Editorial: Protecting rights of conscience

View the Sunday edition article "Colliding causes: Gay rights and religious liberty" here.

Entering a presidential election year marked by chronically high unemployment and slow economic growth, it appeared that the most salient issues for the American people this election would be economic, not cultural. But stunning legal and administrative developments in the past few weeks have brought the foundational social issues of religious liberty, individual conscience and the definition of marriage to the forefront of public debate.

Last month, even as the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Constitution protects some employment decisions by religious organizations from second-guessing by a growing administrative state, the Obama administration issued regulations requiring religiously affiliated health care plans to offer services that are antithetical to some affected denominations' cherished religious teaching. On Friday, in the face of political headwinds, the president backpedaled from the original mandate.

And last week, efforts to redefine the institution of marriage in our society made significant headway. The Washington Legislature approved same-sex marriage in a bill that will be signed into law by Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire on Monday. And two judges on a three-judge panel at the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco paved the way for resumption of same-sex marriage in California by overturning Proposition 8, an amendment to the California constitution ratified by a majority of California voters that defines marriage as "between a man and a woman."

Much could be said about the appropriate institutions and processes to balance the competing claims, rights and interests that conflict when contentious social issues erupt. To what extent should courts be involved in such conflicts? What are the appropriate roles of the federal and state governments in resolving these issues? These are vital questions that this paper will address as concerns about the foundational institutions of family and faith are thrust onto the national policy agenda.

But today, we focus specifically on what these changes might mean for rights of conscience. In overturning the California constitution's definition of marriage as between a man and woman, federal circuit judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote that the definition of marriage had no effect on religious freedom. According to Reinhardt, the only purpose served by reaffirming a traditional definition of marriage was to "lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians."