Ian Ayres's Protestant Sensibility

Below Rick posts Ian Ayres's suggestion that members of churches that discriminate against gays in the marriage rite sign a statement acknowledging that they "choose to associate with a church that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation." I have two reactions:

First, this strikes me as an insightful reflection of a Protestant mindset. In a free market of religious options, perhaps the consumer should be made to reckon with the content of the beliefs chosen. Indeed, many Protestant churches with which I'm familiar make their "statement of faith" readily accessible to potential members to facilitate this choice. It's more of a stretch, though, to assert that Catholics "choose to associate" with an organization espousing x, y, or z belief. It's akin to admitting that, "As an American, I choose to live in a country where materialism is rampant." Sure we could uproot our existences and identities and move to another country as a protest against a given social ill, but can our failure to do so be termed a deliberate choice along the lines of joining the local country club? Perhaps Catholicism would benefit if Catholics reframed their religious identities more in terms of choice, but it seems to me that many Catholics have always been, and will always be, Catholics with little or no deliberate reflection on that affiliation. And for those who have deliberately chosen Catholicism, that choice may stem more from the circumstances and implications of the Church's founding than from any specific belief or practice. In other words, if one is led to the Church by a conviction that it was established and blessed by Christ, choosing an offshoot of that Church, "non-discriminatory" or otherwise, may not even be a viable option. In Protestant churches, by contrast, the characteristics of the church tend to drive membership decisions. (Of course, there are lifelong Baptists, Methodists, etc. who have never thought twice about their religious identities, but in my experience they are relatively rare.)

Second, Professor Ayres's proposal implicitly equates discriminatory policies of a church with those of any voluntary organization. Religions founded on divine commands do not have unlimited policy-making discretion. If they did, they could not claim to be founded on divine commands. We can debate the proper interpretation of scriptural language about same-sex relationships, but a church that chooses to maintain the traditional interpretation is not on par with a secular club writing its membership by-laws on a blank slate. This does not mean that church members should never be held accountable for church positions, but that we should recognize the religious foundation of a particular position before we condemn it in the same language we would apply to the Augusta National Golf Club.

Rob