The Death of Imagination

I probably won't carry this discussion very far, since (as I noted when first raising the issue) my energy for old-fashioned Usenet-style political scrums isn't what it used to be. I felt (and feel) strongly enough to post visible support on what I think is an important issue as a matter of nailing my flag to the mast, but I've more or less given up on convincing anyone of anything with my sparkling rhetoric. I'm getting too old and/or tired to fight over whether I'm Right on the Internet. (And if I got no visible support there where the potential readership was all people I actually know, I expect to do rather worse in what's, let's face it, a less friendly room.) So if/when the brickbats start to fly, I'm done, and the field is y'all's.

I'll also note that I'd never heard of Sterling till your post. (There were some nonspecific tweets flying around about racist old white dudes that I now assume referenced him, but not by name.) And even for me, there are some things that life is too short to research. So I'll stipulate the content of the Badash piece as far as the facts of the case go.

As I said then, I grant the basic premise that there are opinions that cross a red line. Obvious uncontroversial example: everyone agrees that if someone comes out as a Nazi, they're basically done in decent society. They can't be jailed for it (though odds of scrutiny for the multiple felonies that every American is guilty of probably go way up), but they have good odds of losing their job and otherwise being social and economic pariahs except among the like-minded. And while I might object to some of that (I really hate some of the ways selective prosecution has developed, even if the target is deserving) I agree with the principle that there are publicly voiced opinions for which civil society properly shows intolerance.

On the other hand, the pluralistic society I want to live in requires that there be a broad range of conflicting opinions on which people can disagree, however bitterly, without consigning their opponents to that sort of pariah status. The limits of tolerance should fall only where something is both extreme and threatening.

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(Communism used to have that status, not without justification. But it faded long before the USSR fell, and how many people who think Eich got what he deserved think the same of the Hollywood Ten?)

Given American history, public racial bigotry certainly fits comfortably. If Sterling had intentionally gone on the air to say those things, we can grant that the team or the ticket buyers would reasonably demand that he go away, and reasonably follow that up with a strike or boycott respectively if he didn't.¹

On the other hand, not every race-based policy disagrement is created equal. Conflicting opinions on affirmative action, for example, doesn't strike me as justification to call for socioeconomic oblivion in either direction. Ditto reparations for slavery.

Same thing here. Yes, there are expressions of anti-gay bigotry that properly fall beyond that pale. But no, I don't think that holding what's still a mainstream opinion about how marriage should be defined (and/or a strong opinion that such matters should be determined legislatively rather than by the courts) are among them.

I also believe that political action should get an extra degree of social tolerance precisely because it's the arena in which disputes ought to be resolved. (Basically, there should be social incentives for fighting fairly and openly, rather than by extralegal or corrupt means.)

Organized or not, petitions for his removal and Firefox boycotts are the only reason I ever heard of Eich. And I don't believe they should have happened.

(Note: the participants absolutely had every right to engage in both. I believe it was a bad, illiberal choice, not that they shouldn't have been able to make it.)

¹Racism in a private conversation is an interesting question. The piece doesn't say how TMZ got the audio, or where it came from. If it was captured from something that's would have reasonably been thought private-- a phone call, a conversation someplace not obviously observed-- I'm a lot more leery about taking action over it. Reexamining his previous public behavior, sure, and oftentimes that leads to "oh, everybody knew" coming from all corners. But my baseline is that public life is all about the ability of people to get along despite holding opinions they'd hate each other's guts over. That's one of the reasons I hate the steady erosion of privacy. But that at least pertains less to Eich.

(The issue isn't absent: one of the facts of our brave new world is the erosion of the class of information that's public-but-obscure. Minor long-ago arrests and youthful embarrassments are causing all sorts of problems that they didn't formerly. The reasons for keeping ballots secret would arguably apply to campaign contributions as well, if there weren't questions of corruption that demand some public scrutiny of the latter.)

Edited Date: 2014-04-28 09:57 pm (UTC)

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I also believe that political action should get an extra degree of social tolerance precisely because it's the arena in which disputes ought to be resolved. (Basically, there should be social incentives for fighting fairly and openly, rather than by extralegal or corrupt means.)

Isn't the fact that "extralegal or corrupt means" are prosecutable incentive enough? And, if it's not, isn't that a prescription for more robust prosecution?

