Inspired by this thread, but I figured it deserves a thread of its own:
"Privatized profits, socialized losses" describes an economic condition where a company gets benefits without having to bear the corresponding risks and disadvantages. I think that a similar situation often occurs with religion.
A recent ruling about state grants for playgrounds brought up the idea of equal treatment of religious organizations: a church objected that they were being excluded from a program that would allow them to get a subsidy to resurface their playground with rubber from recycled tires. The church's lawsuit argued it was illegal to deny them the benefit solely because of their organization's religious nature.
At first blush, it seems like they're arguing for equal treatment of all organizations on their merits without regard to their religious or non-religious nature... i.e. secularism. However, a closer look suggests that this isn't the case: when we remove religion's special disadvantages but not its special benefits, we actually increase inequality overall. We're taking a class of organizations that already receive disproportionate net benefits and giving them even more net benefit.
A related problem occurs with prayer in public meetings: traditionally, many government meetings (e.g. municipal council meetings) began with a Christian invocation. When challenged on this unfair and unequal treatment for one religion, many councils opened up their procedures to allow, on paper at least, invocations from any religion or no religion. Usually, this ends up one of two ways:
- being in a heavily Christian area, even when they open up the invocation to anyone who puts their name forward to do it, only Christians put their name forward. The invocations continue being exclusively Christian.
- an atheist, Satanist, Wiccan, or some other member of an "objectionable" group applies to give the invocation. Rather than suffer through a non-Christian invocation, the governmental body chooses to eliminate the invocation altogether.
The result is that even though any individual governmental body can say they treat all religions equally, when we look at the big picture, we have a situation of "Christianity or nothing."
In both situations, any "equality" is just an illusion. We only see it when we narrowly focus on one or two details without considering the overall context. When we look at the big picture, we see that what gets done in the name of "religious equality" often ends up actually worsening or entrenching inequality.
Thoughts?
"Privatized profits, socialized losses" describes an economic condition where a company gets benefits without having to bear the corresponding risks and disadvantages. I think that a similar situation often occurs with religion.
A recent ruling about state grants for playgrounds brought up the idea of equal treatment of religious organizations: a church objected that they were being excluded from a program that would allow them to get a subsidy to resurface their playground with rubber from recycled tires. The church's lawsuit argued it was illegal to deny them the benefit solely because of their organization's religious nature.
At first blush, it seems like they're arguing for equal treatment of all organizations on their merits without regard to their religious or non-religious nature... i.e. secularism. However, a closer look suggests that this isn't the case: when we remove religion's special disadvantages but not its special benefits, we actually increase inequality overall. We're taking a class of organizations that already receive disproportionate net benefits and giving them even more net benefit.
A related problem occurs with prayer in public meetings: traditionally, many government meetings (e.g. municipal council meetings) began with a Christian invocation. When challenged on this unfair and unequal treatment for one religion, many councils opened up their procedures to allow, on paper at least, invocations from any religion or no religion. Usually, this ends up one of two ways:
- being in a heavily Christian area, even when they open up the invocation to anyone who puts their name forward to do it, only Christians put their name forward. The invocations continue being exclusively Christian.
- an atheist, Satanist, Wiccan, or some other member of an "objectionable" group applies to give the invocation. Rather than suffer through a non-Christian invocation, the governmental body chooses to eliminate the invocation altogether.
The result is that even though any individual governmental body can say they treat all religions equally, when we look at the big picture, we have a situation of "Christianity or nothing."
In both situations, any "equality" is just an illusion. We only see it when we narrowly focus on one or two details without considering the overall context. When we look at the big picture, we see that what gets done in the name of "religious equality" often ends up actually worsening or entrenching inequality.
Thoughts?
