As John Stonestreet and I argue in our book Same-Sex Marriage, we are currently undergoing one of the most sweeping social revolutions in world history. Until the Obergefell v. Hodges SCOTUS decision in 2015, the definition of marriage as a union of a man and a woman was the understanding of virtually every civilization throughout history. But this has all changed.

Now that marriage has been redefined, the law, our educational system, and other social customs have begun to change as well. As a result, there is a great tension between belief in religious liberty and claims of discrimination. Can Catholic adoption agencies operate according to their convictions that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, or is this discriminatory towards gay couples who want to adopt? Should the law coerce people to use the preferred gender pronoun of people with gender dysphoria?

Is Liberty Worth Protecting?

At the heart of this debate is whether or not religious liberty is worth protecting. Does the state have interest in preserving religious liberty? In my experience, few people (including religious people) understand why religious liberty is so valuable for both the government and society.

I was recently reading Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination, which is a thoughtful and respectful dialogue between Ryan T. Anderson/Sherif Girgis and John Corvino. In their opening remarks, Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis offer a brief case for the state’s interest in preserving religious freedom. It is the best I have heard.

A Simple Case for Religious Liberty

While this section certainly won’t end debate, it is the starting-point of an argument that must be heard. Many questions remain, but nevertheless, here is the beginning of a simple case for religious liberty:

For all their differences, this splendid range of people from every corner of every culture across thousands of years would [Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Muslims, etc.] agree that much hangs on exploring religious questions and living by the answers. Even those who end up atheists or agnostic are compelled to search by a sense of the value of achieving harmony with whatever ultimate source of meaning there might be.

As a basic human good, religious consists of efforts to align your life with the truth about whatever transcendent source (or sources) of being, meaning, and value there might be. It’s about efforts to honor or find harmony with that source—call it “divine.” Relationship with the divine, like human friendship, must be freely chosen to be authentic. To coerce is to produce a counterfeit. So respect for your basic interest in religion demands respect for your freedom in pursuing it. For this basic good, religious liberty is a precondition.

And hence the state, which exists to protect the ability of people to pursue all the basic goods, must never directly attack this freedom. It must never require or forbid an act on religious grounds—for example, on the ground that its religious rationale is true or false, or that the associated religious community should shrink or grow. But the same basic good also requires the state to avoid needless incidental limits on religious freedom. These arise where your faith calls for you to shape your whole life by the divinity’s demands: in preaching and conversion, pilgrimage and prayer, building and worship, ritual, ascetical struggle, charitable work and Sabbath rest. All of these might conflict with legitimate laws. The state can’t avoid a conflict every time. It has to protect the wide range of basic goods for all of society, even at the expense of some instances of them, religion included. But because religion, like moral integrity, is itself one of the basic goods to be protected, the state should avoid imposition on wherever reasonably possible.[1]


You can find the original version of this article on Sean McDowell's blog.

[1] Ryan T. Anderson, Sherif Girgis, & John Corvino, Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 130-131.