I think Christopher Lund captures a valuable insight about competing notions of identity. My friend from UT, J Bud, makes a point that strike me as similar when he talks about our various "zones of tolerance":
"The bottom line is that Neutrality is no more coherent in the matter of religious tolerance than it is in tolerance of any other sort. What you can tolerate pivots on your ultimate concern. Because different ultimate concerns ordain different zones of tolerance, social consensus is possible only at the points where these zones overlap. Note well: The greater the resemblance of contending concerns, the greater the overlap of their zones of tolerance. The less the resemblance of contending concerns, the less the overlap of their zones of tolerance. Should contending concerns become sufficiently unlike, their zones of tolerance no longer intersect at all. Consensus vanishes. This, I believe, is our current trajectory. The embattled term 'culture war' is not inflammatory; it is merely inexact. And we can expect the war to grow worse. The reason for this is that our various gods ordain not only different zones of tolerance, but different norms to regulate the dispute among themselves. True tolerance is not well tolerated. For although the God of some of the disputants ordains that they love and persuade their opponents, the idols of some of the others ordain no such thing." J. Budziszewski, The Revenge of Conscience (1999). --- "Christopher C. Lund" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Perhaps there is also a linkage between gay rights > and religious liberty in > the sense that both are largely about identity. > Precisely because religious > and sexual identity are not entirely immutable > (although neither seems to be > wholly a matter of unconstrained choice), the > government can leverage people > away from being who they, in a deep sense, really > are. > > I heard one gay-rights speaker once conclude by > saying something like: "This > is who I am; I can be no other." I don't honestly > think she meant to sound > like Martin Luther before Emperor Charles at the > Diet of Worms ("I cannot, > and I will not recant. Here I stand; I can do no > other. God help me. > Amen.") Perhaps she didn't even recognize the > resemblance. But, there it > is. > > Rick Duncan Welpton Professor of Law University of Nebraska College of Law Lincoln, NE 68583-0902 "When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered." --The Prisoner __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.