I have yet to learn not to argue with memes, so today I’m tackling an idea I keep seeing reflected in many of them – that true freedom amounts to letting people do as they please, and not imposing our views (religious or otherwise) on others. Here’s one example I saw recently:

A meme linking abortion to freedom

The text reads:

If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t have one. If you don’t like abortions, don’t have one.

You can’t claim to support freedom and liberty and choice, and then deny that to others.

It all sounds so simple – freedom and liberty mean letting people make their own choices, and that’s at the heart of American values, right? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. In a society, liberties inevitably come into conflict and these conflicts can’t be resolved simply by saying that people should be able to choose to do as they please. For example, what about the Christian baker who refuses to make a cake for a gay marriage and then is sued for discrimination? Or the Christian web designer who won’t make wedding websites for same-sex marriages and is likewise sued? (Both of these are real cases.) Or, perhaps a religious agency helps place foster children and refuses to place them with same-sex parents because of its religious views (see Fulton v. Philadelphia); is this discrimination? Or, perhaps a religious couple wants to put their child up for adoption but insists on adoption by a heterosexual couple – or even a couple of a particular race. Is that illegal discrimination?

Regardless of whether you view these as discrimination, note that these cases involving balancing liberties – one person’s liberty goes up against another’s.

Al Mohler highlighted another recent issue of conficting liberties, as it touched the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team during pride month. The Rays decided to adorn their uniforms with pro-LGBTQ+ insignia, but several of the players declined to wear these decorations because they felt wearing them would constitute an endorsement of a lifestyle they didn’t approve of. They indicated they were still happy to have LGBTQ+ fans, and delighted to have them come to their games, but one of the players, Jason Adam, summarized their position this way:

So it’s a hard decision. Because ultimately we all said what we want is them to know that all are welcome and loved here. But when we put it on our bodies, I think a lot of guys decided that it’s just a lifestyle that maybe — not that they look down on anybody or think differently — it’s just that maybe we don’t want to encourage it if we believe in Jesus, who’s encouraged us to live a lifestyle that would abstain from that behavior.

Still, the New York Times ran a piece arguing that it was wrong of the players decline these decorations. The piece ran under the title An Attempt at Inclusion Proves There Is More Work to Do and included a quote from Andrew Maraniss, who said the players shouldn’t have been able to decline to participate – in other words, that they should be required to wear these insignia:

Acknowledging that people are people and all fans are welcome, that’s not something you should be able to opt out of.

Liberty, then, involves tension between rights. At some level this is obvious; for example, if I’m absolutely free to do whatever I like, then my freedom means you have no rights whatsoever. That is, if I feel like murdering you or enslaving you, then my absolute freedom means you will lose your right to life or freedom whenever I’m so inclined. So, we place restrictions on rights – I’m not completely free, but only free to exercise my rights within certain reasonable limits, to ensure that you also still maintain a reasonable amount of your own freedom. This necessarily means making a moral or value judgment about what kind of limits are “reasonable”.

This issue of “reasonableness” frequently comes into play for businesses, for example. Businesses reserve the right to decline service – but the government intervenes to place bounds on such rights and ensure that businesses don’t discriminate/decline service based on religion, race, or (more recently) sexual orientation. But I also have a Constitutional right – even if I’m running a business – to my own religious beliefs and to live them out. So if I’m a Christian baker who believes marriage is only legitimate if it’s between a man and a woman, it seems reasonable to require me to sell a cake to a gay couple, since this doesn’t require me to compromise my beliefs. But should I be required to decorate a cake which celebrates a gay marriage and offers congratulations? That requires balancing rights – my right to live out my convictions (including not endorsing a marriage which I don’t believe is legitimate) versus the couple’s freedom to avoid “discrimination” by seeking out a cake of their choice from a vendor of their choice. Or what about a Christian pastor who performs marriages – but only marriage between a man and a woman, since that’s how the Bible defines marriage. Should a homosexual couple be able to compel the pastor to perform their marriage? Again, rights come into conflict.

