Apparently competing rights

Richard Bach, author of the wonderful and famous "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" (Amazon), wrote, in the introduction to a subsequent book, words to the effect (I'm writing this from memory - those books are still packed) that an idea will

burst through your front wall, seize you gently, and say "I will not let go until you put me down, in words, on paper".

I've experienced - and still experience - that compelling nature of ideas, but there's another area of life I am aware of that compulsion, of that call, if you will: religion and spirituality.

I won't go into my personal experiences of that (you can find such at my main blog - e.g., here, here, here, here, and just generally buried in this lot), but John Beckett, "Pagan, Druid, and Unitarian Universalist", has written compellingly about religious experience and calls, on his "Under the Ancient Oaks" blog. Those posts include:

• "Exploring the Origins of Religion", which includes:

"as good as Part One is, it’s missing the same thing every other “origin of religion” and “evolution of religion” essay is missing: first-hand religious experience."
"If you assume there is nothing supernatural, sacred, or spiritual you can never hope to understand the beliefs and practices of someone who actually experiences the supernatural, sacred, and spiritual"
and
"I’ve had tangible experiences of beings I’m convinced are not of this world. I’ve had less tangible but just as real experiences of beings I’m convinced are Gods. I talk regularly with other people who have similar experiences. We can debate what these beings really are and what our encounters mean, but the experiences themselves are undeniably real."

• "Learning to Trust Your Experiences", which includes links to other materials and excellent comments on aspects such as now thyself, separate the experience from the interpretation, deception, "just because they're dead doesn't mean they're smart" (which I've written about elsewhere myself), mental health, and more, and this:

"But if have an experience that fits an Otherworldly or magical matter and you eliminate every ordinary explanation, all you’re left with are extraordinary explanations."

• "The Morrigan Calls people in Different Life Situations", which includes excellent links and the following:

"Some people compare being called by the Morrigan to being drafted into the army. You get a notice saying to go fight and you don’t have any real choice in the matter."

• and "How Do I Know if a God is Calling Me?".

In addition to being called, which is a deep and very real (and not exclusively Christian / neochristian / Abrahamic religion) matter, there are a number of reasons one can find oneself in a particular religious setting - including as a result of an intellectual exercise or some sort of personal quest, parental and/or peer influence, and even a search for community.

Being LGBTIQ is stronger and more intrinsic to oneself than all those reasons - including being called. That statement is being made by a trans lesbian and Pagan Priestess and Elder, on the basis of lived and observed experience, and the evidence - including scientific - of others.

Being LGBTIQ is NEVER a flippant "choice" - and neither is one's religion.

I'm a member of both camps, so am reasonably well positioned to know.

Now, the idea that there are competing rights here: let's look at that a little more closely.

Now, we're considering first generation rights (see here for a summary of terms etc) here. One of the sub-categories of that generation of rights is "inviolabilities", which - from my linked post - are:

"protection of the immediate sphere of personal security, privacy, identity of the person [and goods related to these], and thus rights to life and to personal integrity, personal liberty and security, prohibition of slavery, a name, sexual self-determination, and intimacy and privacy of the family and of the correspondence, and freedom of conscience [but civil liberty of proselytising may be limited] – all of which apply even if person utterly passive"

Another of the sub-category is "civil liberties". Again, from my linked post:

"based on interactions with others [recluse has, but to exercise must interact, which is regulated much as traffic needs traffic lights]- liberty of action in the political, social, and economic spheres, including freedoms of expression, seeking and receiving information, assembly, association, movement, and residence"

So basically, in the - as referred to in a West Wing episode ("Game On" in Season 4) - "one square feet of real estate" of one's head (and mind, or heart, and soul), one's liberty to opinions is inviolable. (As far as the law and legally defined rights are concerned, you don't have to love people, but you have to make sure any hate you have does not flow into real life. This is where the great Dr Martin Luther King. Jr.'s saying "“It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless” applies.)

To a large extent, what one does in the privacy of one's home, or with consenting adults, is also covered. The exception is where others are being harmed - for instance, domestic abuse - or could be harmed - such as planning a violent extremist event: in both those two examples, others have rights to interfere in order to protect others.

This is a good lead in to the exercise of rights in public life, which is largely civil rights (defined by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). From the MOOC  Chile (part of the Universidad Diego Portales) course "Introduction to Human Rights":

"Civil rights refer to the immunities every individual citizen should have in a political system based on the will of the governed and the legitimate monopoly of public force they bestow on the authorities they freely elect. Such monopoly of force ought to be used to enforce the law, protect basic rights, and promote the common good. Civil rights, then, imply the freedom to act in the economic and social spheres of society."

The rights are:

• the right to life;
• the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment;
• the prohibition of slavery;
• the right to liberty and security of the person;
• the right to equality before the law and the prohibition of discrimination;
• the right to have access to justice and to a due process of law;
• the right to privacy;
• the freedom of thought, of conscience, of religion, and of expression; and
• the right to vote and to run for public office.

The following is from the MOOC Chile course:

"Yet, as a rule, persons do not just remain in their intimate sphere. Social life and all its benefits come with the cost of trying to accommodate competing interests. This entails frequent collisions which must be regulated, much as an intense city traffic requires rules, red lights, and traffic signs. So, there are some reasonable and necessary restrictions to the exercise of certain civil and political rights, particularly civil liberties. These restrictions may consist of limitations applicable at all times, and derogations or suspensions, which may apply in times of certain grave emergencies."

