Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Allen Reinach
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000232A
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00:23 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:25 This is the program that brings you 00:26 up-to-date news, views, information, discussion 00:30 and analysis on religious liberty events 00:32 in the United States and around the world. 00:35 My name is Lincoln Steed and I edit Liberty Magazine 00:38 and my guest on the program is Attorney Allen Reinach, 00:42 Executive Director of the Church State Council 00:45 and someone who in California 00:47 was very much involved with Proposition 8, right? 00:51 We did advocate, try to teach people 00:54 why marriage is a good thing in the law. 00:58 Right, and so as a natural consequence, 01:00 I'm sure you have opinions over recent Supreme Court decisions 01:04 and a particular one really setting aside 01:08 through lack of standing the California case. 01:11 You know, and I have to say, Lincoln, my real concern is not 01:16 that same sex couples are gaining rights. 01:19 I have no problem with extending rights 01:23 to same sex couples. 01:25 What my concern is, 01:26 is if this is gonna be the knockout punch 01:29 to the rights of conscience. 01:31 The first knockout blow was the Peyote case 01:36 more than 20 years ago where the Supreme Court, 01:39 you know, Scalia's rhetoric was, 01:42 well, if we protect free exercise of religion, 01:44 then every conscience becomes a law unto itself. 01:48 And so from a traditional Roman Catholic perspective, 01:52 he was much more concerned about 01:55 the authority of the community 01:56 than the rights of the individual. 01:58 So you explain what happened--peyote, 02:01 what is peyote? 02:03 Well, peyote is cactus. 02:05 Is that another name for marijuana? 02:07 It's a hallucinogenic cactus 02:09 that is used by some Native American physicians. 02:13 As part of their religious spiritual traditions. 02:21 And what was the logic of the conclusion 02:23 or how does it state there? 02:25 The logic was that religious conscience has no standing, 02:31 no right to object to laws, in this case, 02:36 a criminal prohibition on the use of peyote 02:39 that applies broadly to everybody. 02:41 It completely turned the whole concept 02:44 of the first amendment upside down, 02:46 that we no longer have any respect 02:49 for free exercise of religion. 02:51 I agree with you, 02:52 I mean it's just patently obvious 02:54 because that cited in so many cases 02:56 that it's a negative effect 02:58 on the free exercise of religion. 03:00 So first we devalue free exercise 03:04 and the rights of conscience 03:05 and now what we're doing legally 03:08 is we are elevating the rights 03:11 of same sex relationships and homosexuals, 03:15 so that their rights are respected legally 03:20 are greater than religious freedom. 03:24 And so we have an imbalance in the legal system. 03:27 It's a neither or isn't it? 03:30 That since religious viewpoint 03:33 toward homosexuality holds moral stands on it, 03:36 therefore it must be removed 03:38 since it's at odds with this new found right. 03:41 Well, before... 03:42 So it's pitting one right against the other 03:44 which is not good. 03:45 There is a conflict but let me say at the outset, 03:47 I don't think there's a necessary conflict because.. 03:50 And that's what we need to discuss no need whatsoever. 03:52 In my view if you are going to respect the individual's right 03:57 before God to have their own values, 04:00 their own beliefs to worship God 04:02 according to the dictates of conscience, 04:04 then it means that the same right 04:06 that you extend to the Christian, 04:08 you extend to the gay to order their own lives peacefully 04:13 according to their own values, 04:15 a right, basic right of self determination. 04:20 Now you put a loaded word there, the Christian and the gay. 04:23 Well, it's not just the Christian, 04:25 I mean it's the Jews, it's the Muslims, 04:27 it's people with many faiths. 04:29 There are gays who take the name Christian, 04:31 obviously this are, taken at the plain 04:36 reading the Bible enjoins Christians 04:41 not to behave that way, 04:44 but I know that many gays would like to say, you know, 04:47 I'm a Christian, boy, you can't say I'm not a Christian 04:49 because so it isn't really gays versus Christian, 04:52 it's a Christian viewpoint or Christian community viewpoint 04:57 that should be protected as it normally 05:00 or in the past was by the first amendment. 05:02 Here's society and its civil sphere 05:05 has chose to give new rights 05:08 that historically were not available to a group 05:11 that even secular society saw as immoral 05:13 but that's been granted. 05:15 And just because that's been granted 05:17 should not be used to restrict the thoughts, 05:21 behavior and prerogative religious people 05:24 and neither should they try to... 05:26 But that's where the danger comes. 05:28 In California as in other parts of the country, 05:33 religious freedom has been sent 05:35 to the back of the civil rights bus and even though 05:39 religious freedom is a constitutional right, 05:41 free speech is a constitutional right, 05:44 our court has elevated gay rights as a stand 05:50 which is protected by statue is trumps, 05:56 these fundamental constitutional rights 05:59 and they said so explicitly in a case 06:02 where family planning doctors in a clinic declined 06:08 to provide in-vitro fertilization 06:11 for a lesbian woman 06:13 and the court said explicitly that the rights of gays 06:18 trump free speech and religious freedom. 06:20 And it's very ironic to me 06:22 because you've mentioned civil rights, 06:25 the civil rights movement didn't 06:27 just come from a Christian basis, 06:30 it arrived, it's very logic 06:33 from Christian imperatives, right? 06:37 And so to use that model and then tend it on religion, 06:41 to me it's not just dangerous, it's illogical. 06:46 And I think the point of illogic 06:49 is to call the movement for gay rights 06:52 as civil rights movement, it's not the same, 06:55 it's certainly legitimate, 06:56 I mean from the secular point of view, 06:58 if these are people protected by law, 07:00 you know we long ago 07:02 decriminalized homosexual behavior, 07:05 people tend to forget there's a two step here. 07:07 I think many Christians are really in fact trying to stop 07:13 and condemn and argue against gay behavior 07:16 but we're way over that, 07:18 the gay marriage thing is really just civil construct. 07:22 It's not really talking about morality anymore, 07:24 that's talking about things like inheritance, visitation 07:27 and you know with the staple register this arrangement, 07:32 but it's not moral in itself. 07:35 It's the human behavior there, 07:37 but I just do not like the fact 07:39 that African-Americans brought into slavery 07:43 in the United States during, you know, 07:46 whole period before the Civil War, 07:49 where they were chattel after the Civil War, 07:52 with Jim Crow and the lynching here and so on, 07:55 you know right up to the '60s when I came to the USA, 07:58 it was still, I've been down at south 08:00 where there were different water fountains and over it. 08:02 And it was purely because of the racial origins of someone, 08:06 they look different, they are different, 08:08 I mean I'm different from an African, from an Asian, 08:11 whatever this is a human state, 08:14 an inherit state, you can't change it. 08:16 Remember what does the Bible says 08:17 the leopard change its spots. 08:18 Well, and of course that... 08:20 So to equate that with behavior 08:22 and of course some in the gay and human behavior, 08:28 Rome tried to argue that it's inherent, 08:32 we don't even need to definitely define that. 08:34 The facts are its behavior, 08:35 that human beings have control over 08:38 and they've opted for that and we now respect it civilly 08:41 but to equate that with the Civil Rights movement, 08:44 I think it's wrong on many fronts. 08:46 So let's take a look at some examples 08:49 of how it is that gay rights have worked 08:53 to disadvantage religious freedom. 08:56 Our case in point, 08:57 I've been a lifelong member of the Christian Legal Society 09:02 which is a fellowship of Christian Lawyers. 09:04 I joined our Student Chapter 09:07 University of North Carolina Law School in the '80s, 09:10 when I was in law school. 09:12 CLS, Christian Legal Society 09:15 has a very broad statement to faith that does two things. 09:20 You affirm, your faith in Christ 09:22 as your savior and you pledge yourself 09:25 to biblical faithfulness and sexual relations. 09:29 Well, not surprisingly it was in San Francisco of all places 09:34 at the University of California Hastings Law School 09:37 that the Christian Legal Society was excluded 09:43 because of their statement of faith. 