Such this tension between rights can’t be resolved by saying, “You can’t claim to support freedom and liberty and choice, and then deny that to others.” As a Christian baker or pastor, I have the freedom to choose how to live out my convictions; as a customer, I have the freedom to try and obtain service from my chosen provider without being discriminated against. Whose freedom wins? This requires making a moral or value judgment – which takes precedence, freedom of religion (on the part of the baker or pastor) or freedom from discrimination?

I would argue that in the United States, the issue of prioritization in this specific case has already been settled by our Constitution. One of these rights – freedom to freely exercise religion – is explicitly spelled out in our Bill of Rights, whereas the other is not. Thus, as much as we seek to avoid discrimination, it has to yield in such cases, at least when the customer is not deprived of more important rights by being refused service. For example, in both of my examples, there are plenty of other providers who will perform a marriage ceremony or decorate a custom wedding cake – and the baker is willing to provide a generic cake. So, no harm is done; while the customer would like to compel the provider to compromise his or her religious convictions, the free exercise clause gives the right to instead maintain and live out those beliefs.

Again, making these decisions requires making a moral or value judgment – which rights are more important? And such judgments require a standard for judging – a point of reference to settle disagreements. One such point of reference is the US Constitution; another is the Bible. But for those who are so adamant that these issues are settled – I ask you, “What’s YOUR standard? How do you propose we decide which values are more important?” If your answer is that people’s right not to be discriminated against trumps freedom of religion – how do you know? Who gives you authority to decide that? Is that a religious view of your own, or can you point to some objective authority which places these rights in priority order?

So, what of these memes? They take an important issue our society should discuss thoughtfully and carefully – how to balance the different rights we’ve been guaranteed by our Constitution against other rights which are also important and popular, and what our source of authority is to be used in balancing those rights – into an oversimplified talking point. They paint those on one side as obviously evil, and the other side as defenders of all that’s right and true. So, I hate such memes. They don’t even present a fair view of the poster’s own views, as we’ll see below. I hope we’ll stop posting such things and engage more meaningfully with those around us, rather than simply villifying them.

Bodily autonomy

In the context of the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion, which overturned Roe v. Wade, many have argued that it’s irrelevant whether a baby in the womb is alive or not; the whole issue ought to be settled solely by bodily autonomy. For example, I saw this post going around on social media:

Here’s the thing, guys. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter when life begins. It doesn’t matter whether a fetus is a human being or not. That entire argument is a red herring, a distraction, a subjective and unwinnable argument that cound not matter less. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about a fertilized egg, or a fetus, or a baby, or a five year old, or a Nobel Prize winning paediatric oncologist. NOBODY has the right to use your body, against your will, even to save their life, or the life of another person. That’s it. That’s the argument. You cannot be forced to donate blood, or marrow, or organs, even though thousands die every year, on waiting lists. They cannot harvest your organs after your death without your explicit, written, pre-mortem permission. Denying women the right to abortion means we have less bodily autonomy than a corpse.

Again, that sounds reasonable at first glance. Don’t people have the right to bodily autonomy? And don’t we require consent for organ donation, etc.? However, there are at least two huge problems with this line of argument. One relates to consent, and I’ll deal with this only superficially today. The second relates to “bodily autonomy” as an absolute principle, and I’ll deal with that below at greater length. First, relating to consent, the argument above assumes that the woman hasn’t given consent to be pregnant – or in other words, that the sexual act itself isn’t essentially a form of consent. (Of course in the case of rape or similar, no consent is given; but let’s assume we’re discussing the vast majority of pregnancies, which result from consensual sex.) However, according to the Bible, sex was designed in part for this reason – so engaging in it does mean giving consent to pregnancy. Those involved in heterosexual sex give consent to the possibility of pregnancy.