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You live in Chicago and ask that? :-) You have to be found out, and someone has to bother to prosecute you, and they have to win. That's a lot harder than googling the campaign finance database, especially if there are people who have something to lose if you're stopped.

If making an unpopular opinion known (or a known opinion becoming retroactively unpopular) risks ruining your livelihood, that's a huge disincentive to make any but popular opinions known. That kind of chills the incentive to participate in any but the most anodyne politics, doesn't it? (There are brave people who'll run those sorts of risks, and become famous heroes or hissings and bywords depending how it works out. But they're the exception.)

If you still want to influence matters, at least doing it secretly (and hence, generally, corruptly) offers the chance you won't be ruined by an unpopular choice.

("More robust prosecution" has filled American prisons to an unprecedented degree. Since crime rates are down, maybe there's some causation there, though I'm skeptical. But offenses haven't gone down to the same degree that inmate numbers have gone up. There are limits to what throwing the book at 'em can do.)

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But no, I don't think that holding what's still a mainstream opinion about how marriage should be defined (and/or a strong opinion that such matters should be determined legislatively rather than by the courts) are among them.

It would be very interesting to hear from someone who claims to support same-sex marriage in principle but to have voted for Proposition 8 strictly on procedural grounds. Sounds pretty convoluted to me, but you're more familiar with such manifestations of libertarian doublethink than I am.

I think it's important to keep in mind how exceptional Proposition 8 was among same-sex marriage bans even for its time. It was the only one that sought to invalidate existing marriages. (They were ultimately grandfathered in, but that was not a provision of the law and thousands of couples spent nearly a year in legal limbo before that was sorted out in the courts.) This gave it an air of spitefulness that other measures lacked--an air which was only enhanced by the vile negative campaigning of the pro side, whose ads equated homosexuals with child molesters. It was like Anita Bryant had never left the political stage. The straight people defending Eich (no offence) seem largely to have forgotten about this, but we haven't. (The tv spots are preserved on youtube, btw, in case you need your own memory refreshed.)

This is what Eich supported with his donation. He didn't just hold the opinion that same-sex marriage was undesirable, he aided a campaign that used scare tactics and outright lies to strip his fellow citizens of their legal protections and deny their extension to others. This is what he was asked to disavow, and he wouldn't.

To be honest, I was on the fence about the whole affair until I read Eich's CNET interview. I found the disconnect there gobsmacking. He says saw in his friends' eyes the pain he'd caused them but refused to say whether, given the chance, he'd inflict that same pain again, which makes his apology for "causing" it sound pretty damn insincere. It reminded me of nothing so much as a disciplinarian saying, "I'm sorry I had to hit you." (The implication being "But I had every right to, since you deserved it, and I'll do it again if I feel like it.") This is on top of the basic disconnect of saying that he's been as "inclusive" of his LGBT staff as anyone while at the same time voting away their right to equal treatment--as if what happens in the misty realm of politics has no concrete impact on people's actual lives.

At that point, I thought, "Who would want to work for this kind of psycho? What company would want him to be their public face?" He was technically right that he didn't owe anyone an explanation for his political activity outside of work, but it hardly shows good faith when you're trying to reassure someone you've injured in the past and who is justifiably worried you'll do it again. This is exactly what Mark Surman was getting at when he wrote, "Brendan didn’t need to change his mind on Proposition 8 to get out of the crisis of the past week. He simply needed to project and communicate empathy. His failure to do so proved to be his fatal flaw as CEO."

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It's hard for me to see what principle the middle ground of "no more same-sex marriages, but current ones stand" could come from. It's an imaginable political compromise, but one that can't reflect the values of either side. (And one that's really hard to imagine remaining stable, though stranger things have happened. Obviously not in this case, though.) Either same-sex marriages should be recognized by the law or they shouldn't.

I didn't see his concern as insincere, but conflicted: he's friends and colleagues with people with whom he disagrees over a matter of public policy and who likewise feel strongly. That's pretty much electoral politics in a nutshell, isn't it? (Unless one is very careful about whom one associates with, anyway.) If you want the high-speed rail line, you can feel genuinely bad about the people who are going to lose their homes to it, while still thinking it passes overall cost-benefit. You can think it's right to send troops to Europe in WWII, while still finding it hard to look your isolationist neighbor in the eye when she gets the telegram about her son. Thinking a policy is right isn't incompatible with being aware of or regretting the pain it inflicts.

