Protecting religion means showing respect, too

 St. Francis de Sales School in Las Vegas. 

Gallup has reported: Roughly 21% of Generation Z Americans who have reached adulthood - those born between 1997 and 2003 - identify as LGBT. That is nearly double the proportion of millennials who do so, while the gap widens even further when compared with older generations. 

With such a mindset gripping young people in the US as well as many other Western countries, it is no wonder that religious schools become embroiled in a conflict with even young students on the matter of recognition of individual sexual preferences.

The right of religious schools to set rules of conduct both for students and for teachers is contentious even while law is relatively settled in some jurisdictions.

Australia is one nation that has tried to clarify the law on this matter, and in the process has highlighted the need for those championing the politically liberal - often referred to as the progressive - stance to allow space for the competition of ideas that John Stuart Mill called for in On Liberty.

Today we hear so much about the "harm" individuals identifying as LGBT feel is being done to them, or about the "micro-aggressions" such individuals perceive themselves to be suffering, and the consequent need to "de-platform" anyone considered unsympathetic to the party that is a "victim".  

But Mill believed that though prohibiting even discourteous conduct in intellectual expression might be a “convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world”, the “price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind”.

Obviously, a distinction must be made between "hate" conduct and a vigorous presentation of an argument, but latching on to the "hate" concept is a rhetorical tool too readily employed in the exchange of ideas on moral issues of great import to the welfare of society.

Therefore, there have to be safeguards for religious groups. As Frank Brennan, an Australian constitutional lawyer as well as Jesuit priest, has pointed out, in every jurisdiction there should be a law that:

[...] ensured that individuals and groups would not be discriminated against on the basis of their religion and that individuals and groups could be discriminating in preferring the appointment or employment of individuals who supported the religious mission of a religious organisation, in much the same way that a political party or politician could preference the employment of staffers who support their political agenda.

Speaking about the political wrangling surrounding just such legislation before Australia's parliament, Brennan states: 

In recent days, if you were to listen to the media reports, you could be forgiven for thinking that religious educators want to retain a right to exclude children or teachers from their schools on the basis of their gender or sexual orientation.  Nothing could be further from the truth. Or nothing should be further from the truth.  

Three years ago, Archbishop Mark Coleridge, the President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, told the Parliament: ‘Catholic schools do not use the exemptions in the Sex Discrimination Act to expel or otherwise discriminate against students on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status.’  

Ann Maree Rebgetz, Board Director of  Catholic Secondary Principals Australia told the parliamentary committee: ‘Catholic secondary principals have a strong moral compass in relation to the treatment of secondary students in our schools.  They believe that inclusivity, as a gospel value, must reign supreme in the treatment of their clientele.  This translates into the safeguarding of all students, and particularly those students who are in a minority and may feel marginalised.  Religious schools should not be able to discriminate against students on the basis of their sexual orientation and identity.’ 

Brennan goes into some of the details of the approach of Catholic schools: 

Undoubtedly there are many sensitive and novel issues to consider when looking to the best interests of transgender children and their classmates, especially in single sex schools.  These are challenges for all schools, and not just religious ones.  All school systems need to train teachers and administrators to deal with these issues compassionately and competently.  The guidelines of the Melbourne archdiocese for ‘Pastoral care for students experiencing gender dysphoria’ are an indicator that the Catholic school system is responding appropriately from the top. The challenge is to ensure that teachers in the classroom have a clear understanding of the Church position and community expectations, as well as the training to assist children in these circumstances.

There are some dangers in the aggressive mentality abroad in society, as alluded to above, that is not helpful in dealing with the social problem of massive increases in the West of claims of dysphoria. On this, Brennan offers some insights:

When marking the 50th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, Pope John Paul II called for a collective examination of conscience.  He spoke of ‘the tendency of some to choose one or another right at their convenience, while ignoring those which are contrary to their current interests occurs too frequently.  Others do not hesitate to isolate particular rights from their context in order to act as they please, often confusing freedom with licence, or to provide themselves with advantages which take little account of human solidarity.’

Brennan continues:

Whatever happens with the religious discrimination debate [...], we need to ensure that we are not trumpeting one right over another.  Religious schools should retain the freedom to teach their religious doctrine and to choose staff sympathetic to the school’s religious ethos.  We all have the freedom to manifest our religion or beliefs subject to whatever lawful limitations are needed to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.  And we all have the right to equality before the law being entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law.

As to how to handle the matter of the right to not hire an LGBT teacher, Brennan stays with the central idea of a school having the right to protect its religious purpose. It would be incumbent on a school to show that a qualified LGBT teacher could not be hired because that teacher would not be able to undertake their duties in good faith, in accordance with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teachings of the particular religion or creed, as long as the educational institution is one whose activities are conducted in accordance with those doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teachings.

Clearly, it's important for society to create the space to deal calmly with such issues as the rights involved in practising one's religion and in being accorded human respect. That these are not mutually exclusive is clear from Brennan's statement: "It behoves us to have a care for those who are most marginalised in our society." The key point is that the effort to find ways to care for the needs - and rights - of all must be linked to collaboration, not the fomenting of conflict. 

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