"Partly Acculturated Religious Activity and Religious Freedom"

At the Notre Dame Law Review's excellent symposium Friday (thanks Rick and others!), I presented these remarks using the idea of "partly acculturated religion" as a way of understanding some of the most controversial current free-exercise cases. I then gave the same talk the next day at a Yale Law/Divinity Schools' joint conference on law, religion and politics (thanks to Prof. Patrick Weil of Yale for the invitation there). A couple of samples from the talk:

     Many of today’s most vexing problems concerning the accommodation of religious conscience involve religious groups and activities that straddle the perceived boundary of the public versus private. For example, in disputes over same-sex marriage and religious liberty, it’s generally agreed that churches and clergy should be able to refuse to host or perform a marriage, because they fall within the private sphere. But religious activities that reach out to provide services to the broader public provoke much more controversy. Think of religious adoption agencies that decline to place children with same-sex couples—or evangelical anti-trafficking program that refuses to provide abortion referrals—or the religious social services that have sought exemption from the HHS contraception mandate.

     To many critics, accommodation is plainly improper in such cases. They say that when a religious organization hires people outside the narrow confines of its faith, or becomes a significant social-service provider, it should not be allowed to continue to act on norms that the government has deemed unjust. Once an organization reaches out to others, it must follow all the rules no matter how much they burden religion....

     My project is to argue for protection in these cases too, relying on the idea that they involve cases of “partly acculturated religion.” These faiths fall in between two poles.... They are “acculturated” in that they seek to reach out to the broader society and provide services that people of all beliefs value: education, health care, social services of all kinds. But they’re “unacculturated” in that some of their doctrines and practices sharply clash with the dominant secular values in their relevant sphere. These organizations make a claim to be able to continue to provide services and still follow their countercultural doctrines and practices, which often reflect the core values that inspire their service in the first place.

I then present two arguments why the law should make meaningful efforts to accommodate partly acculturated religious activity:

     First, equality among religions—a fundamental principle of the First Amendment. Service is an essential component of much religion, of course; but more than that, it is a perfectly legitimate way of being religious for an organization to reach out to serve or employ others will still maintaining adherence to its distinctive religious standards.... [The law] should avoid forcing all organizations into two rigid categories of unacculturated or acculturated.

     Second, social capital and civic virtue. Partially acculturated religious organizations tend to create a great deal of social capital and volunteer energy in service of others, and if their works shrinks or ends because of legal conflicts, it will be a loss to society. The sociological and political-science writings of Robert Putnam and David Campbell, John DiIulio, Steven Monsma, and others support this claim.

I'll be developing this into a full-length article. Comments welcome--i.e. wanted!

Tom