(If anything, the opposite-- "because this policy is good, I'll either deny any harm, or else assert that all affected deserve it good and hard"-- strikes me as more insincere. Though the net demonstrates to me daily that it's extraordinarily common across the spectrum.)

But just to be clear: am I correct that you believe he should only have been able to remain CEO if he declared his 2008 position wrong, and publicly came out in support of same-sex marriage?

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No, I do not believe that.

Part of the point I was making is that you can and should be able to separate opposition to same-sex marriage from support for Prop 8. Moreover, throughout your responses, you've been making the point that what should be not allowed by society and what should be forbidden by law can and should be diverge. People like Eich were free to discourage people from contracting same-sex marriages before and they are free to continuing discouraging them now, regardless of what the law says.

I can't see any cost-benefit analysis of same-sex marriage which favours its opponents. The cost to those whose relationships are denied recognition is huge and extremely concrete; the societal benefits to disallowing them are completely nebulous. It's not at all comparable to a rail line or an intervention overseas.

Either same-sex marriages should be recognized by the law or they shouldn't.

At the time Prop 8 was passed, it should've been clear to anyone paying attention that that ship had sailed, that--as Gavin Newsom notoriously pointed out--same-sex marriage was coming to California and that all that all a legislative measure could do was, at most, delay it a few years--in the meantime inflicting useless suffering on hundreds of thousands of people. As I say above, the degree of spitefulness on display was sickening.

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Part of the point I was making is that you can and should be able to separate opposition to same-sex marriage from support for Prop 8. Moreover, throughout your responses, you've been making the point that what should be not allowed by society and what should be forbidden by law can and should be diverge. People like Eich were free to discourage people from contracting same-sex marriages before and they are free to continuing discouraging them now, regardless of what the law says.

Fair enough-- I formulated that badly. Does he need to support same-sex marriages being legally recognized, independent of any personal reservations on the subject he may have?

I can't see any cost-benefit analysis of same-sex marriage which favours its opponents. The cost to those whose relationships are denied recognition is huge and extremely concrete; the societal benefits to disallowing them are completely nebulous. It's not at all comparable to a rail line or an intervention overseas.

Unless you really want me to, I don't think it's worth making a case I don't personally believe in against same-sex marriage. I do believe that opponents are sincere in expecting dire consequences, at least some of which I think are merely wrong. (As opposed to dishonest, crazy, or malicious.)

Some of those are based on values I don't share, but that I think people can legitimately have. (E.g., religious views that inform their concept of public morality.) Some are based on concerns I sympathize with, but disagree with in specifics, like the basic Burkean conservative principle that you don't lightly make unprecedented changes to bedrock social institutions, precisely because you can't reliably envision all the consequences.

To pick one example: Marriage as an institution is in decline by various metrics, with various bad consequences that disproportionately affect the poor. (That's potentially a whole side-conversation of its own. But even if you disagree, will you stipulate that it's a widely-held belief that a person of good will might believe?)

I don't personally think that same-sex marriage is likely to have a significant effect on that.¹ But if I believed that same-sex marriage would accelerate the trend, I'd count that as a strike against it. It's pretty clear that a lot of opponents do believe that-- in which case the choice would be about which minority should suffer.

¹I used to think that the effect would be strongly positive, on the theory that an influx of people who'd had to fight for the right to marry would consider it especially important. I'm less convinced of that now, but still think the effect is positive-to-neutral.

(Hit the character limit again. :-) To be continued.)

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At the time Prop 8 was passed, it should've been clear to anyone paying attention that that ship had sailed, that--as Gavin Newsom notoriously pointed out--same-sex marriage was coming to California and that all that all a legislative measure could do was, at most, delay it a few years

I don't think that was so clear as all that. Trends can reverse given time, as anyone who remembers the Cold War knows well enough. (For decades, countries only went from non-Communist to Communist. The process might be stopped early with outside intervention, but to a first approximation no country ever made the reverse transition. Until suddenly, with a handful of exceptions, they all did.) Marijuana legalization looked inevitable for a short while a generation before it started to happen (assuming it really sticks this time)-- places like Ann Arbor made it a $5 ticket, Conservative voices like William F. Buckley favored decriminalization. Then the 80s saw a reversal, and a doubling down on the drug war. The NRA spent decades steadily losing ground on gun rights before starting, very recently, to dramatically win.

