should almost always outweigh considerations of religious freedom, though she believes that such freedom might weigh more heavily for religious institutions "geared just towards members of the faith" as opposed to those that interact broadly with the general public.

This is an unusually blunt statement of the secularist conviction that religious liberty is a second-class human right. It shouldn't be violated if possible, but when it comes to a clash between religious freedom and any other human right, religious freedom is expendable.

If you're interested, it is worth reading the three Humanist Manifesto's ([1], [2], [3]) to see the gradual shift in the way they talk about and relate to traditional religion. The first speaks of 'religious humanism' as being something better than traditional religion, the second explicitly denounces traditional religion and emphasises the varieties of humanism most of which are non-religious, the third and most recent doesn't even contain the word 'religion' or 'religious.'

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