Confusion plagues the right: Why it doesn’t understand liberal views of the Hobby Lobby case

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http://www.salon.com/2014/03/25/confusion_plagues_the_right_why_it_doesnt_understand_liberal_views_of_the_hobby_lobby_case/



Conservative columnist Ramesh Ponnuru wrote an interesting piece yesterday at National Review arguing that while liberals have constricted their views of the extent of religious liberty over the years, conservatives, though tactically divided, have been consistent on the issue.

The hook for his article is today’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court, in the case that will decide whether corporations should be able to obtain a religious exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, and possibly other laws and regulations. He draws on history that’s outside my wheelhouse, but makes an intuitive case –religion has been a consistently dominant force in conservative politics for a long time now, but a smaller, shrinking one in liberal politics.

But I think he both over- and understates my position here:

One response from liberals was that they had not retreated an inch from the defense of individuals’ religious freedoms but were objecting only to the attempt to grant those freedoms to corporations…. [But] the fact is that some contemporary liberals are objecting on principle to exemptions for anyone: My article cited Brian Beutler, and if any liberals have criticized him on this point I haven’t seen it.

He’s referring to a piece I wrote about the evolving tension between religious observers and the expansion of LGBT rights. But he interprets my personal view to be more rigid, in some ways, than it actually is.

So my personal view (for whatever it’s worth) is that I don’t think there’s a very compelling case for the charitable deduction — which props up religious institutions and myriad other nonprofits — in general, just like I don’t think there are compelling cases for tax expenditures. Moreover, given the existence of tax-exempt status for churches, I also think it’s morally inconsistent to, for instance, oppose tax-exempt status for churches that refuse to perform interracial marriages, but support tax-exempt status for churches that refuse to perform same-sex marriages.