Part II | Outline

Category C | Discrimination

Topic 12 | Religious discrimination

At times it is better to frame arguments for religious freedom around the concept of religious discrimination rather than making direct appeals to religious freedom. Efforts to protect individuals or other groups from discrimination can sometimes result in discriminatory treatment of religious individuals or groups. For audiences who are very sensitive about equality norms, it is important to highlight that unlawful discrimination includes discrimination on the basis of religion.

• Freedom versus equality norms. Since at least the civil rights movements in the 1960s and 1970s, political discourse in the United States has seen the elevation of discrimination as a foundational legal principle, and the diminution of freedom or liberty as a foundational legal principle.

• Religious freedom vs. discrimination. U.S. culture today is so attuned to the lingua franca of nondiscrimination, that when some people hear the words religious freedom what they are hearing is discrimination by religious people. Religion is viewed as a cover for discrimination, and religious freedom is seen as a justification for discrimination.

• Religious discrimination. Nondiscrimination laws include a list of unlawful bases for discrimination, which almost always includes “religion” as a prohibited basis for discrimination. Thus, nondiscrimination includes not discriminating against religious people, or people on account of their religious identity or beliefs.

• Scope of religious discrimination. Much of the discrimination in the world (and even a significant measure of discrimination in the United States) is perpetrated on the basis of religion. Many people who care deeply about discrimination on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity can have significant blind spots when it comes to discrimination against people based upon their religion.

• The key idea is that those who care about discrimination should be attuned to and care about religious discrimination—understood as discrimination against religious people, not by religious people.

• The key danger is that by entering into the discourse of discrimination you can inadvertently accept or seem to accept the elevation of discrimination and the diminution of freedom as political and legal principles. We need religious freedom, not just nondiscrimination norms, if we are going to have robust protection of the right to freedom of religion or belief.