09:45 And the case went all the way to the Supreme Court 09:48 and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the University 09:53 in a case that many of us really thought 09:56 was a no-brainer, because here for the first time, 10:00 a religious group is being told 10:04 that it cannot determine 10:10 who deserves to be a member 10:13 based on their religious beliefs and practices, 10:18 that they have to, 10:19 you know they can call themselves Christian, 10:22 but effectively they have to allow 10:25 anybody of any belief to join. 10:28 Now the school... 10:29 It's one of the worst decisions that ever came down. 10:31 The school had never applied this policy. 10:34 For example, there are Asian students groups, 10:38 black students groups, Latino student groups, 10:41 had they require these groups to open up their membership? 10:45 These are groups that effectively discriminated 10:49 on the basis of race, on national origin 10:52 and they were permitted to do so, 10:54 but the Christian group could not discriminate 10:57 on the basis of religion and I think the thing 11:00 that really set off the administration was 11:03 that they would effectively exclude practicing homosexuals 11:07 because of their sexuality. 11:10 And so we see here a very clear case 11:13 where religious freedom takes a backseat 11:15 to the right of gays to be free of discrimination. 11:20 And by the way, I'm a big believer 11:24 in the right of gays not to be discriminated against. 11:27 I don't think that Christians 11:28 should discriminate or anybody should discriminate 11:31 against gays, that's not right. 11:33 It's not just gays 11:34 and this is the one aspect of this discussion 11:37 that always makes me increasingly uncomfortable. 11:40 You know, there's the-- in of the world 11:42 in the flesh of the devil, 11:44 you know we call the holiness to godly living, 11:48 but out there anybody that doesn't 11:51 take the name of Christ or profess 11:53 the same moral construct as me, 11:55 they do many, many things all the way 11:58 from eating sometimes different food than me, 12:00 they operate differently on the moral thing, 12:02 their priorities are different. 12:06 Yes, homosexuality is a sort of lightning rod 12:09 for many of us not just on religion, 12:11 you know, it has a baggage but why we should focus on this? 12:16 I mean we're forced to now, 12:17 but we need to keep explaining to people 12:19 that it's not the only prohibition in the Bible, 12:24 it's not the only marker of someone 12:25 who hasn't come on to a biblical idea. 12:28 Well, you know, Lincoln, you were to reminding them. 12:31 I teach church audiences 12:33 that if you want to join our church, 12:35 you have to learn to sin like we do 12:37 because all churches, you know, 12:40 and our Seventh-day Adventist church among them, 12:42 you know, there are certain sins 12:44 we will exclude you because of those sins, 12:47 but then there's other sins 12:49 that run rampant within the church and... 12:51 And to be morally consistent 12:53 and to be morally consistent as a Christian is 12:56 what Jesus said to the woman found in adultery, 12:59 who was a fellow believer, 13:01 she was a Jew, she wasn't a Gentile. 13:03 But He says, I don't condemn you 13:05 but go and sin no more. 13:06 So the most we can say to someone is, 13:09 you know, this is not good behavior, 13:10 you shouldn't be doing it, 13:11 but if they have made a profession of Christ, 13:14 we have no right to even say that, we just, 13:16 our message should be to clarify what we believe 13:19 that we believe to follow God is 13:22 to follow certain moral norms, 13:24 but we can't condemn a non believer. 13:27 The tragedy of the culture wars is it 13:30 somehow Christianity has become exclusive 13:33 and hostile to homosexuals. 13:38 The fact is Christ died to save everyone. 13:41 And we're all sinners. 13:42 All have sinned and fallen short. 13:44 The gospel is inclusive and we have somehow made 13:48 the gospel made Christ the enemy of gays 13:51 and that's just wrong. 13:52 But I do believe, and we're running 13:53 out of time in the first thing, 13:55 but prior to what's going on here in United States 13:57 where there's the most opposition is this assumption 14:00 that this is a Christian republic 14:03 and even our civil society 14:04 is an extension of a Christian America, and it's not. 14:08 I wish it we're more societally, uniformly Bible believing. 14:14 That's another question but it's certainly not 14:16 governmentally or in a structure way 14:19 religious old Christian. 14:21 We'll be back after a short break 14:23 to further this discussion. 14:24 Stay with us. |
Revised 2014-12-17