And if a trend is bad, perceived inevitability is a poor reason to cooperate with it.

Turn it around: suppose a world in which same-sex marriage rights existed, but were where Civil Rights were in the post-Reconstruction era: enacted and theoretically guaranteed by the law, but in practice under steady assault with no help forthcoming from the federal courts. Something like Prop 8 goes on the ballot. If it loses now, it'll probably win in three years-- the trend in public opinion is very clear.

Do you wait for the inevitable? Or do you fight it, and hope that the tide changes before the next go-round?

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Does he need to support same-sex marriages being legally recognized, independent of any personal reservations on the subject he may have?

I'm still not quite sure what you're getting at, as I can think of at least four different ways to address this question:

1. What public stance satisfies my notion of a perfectly moral society?
2. What public stance do I think should satisfy the most members of our society?
3. What public stance would have satisfied Eich's employer, the Mozilla Corporation?
4. What public stance would satisfy me personally (to the point that I would not consider taking political action against Mozilla, such as boycotting their products)?

For obvious reasons, I'm only truly comfortable answering (1) and (4), but I'm not sure whether those are the answers you're interested in or not. I think Surman and others have answered (3) adequately, and if they haven't, there's nothing I can add because I'm not privy to any additional information beyond their public statements.

But I guess (2) is what we're debating at this point. As I said, the minimum I would want from anyone I chose to work for was an assurance that they would not seek to violate my civil rights or strip me of equal protection under the law. That strikes me as a reasonable minimum standard for a CEO or business owner and seems to be the one everyone (except The Donald, of course) is comfortable holding Sterling to.

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Sterling wasn't even trying to strip anyone of their rights, was he? (At least in the recorded conversation-- I understand that the not unexpected "oh, he was always a giant racist-- for example..." anecdotes have started to emerge, so he may have tried to elsewhere for all I know.) He expressed opinions that we don't tolerate (at least from public figures-- people's mileage and willingness to fight with older relatives may vary) regardless of whether they're acted on.

"Thoughtcrime" isn't quite the right word, since of course he's not being criminally punished. Maybe "thought tort", since he's being financially penalized, expelled from an organization, and (maybe-- as I understand it they're still seeing if this is possible under the rules) deprived of his ownership of certain property?

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Thanks for being willing to reply here,

lhn, and hopefully we'll be able to meet your conditions. (Anyone who flings a brickbat will have me to answer to.)

I have a problem with the assumption that there is "a red line". Any reasonably intelligent observer accepts that there is a range of unacceptability and, hence, a range of appropriate responses. Not every bigoted and illiberal opinion merits pariahship, but that still leaves a wide array of options.

The Eich case demonstrated this. Eich's donation became public two years ago, but it didn't lead to calls for his resignation. Some of that may be due to a turn in the tide of history: we've reached the tipping point on this issues, and those of us who were most deeply personally affected are feeling our oats. But more of it, I think, is on account of his role: a CTO is not a CEO, not in what they represent or how they are perceived.

Even so, the outcry was muted at first. Only a minority were calling for his resignation, and some of them later acknowledged that they would've been content with a public apology. As Gillespie (and others--including, as I mentioned to you earlier, Mark Surman) have pointed out, Eich could've kept his job if he'd only been a little less stubborn. Neither the demands nor the outcome seem excessive to me, which is why I'm struggling to understand why this is the straw the broke the camel's back (for a particular subset of camels, at least).

As you point out, selective prosecution is troubling even when the target is deserving. But so is selective defence. People get dismissed for their opinions all the time. Many of these people are very prominent. Some of them are CEOs. The opinions often relate to homosexuality. So why did this case involving this opinion generate the kind of condemnation it did? None of the answers I can find to that question are very generous to the participants.

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To answer your last question first, it's more disappointing when one side fails of (what's perceived as) its own ideals. Toleration of diverse opinions was practically a catechism of liberal American politics, at least back before it called itself progressive. (That's certainly what I thought I was supposed to be learning when they taught me about the blacklist and loyalty oaths and endless YA stories about people being ostracized for being different, and how that was a bad thing.) If it only matters when it's your side getting it in the neck, it's not a principle, it's a tactic.