Today, though, I want to look at the meme-like aspect of this, the idea of “bodily autonomy” as a kind of liberty which ought to be absolute. Ilya Somin had a recent post looking at this same argument and he noted that, if we are to apply this principle of bodily autonomy consistently and across all areas of life, then:

  • Organ markets should be legalized; people should be free to sell whatever parts of their body to whoever they can get to pay whatever price they want. After all, it’s their body.
  • Laws against prostitution should be abolished, because whatever people want to do with their bodies should be allowed.
  • All drugs should be legalized, and there should be no “War on Drugs”. Whatever you want to put in your body should be allowed.
  • We should stop taxing unhealthy foods or activities to try and incentivize good behavior, as the goal is to restrict what people put in their bodies. No extra taxes on oversize sodas, or cigarettes, or…
  • Legalize “challenge trials” for pharmaceutical drugs, in which people sign up for risky testing of experimental drugs; likewise allow experimental medical treatments without government regulation
  • Disallow mask and vaccination mandates unless there is ample evidence the resulting intrusion against bodily autonomy is worth it; the presumption should be that people get to choose unless the evidence to the contrary is compelling

The whole article is worth reading, but part of the point here is that all of these issues are complex and worth careful discussion. If we believed in an absolute right to bodily autonomy, we would treat the above issues far differently. But we don’t; we (as a society) seem to believe that, for the “greater good” or for whatever other reason, we need to place restrictions on these behaviors. Or, at least, many think that the woman’s bodily autonomy in this specific area somehow is more important than bodily autonomy in all of the other noted areas. But if that’s the case, the rationale should be explained. We don’t consistently believe in and apply an absolute right to bodily autonomy.

So, the short statement I saw on social media is yet another one of those oversimplified memes that ignores the real issues while (superficially) sounding compelling. Somin’s more detailed post noted:

I hope this post at least shows that many supporters of the “my body, my choice” principle should consider broadening their horizons by applying it more consistently, to a wider range of issues. Some of those issues even involve massive, glaring injustices that so far have failed to attract more than a fraction of the attention they deserve.

In other words, if you really believe “my body, my choice” is a general, far-reaching principle you should be advocating for legal change in a wide variety of other areas – not only in this specific area. And if you don’t see it as a general, far-reaching principle, then how are you making the moral/value judgment that says this principle is the single key relevant principle for abortion, but not in all those other areas? We ought to be discussing how you prioritize rights, rather than acting as if everything can be resolved by appealing to this single principle.

We’re all guilty of memes or similar faults

The examples I gave above come from one side of the political spectrum, but I see the same kind of content coming from both sides, whether in the form of memes or just oversimplification. Both sides have the same tendency to dumb down the views of their “opponents” to the point of absurdity and then ridicule them. After all, it’s easier to deal with an absurdity than what might be a well-reasoned and consistent position.

Why do we do this? It’s almost as if we want to believe those who disagree with us are complete idiots, or downright evil. In fact, I think that’s actually what we do often want to believe. So, instead of seeking to understand what people really believe and how a well-meaning and thoughtful person might actually hold those set of views consistently, we satisfy ourselves with a superficial grasp of their views. We’re willing to believe they’re a hateful bigot, a fascist, or whatever else because it allows us to quickly dismiss them and feel superior. Surely our own views are those of the enlighted, the thoughtful, the caring and right thinking, and all other positions are clearly inferior, we persuade ourselves.

Of course, I don’t for sure that we all do this oversimplification and dumbing down, this demonization of those we disagree with – but I suspect we do, and I know I’ve done it time to time myself. I see it coming from all over the political spectrum. And I know where this comes from when I’ve done it myself – a sinful pride that wants to believe I’m better than others, and thus is too ready to believe that my disagreement results from some moral or intellectual failing on the other person’s end.

Thankfully, God provides an opportunity for all of us to be rescued from the pride that leads us to such attacks on our fellow humans, who are worthy of respect as they are made in God’s image. In John 8:7, Jesus told those who caught the woman in adultery, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her,” and he calls us to the same. We’re given the opportunity to confess that we, too, though we may hold different views than our opponents, are likewise guilty before God of mistreating others and sinning against God – and to begin to recognize God’s solution for our guilt and sin through the work of Jesus Christ. When we receive God’s grace through Christ, it helps us to recognize that others, even those whose views we hate, deserve God’s grace just as much (or as little!) as we do. When we see that, then we begin to recognize that others are not so different from us after all – and it becomes much easier to engage with their real views and see them as real individuals deserving of God’s love, rather than oversimplifying their views and attacking them.

So, I hope and pray we come to know God’s grace offered to us through Jesus Christ, and as a result of that begin to extend that same grace to others – even those whose political views we would otherwise mock and hate.