Recent media events suggest that the second last of these may lead to a conflict between freedom of religion and expression, and the rights of LGBTIQ+ people - specifically, a well-known sports player who was sacked after a tweet that gay and lesbian people (and others) will go to hell.

There are a few points which need to be considered here:

• the details of freedom of expression or opinion are defined by international treaties and case law, and is currently understood to cover the liberty to hold opinions and both impart and receive (or seek) information and ideas, by any means, without interference; 
• there are limits - most famously expressed by the American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes rightly pointed out, in 1919, that freedom of speech does not include the right to falsely shout “fire!” in a crowded theatre. 

Those limits are accepted as including the protection of:

• Firstly, the rights of others (e.g., to privacy and reputation, the protection of minors, or the right to a fair trial). According to an ancient Kantian maxim, the liberties and rights of others are the frontier which cannot be trespassed when exercising one’s rights;
• Secondly, collective security or law enforcement: the exercise of civil and political rights cannot entail the disruption of peace and social tranquillity. Criminal law is the main system called to deal with disruptions of social peace, but this also includes limits on the publishing of military secrets;
• Thirdly, the authority or impartiality of the judiciary.
• And finally, international law mentions ‘common good’ reasons, which are the requirements of national security, public order, public health, and public morals, to limit certain liberties. 

 Now, my understanding of the situation of recent controversy is:

• I understand he was dismissed for breaching rules about bringing the sporting organisation into disrepute, not for homophobia, and that legal action is underway so that aspect may well be cleared up;
• His views on LGBTIQ+ people are hateful, but do not meet the criteria for hate speech.
  Again, from the MOOC Chile course:
  "Hate speech and war propaganda are directly forbidden by international human rights law. Hate speech is the advocacy of national, racial, and religious hatred that constitute incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence. For hate speech to be prohibited, it does not suffice [for it be] a hateful expression, it must also advocate wrongful actions against a person or a group";
• However, his position gives the views expressed significance and weight of exposure, and are the sort of view that causes harm to people - particularly young LGBTIQ+ kids, as well elucidated by a former player from that code who is gay. This harm is as real as domestic violence or violent extremism.

Therefore, my take on it is:

• the player has the right to his opinions; 
• as his expression of those views in those circumstances are likely to cause harm (much as shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre would), there is a good argument that he exceeded what was reasonable for his self expression, and began to trample on the rights of others.

If he had not been such a public figure, it is unlikely his views would have much, if any effect, and thus the argument about harm becomes weaker, but does not go away.

There are, however, broader aspects to this.

I've written about the inviolability of one's mind - one's "innermost / truest self", in a sense. That covers the right to have a particular religious belief, as well as acknowledging the right to be LGBTIQ+ - and those two groups overlap (as example, we had a National Queer Spirituality Conference in Adelaide in 2003 [see here], followed by a Victorian Queer Spirituality Conference in 2005).

The greatest beneficiaries of that protection have often been what are considered to be mainstream religions. The first major religious discrimination in Australia was against the Irish Catholics, who were a significant part of convicts being shipped out here in the late 1700s/earl;y 1800s, and that discrimination continued until at least the 1970s - albeit without the level of violence and visceral hatred in Ireland, where it was also intrinsically melded with nationalism.

As another example of that, antisemitism is still - disturbingly - present.

Thus, protecting the right for people to acknowledge / "choose" their own personal identity is a matter that is off benefit to mainstream religions.

To give another slant to this, the Chinese who came to Australia in the 1800s were not Christian; however, of late, a significant minority of Chinese in Australia are Christian, possibly fleeing the persecution of Communist China. That is, these people are choosing to leave a situation where their "one square foot of real estate" is not inviolable, to go to a place where it is - or is supposed to be.

That inviolability is attacked whenever mainstream religions attack LGBTIQ+ people (which includes a number of Christians) - it is, apart from the factual errors and the fact that those views are held only by a fraction of Christianity, a massive case of shooting oneself in the foot, as they are weakening the protections that they have benefitted from, and continue to benefit from.

Now, I want to go back to the limits of the law, summed up by Dr Martin Luther King. Jr. The law cannot change what is in people's heart (or their "one square feet of real estate"), but spirituality / religion can take such matters much further  by addressing what is in that "one square feet of real estate", or one's heart, or soul.

The following quotations by the great Dr Martin Luther King. Jr. - and one by a former UK Ambassador - illustrate that:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral. Returning violence with violence only multiplies violence, add deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. 
It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless.    

Dr Martin Luther King, Jr

The real dividing line is not between Christianity and Islam, Sunni and Shia, East and West. It is between people who believe in coexistence, and those who don’t. 

Tom Fletcher, Former UK Ambassador to Lebanon

What was in the sports player's heart and mind was - from a moral, spiritual and religious point of view - wrong. It may be that his views are not only based on theology, but also from not having truly known any LGBTIQ+ people - meeting LGBTIQ+ people in real life does seem to help people move beyond such views. I have no control over that - and, in all honesty, would be reluctant to suggest anyone subject themselves to such a potentially abusive experience. In the meantime, I will pray to my Deities that he becomes enlightened and is aided to grow beyond those regressive views.

And I will continue to strengthen human rights laws wherever I can, which actions are based on the reality of the normality of LGBTIQ+ people.