(Obviously it is for some people-- the history of sympathetic underdogs pleading for tolerance demanding orthodoxy when in power is long and unedifying. Obviously you think that's the case here among some or all of the signatories. All I can say for my own part is that I think I'm sincere. And I've certainly voted with my feet to always live and work where I'm out of step politically, which I probably wouldn't do if I hoped eventually to be able to enforce like-mindedness.)

I have the same reaction when Republican administrations crush federalism in favor of a pet cause, or blow off the deficit in favor of adding a big new entitlement. "I expect that from the other guys, but you?" In addition to feeling like a betrayal, it engenders hopelessness: where is there to look for relief if the side who owns that cause doesn't care about it?

So for the general case. For the specific, it's because it's the case I saw. Probably because it showed up first in tech feeds rather than politics. If you have other examples, I can tell you if I've ever heard of them.

It was also vanishingly rare in matching my principles, which neither the daily outrages I filter from the left side of my social networking nor the (much rarer, just because of who I happen to know and be connected to) culture war memes for the right tend to do. Someone who believes in diversity of opinion that should be tolerated beyond what the law requires by a private mesh of principle and custom that isn't, can't, and shouldn't be legislated (let alone brought to heel by the judiciary), and that people should be able to marry the folks they actually love? If I've been neglecting whole bunch of other petitions or posts along those lines, please let me know.

(That's meant seriously and without irony. I'd love to have more than two political blogs that I can read without wanting to toss them across the room. Or to be able to get through an election year without suppressing half the posts in my Facebook feed from both parties to keep from getting tempted to respond.)

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That's kind of my whole point: there haven't been a lot of other petitions along these lines, at least not that I've seen. SOP procedure is that someone gets dumped, people squawk about it for a little bit, then everyone moves on with their lives as if nothing happened.

If you want a recent example of diversity opinion plus same-sex marriage, there's the case of Mark Zmuda and others like them. (Admittedly, this has the added complication of religious freedom. But that's pretty much inevitable where same-sex marriage is involved, now that all the non-religious objections have been exhausted and exploded.)

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The religion issue is more germane given that it's an explicitly Catholic institution. It at least seems that would be more like Eich being revealed to have lobbied against open source licenses and net neutrality: in a direct conflict with defining policies of the organization.

(Or is it? I don't have a good feel for how important it is doctrinally as opposed to socially. Presumably it would be reasonable to dismiss him for, say, publicly denying the divinity of Christ, or saying he thought the Trinity sounded kind of unlikely. I don't know where the doctrine re sex and marriage falls on that scale.)

On the other hand, if the school has a policy of not discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation as he says it does, that makes a big difference.

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Zmuda's sexual orientation was known to his employers and was not, in itself, an issue. What prompted the firing was his marital status. To me, the most interesting twist is that he maintains he was told he could keep his job if he agreed to divorce his spouse. You want to talk about an action in "direct conflict with defining policies of the organization", well there's one that was worth fighting a war over.

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I admit, that seems incredibly stupid. Once he's married-- for that matter, once he's out-- the message that's going to be sent by having him as their principal has been sent. Either that's incompatible with their Catholic values or it isn't. "Our principal is an openly gay man who married a man-- but now it's okay, because he divorced him at our request while still-- presumably-- continuing the relationship..." If there's some coherent guiding principle they're operating under for saying that's okay, while remaining married isn't, I'm not smart enough to untangle it.

This seems like a "compromise" proposed someone who doesn't even really know what they're trying to achieve.

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Only a minority were calling for his resignation, and some of them later acknowledged that they would've been content with a public apology.

That's pretty much why I signed the petition. I don't agree with Eich's stance. But I don't think he should have to recant it. As long as he's prepared to respect and obey the law as it stands where it affects the corporation, he shouldn't have to agree with it, nor should he have to say he does.

The whole image of the erstwhile heretic publicly apologizing and being forgiven and accepted by the orthodox can be magnanimous, and it's a powerful tool for enforcing norms. But it's the opposite of liberal and it's explicitly, intentionally not tolerant.

(Surely the whole point of the procedure is to establish what won't be tolerated.)

As a matter of basic ground rules, I don't want it to be an issue whether anyone from CEO to the gardener is pro-life or pro-choice, Zionist or anti-Zionist. (Assuming they're not CEO of Planned Parenthood or the Jewish National Fund, anyway.) Any more than it should be an issue whether they're gay or straight, or Jewish, Catholic, Muslim or Mormon. If it impinges on their duties, go after them for that, otherwise, no.

