Cutting Religion Down to Liberal Size

Stanley Fish considers whether religion should be given special status in a liberal society :

There’s the dilemma, and it is shared both by the liberal state and by religious organizations. Religious organizations face a choice between altering their core beliefs or forfeiting privileges enjoyed by others. The liberal state and its institutions face a choice between being faithful to the democratic principle of open access or closing the liberal door to those who are illiberal. Feisal Mohamed cites an amicus brief filed by Muslim, Sikh and Jewish groups that “declared it ‘fundamentally confused to apply a rule against religious discrimination to a religious organization.’”

The confusion is built-in and cannot be avoided. The university, Meridian observes, is “in an impossible position.” If it recognizes groups that discriminate in their membership policies, it will be accused of violating the First Amendment. “But if, to prevent discrimination, it conditions approval . . . on the agreement of religious groups to accept as voting members those who do not share their beliefs, that defeats the entire purpose of having such clubs . . . and is itself arguably a First Amendment violation.” Ditto for a group like C.L.S. If its membership criteria are discriminatory, “it runs afoul of the anti-discrimination law”; telling it that it can’t have those criteria, “runs afoul of the freedom of association right” (Mel). Everyone is in a perfect bind.

The dilemma is sharpened and even rendered poignant by the fact that liberalism very much wants to believe that it is being fair to religion, but what it calls fairness amounts to cutting religion down to liberal size.