Same-sex marriage and religious exemptions

[Hamilton02 at aol.com]

It is easier for the national lobbyists to cut one deal, but it is not  
easier for the state and local groups who want to make a difference to do so in 
 Washington.  Washington washes out the smaller groups, giving a  
disproportionate voice to organized national groups. It is false to assume  that 
national groups are just collections of state and local groups or that  national 
groups are capable of capturing what is really of interest to  local or 
state groups.  The preference for Washington deals is a  preference for 
national interest groups and against local and state  interests.  Boerne made it 
more likely that local and state groups can  obtain what they seek in the 
state in which they live barring a constitutional  prohibition.  (And, yes, 
marriage and free exercise are can be distinct  issues, but to date they have 
not been politically.)  
 
Doug's description of the political lay of the land for  controversial 
religious exemptions is not accurate.  The vast majority  of controversial 
exemptions exist not because they were unopposed but because no  one knew about 
them.  I don't think I've ever given a talk discussing  children and religion 
when the audience was not shocked to learn that states  give special 
privileges to religious groups to medically neglect their children  -- a legal 
regime that has laid the groundwork for the death of children from  easily 
treated ailments. 
 
 In any event, even when there are organized groups in opposition,  
legislators grant exemptions (including the blind exemptions provided in RFRAs  and 
RLUIPA) and some end up being controversial.  There is  little that is more 
controversial right now than the way that RLUIPA is  negatively impacting 
residential neighborhoods in cities and towns across  the country.  No one 
understood what was really at stake when it was  passed, in no small part 
because the members of Congress (who were responding to  the demands of 
religious groups) refused to give voice at the RLPA hearings  of the opposition, 
including the National League of Cities, Intl Municipal  Lawyers Assn, 
then-Mayor Giuliani, and others.  If the religious lobbyists  orchestrate the 
hearings, opposition and discourse are hobbled, to say  the least.
 
On a different note, the recent 1-2 punch in Iowa and Vermont for the gay  
marriage movement is still a small countermovement against the number  of 
states that passed quick referenda outlawing any marriage other than  that 
between a man and a woman following Goodrich.  That movement was  fueled 
exclusively by religious activists.  No one should think the  political power of 
those groups has been decimated.
 
Marci
 
 
 
 
In a message dated 4/10/2009 12:50:53 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
laycockd at umich.edu writes:

It is patently easier to do one deal than to do fifty.  And on this  issue, 
it is easier to do a deal in a legislature where both Vermont and  Alabama 
are represented than to do a deal in Vermont or to do a deal in  Alabama.  
Maybe we want to let Vermont and Alabama each go their own way  on marriage; 
maybe we even want to let them each go their own way on free  exercise of 
religion; those are two distinct issues different from the  political 
possibilities of deal making.  
American legislatures have enacted lots of religious exemptions, but not  
many controversial exemptions with an organized interest group in active  
opposition.  On the gay rights issues, religious conservatives are pretty  much 
getting exemptions only within the church itself -- not even their  
affiliated religious organizations -- which is to say, they are getting only  those 
exemptions that no sensible person on the gay rights side actually  
opposes. 


 
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