abstract: Christians hold that discrimination, in certain cases, isn't wrong; the problem lies with behavior that violates God's law. The fundamental issue is not whether some people should discriminate against others. Rather, the question is to what extent the government should regulate the conscience of the individual.

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by Christopher Alexion

With the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) lurking in the congressional shadows, "anti-discrimination" legislation is back, and back with a federal vengeance. Following the lead of several state bills, supporters of this legislation (also known by the fair and unbiased term "human rights advocates") want to prohibit discrimination on the basis of "sexual orientation."

And woe to those who question them. Doing so invariably opens the floodgates to charges of ignorance, blasphemy, and bigotry. Postmoderns, in the name of open-mindedness, have a tendency to seek shelter from rational debate in the comforting shadow of these familiar buzzwords. In the end, "open-mindedness" is itself relegated to buzzword status, and confusion enters.

One area in which confusion particularly reigns involves the important distinction between morality and legality, between sin and crime. We seem to have forgotten that while all crimes are sins, not all sins are crimes, and that a sound legal theory will therefore only seek legislation against those sins that are also crimes. We don't have anti-gluttony laws, after all.

Now obviously great disagreement exists over whether it is a sin--a moral evil--to discriminate against homosexuals. Orthodox Christians, whose opinions are bound by the authority of Scripture, certainly have strong views on sodomy, and these views influence their position on discrimination. Non-Christian fundamentalists, bound by other presuppositions, have equally strong views on "tolerance," and these beliefs control their view of discrimination as well.

So Christians hold that discrimination, in certain cases, isn't wrong; the problem lies with behavior that violates God's law. For many non-Christians, on the other hand, discrimination is the evil, and homosexuality is just fine. This moral debate could go on and on, and it ought to. But more basic to the current issue is the question of the legality of the ENDA. In other words, do those who hold that non-association with homosexuals is wrong have the right to enforce their belief on others through the arm of the state?

To answer this we need to realize that the ENDA, like all anti-discrimination laws, severely interferes with the freedom of association and private property rights. Douglas Jones has it right:

The entire civil rights mysticism has to fight...basic property rights and freedom of association. "Anti-discrimination" legislation means that you may not freely associate with whomever you please. You may not have authority over your own business. You must forfeit your property to another's desires under penalty of law. And remember, this is what is meant by tolerance. Whenever the egalitarian elite smiles and talks about discrimination and tolerance, they're talking about serious coercion.1

In addition, anti-discriminationism can also threaten the free exercise of religion. When a person is obligated by his religion to avoid association with what he believes to be a great moral evil, and we coercively deny him that choice, can we really say we uphold justice and religious freedom?2 At any rate we had better drop the mask of tolerance and neutrality, since the ENDA clearly has some hard things to say about orthodox Christianity.

These two issues are serious, and anti-discrimination legislation poses a serious threat to liberty. But we should question it for yet another reason: its underlying statism. Here again, interestingly, Christianity and the ENDA meet head-on. The Christian dogma most offensive to statists, from Nero to Hitler, is that Christians worship God alone; they are forbidden to worship anyone or anything else--including the state. "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help," said the psalmist (Psa. 146:3).

The proponents of anti-discriminationism, on the other hand, are entirely oblivious to a non-governmental solution of most problems; they therefore clamor for more legislation.3 The state will redeem us from our sin. Such a mystical trust in the state as savior should elicit a shudder from the most superficial of evangelicals.

Civil government does have a legitimate role in promoting justice, of course. But surely history has taught us better than to look to the state for something it cannot provide. We have, if anything, learned to cultivate a healthy distrust of excessive governmental power. The constitutional and biblical doctrine of limited government is not--and must not become--an empty mantra; it demands careful thought as to which responsibilities and powers ought to be given to the state and which should be withheld.

For this reason the implications of anti-discriminationism are much greater than most of us realize. The fundamental issue is not whether some people should discriminate against others. Rather, the question is to what extent the government should regulate the conscience of the individual. As Chesterton put it: "[T]he question...is not the question of whether there are abuses.... It is the question of whether in these days the claims of government are to leave anything whatever of the rights of man."4

Christopher Alexion is a homeschooled high school senior with interests in apologetics, philosophy, and politics. He pursues these interests through writing, and several of his articles have appeared on the internet. He lives in New Castle, Delaware.

Endnotes

1. Douglas Jones, "Supreme Court Gags on Freedom of Association, Again," in Credenda/Agenda, vol. 8, no. 3.

2. I imagine a simplistic answer to this argument going something like this: "Of course it overrides the free exercise of religion. You wouldn't expect us to tolerate human sacrifice in the name of religious liberty, would you?" It should be obvious that this answer assumes that discrimination is a crime--the very point it is supposed to prove.

3. This is also obvious in the matter of racial discrimination laws. In this case, the target of the laws is a real sin (racism) instead of the bogus sin of opposing homosexuality. But trying to fix racial hatred through the state brings with it its own evils. Racism is like a devil which, when it is cast out by the state, promptly goes and comes back with seven bigger devils.

4. G. K. Chesterton, Government and the Rights of Man.

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