Of course, once that principle is breached, it's self-sustaining. If it's legitimate to give a damn what the CEO voted for, then what the CEO voted for will affect customer numbers and alliances and stock prices. So we can-- have to!-- act against him for entirely pragmatic reasons, for the good of the company. Just as Dalton Trumbo couldn't get work from people who had nothing personal against him, for the good of the studio. Just as the mom of a kid out of wedlock couldn't expect to keep her job-- the customers wouldn't stand for being in the same room with her.

And to that extent, it's true. But it's only true because no one would say "What they do outside work isn't work's business" and make it stick.

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To some extent, I think the corporations themselves are to blame for this state of affairs. To quote from the Gillespie piece:

Now that we’re well past a subsistence economy, we live in a world of largely symbolic exchange, where we don’t simply choose something because we’re hungry or naked but because we want to make a statement about what sort of person we are, what sort of taste we possess and what sort of values we share.

It was they, after all, who embraced the idea of selling us a "lifestyle" and an "identity" back when we were content just to by stuff. Mozilla's response to the Eich affair was so full of pious lectures about the "Mozilla community" and its "values" that it was being at at a megachurch. Apparently, without Mozilla, the world as we know it would end. Honestly, the guy Christians call their saviour didn't have that much of a savioiur complex. And then everyone's shocked and dismayed when some of us say to them, "So this is the guy who best embodies those values? Really?"

Then on top of that, there's Hobby Lobby and its ilk pushing the association between the "values" of a company and the personal beliefs of its management still closer. But I imagine you're as opposed to that whole tendency as I am.

Edited Date: 2014-04-29 03:52 pm (UTC)

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That's probably true. (And more so for Mozilla, which is a corporation owned by a non-profit foundation complete with manifesto.) But the fact that corporations have played their part in sowing the wind doesn't make me favor the whirlwind.

And it seems they should at least be judged on the basis of what ground they've actually chosen to stake out. Google, of course, has its nigh-universalizing "Don't be evil" motto, which would cover just about anything. IIRC, some of Apple's claims range nearly as far. But Mozilla's mission seems to be defined specifically around the Internet as an open and public resource, rather than broader social issues.

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Re Hobby Lobby: I think they should have the legal right to choose not to pay for contraception, and I disagree with and disapprove of their exercising that right in that way.

Same with wedding photographers who don't want to shoot same-sex weddings: pace the courts that strikes me as a straight First Amendment freedom of expression issue. (If photography isn't a mode of expression, why do you need a pro instead of just renting a nice camera from LensRentals? Should my writer friends have to take PR commissions from ProtectMarriage.com or the local Southern Baptists?)

But as professionals, I think that they shouldn't confuse doing a proper job with endorsing the client. When I'm asked a reference question, I may suspect (or outright know, because they've told me) that it's in service of a frivolous lawsuit or a baseless conspiracy theory. But that's not my business, and I don't let it prevent me from answering questions or suggesting relevant avenues of research. (I may tell them as a matter of fact that I don't think the law they're looking for exists, but if they want to keep searching anyway I'll tell them where that sort if thing might be found if it did.)

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Do you think that Hobby Lobby should have the legal right to choose not to pay for vaccinations, antibiotics, etc. if they believe that viruses and bacteria do not exist? Or that a child inflicted with DM I should not be treated with insulin because it was "God's will", and with enough prayer the DM will disappear?

Chuck

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To answer, I'll assume something like the current law.¹ I'll also note that I don't think the outcome of this case really matters much in itself. If Hobby Lobby loses, I won't lose any sleep over it.

¹As a general matter of policy, I think a) Hobby Lobby should have the legal right not to offer insurance at all, and b) the insurance model makes sense for rare and expensive events, and shouldn't encompass prepayment for standard, relatively low costs incurred by a large fraction of the affected population for decades. So hospitalization or chemotherapy, but not contraception or dental cleanings, for the same reason that oil changes and routine maintenance aren't covered by car insurance.

But sure, I don't think people should be required to offer services they have strong moral objections to, and I think that the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability") requires that religious objections in particular get a wide berth. ("Strict scrutiny", as the standard goes.)

(It's not the only principle in the world, and it can be overcome if it conflicts with others of equal or greater importance. But the difference between covering and not covering contraception isn't the difference between, say, covering and not covering cancer surgery.)

So: I don't know of any particularly antivax religions, though betting the odds there are some. (I know Christian Science tends to be negative on materia medica generally, which might mean entirely exempting them from the requirement to provide insurance.)

But (rightly or wrongly) we're willing to allow individuals to choose not to be vaccinated or to vaccinate their children. So we've already admitted the possibility that personal objections to vaccinations overcome the public interest. If it's okay (or at least permitted) not to do it, then it seems as if it should be permissible not to pay for it.

(Though given the public health implications of vaccines, there's a decently strong argument that vaccines should in any case be directly publicly subsidized, rather than requiring individuals or their employers to pay for them.)

Whether it's possible to have a sincere religious objection to antibiotics that doesn't cover other medical treatment is something I'd be inclined to leave up to the courts to decide. (The law isn't required to recognize the Church of I Don't Feel Like Complying With This Statute. On the other hand, how do Jains or other practitioners of ahimsa feel about antibiotics?) Certainly, at some point the policy becomes hollowed out enough with exceptions as to not constitute health insurance.

When that point is reached, they either need to be granted a full exemption or not. That would be based on a balancing test between the two laws, one of which requires providing health insurance, the other of which requires respecting people's religious convictions, and the relative burdens on the parties imposed by each.

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"I don't think people should be required to offer services they have strong moral objections to, and … that religious objections in particular get a wide berth."

So that "wide berth" would extend to parents of a young child with DM I who refuse to allow treatment on religious grounds and relying on their "strength of prayer" to cure the DM I? And when the parents prayers "aren't strong enough" forces their child to endure a prolonged, painful, untimely death that could have been avoided. After all the child is the parents personal property with which they can do whatever they please.

Chuck

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That comes across pretty hostile for a question posed in good faith, Chuck. Please try not to put words in anyone else's mouth. (No one has said anything about children being "parents' personal property".)

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Indeed, until children are of the age of majority, they are considered property of their parents. One can get a court order to change the situation, depending on circumstances. Historically, wives were considered the property of their husbands, but of course that has changed.

Chuck

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Do you have a legal citation for that? I know a lot of people believe it to be true, but that doesn't make it so.

To point up only one major difference: I'm allowed to euthanise a pet I own as long as I do it humanely. I'm not aware that the state places any burden on me to prove that the euthanisation was "medically necessary" or "in the best interests of the animal" or anything of that sort. I don't have the same broad rights with regard to my children (unless I'm Belgian, that is).

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So that "wide berth" would extend to parents of a young child with DM I who refuse to allow treatment on religious grounds and relying on their "strength of prayer" to cure the DM I?

In the 80s, there was a case where that happened (which may be what you're referencing). The legal determination at the time was that the parents weren't guilty of homicide, but they were held to be civilly liable (with a $5.2 million award to the noncustodial parent who'd opposed the decision.)

As I said, freedom of religion isn't the only principle in the world, and neither are parental rights to make decisions regarding their kids. We let, e.g., Amish parents take their kids out of school at 13, even though mainstream culture generally regards that as harmful to their future prospects. We don't let parents sacrifice their children to Moloch. Corporal punishment is legal, but only up to the point it becomes child abuse.

Honestly, if it were my decision, I'd probably put the decision not to treat a diabetic kid with insulin as closer to sacrificing him to Moloch. Whether or not I'd jail them after the fact, I'd be sympathetic to a court order to treat him which, if disobeyed, would cost them custody. (Though in practice, they might just flee the jurisdiction, so I don't know how much good it would do.)

But the line between parental autonomy in medical and religious matters and state intervention has to be somewhere, and wherever it's drawn it's going to result in bad cases and harm in one direction or the other. There's a reason for the adage "hard cases make bad law". Given the many times facially neutral laws have historically been used as cover for religious persecution, I can understand why the law has developed in the direction it has.

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Actually there was a recent case in Idaho, where a child with DM I died because of lack of treatment. Their "minister" told the parents to "pray away the diabetes", which of course did not work. The parents were brought up on charges on child endangerment for failure to provide/allow treatment. They were convicted.

Chuck

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I'm not finding that one, though I may just be missing it. This news article from last November indicates that Idaho has specific laws shielding parents in faith healing cases. This one from January indicates that there's a move to modify that in the wake of recent child deaths, following a tightening of the law in neighboring Oregon. (Where a couple was sentenced for manslaughter for failing to seek treatment for their son.)

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