Sole Morality

The Necessity of Religion

I was not a Mitt Romney supporter in this last primary process. Some of the things he said rubbed me the wrong way. That aside, I do agree with him on some matters. One of them was a sentiment he expressed in his notable speech on religion. In that speech he said, "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom." Religion isn't necessarily the word I would have used, but I agree with the sentiment. Romney's quote hearkens back to one of my all time favorite John Adams quotes that says, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

There was an article posted back in January of this year at American Thinker that talks about Mitt's speech and whether religion really is necessary. It is a quick read and I found it to be very thought provoking. Here's a great excerpt:

Self governance cannot function without morality. As morals decline, laws expand and freedoms necessarily contract. This is because no law is perfect. The perfect application of law is only possible if the lawmaker and judge are omniscient, knowing every reason a law exists and every detail, even the thoughts, of the alleged law-breaker.

Since this is impossible, the best situation is to have the fewest laws possible, to avoid illegalizing proper behavior under legislation's inevitably wide swath. The more self-regulating (or moral) a nation is collectively, the fewer laws needed to maintain order.

As national morality declines, inducing governments and citizens to favor more laws, the less plausible our Constitutional system becomes.

I encourage you to go read the article in full. It made me really consider how we have gotten to the point in our society that we have to defend our rights when those who originally pushed for our constitution's ratification felt that the enumeration of such rights was wholly unnecessary, as expressed in the Federalist Paper No. 84, written by Alexander Hamilton:

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted.

For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power.

Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Two Rights, Someone's Wronged

This blog posting has been percolating for a while now. I've been mulling it over, desperately trying to arrive at some enlightening conclusion which brings peace and harmony to the universe. Alright, that might be a bit much but I have been trying to resolve the issue within myself. But that isn't the purpose of this blog. I don't need to have all the answers. This blog is meant to show my journey as much as my conclusions.

Anyway, I recently came across another article that directly relates to the original topic and decided that maybe it is time I start sharing these thoughts on here so that perhaps others can help me come to a conclusion.

The article I came across is the report of a settlement between eHarmony.com, a dating website, and Eric McKinley. Let me fill you in on some of the background and details of this.

eHarmony.com is a website that caters to Christian singles looking to form a lasting and committed relationship. With the traditional Christian aims, it deals only with matching up heterosexual couples. In 2005, Mr. McKinley was less than happy with that fact and filed suit in New Jersey claiming discrimination by eHarmony against homosexuals.

After three years, eHarmony has settled. Full details of the settlement can be found at www.onlinedatingmagazine.com. The short version is that eHarmony will be forced to conduct additional research in order to provide the basis for the new website they will be putting up that will match people of the same gender. They are also going to have to pay to advertise that site in ways that target homosexuals.

What bothers me the most about this, and what Michelle Malkin points out rather well, is that eHarmony never discriminated against homosexuals. Anyone could join and be matched according to the parameters of the service eHarmony offered. She drives home this point wby making a couple of comparisons: "This case is akin to a meat-eater suing a vegetarian restaurant for not offering him a ribeye or a female patient suing a vasectomy doctor for not providing her hysterectomy services."

eHarmony's troubles don't end there, though. California currently has a class action suit pending against eHarmony where the plaintiff's don't have to "prove actual injury to obtain damages, just that they visited eHarmony and were denied service."

Why force a Christian man who wants to operate a specific business model to change that entire business model and to operate a business that now conflicts directly with his religious beliefs? It isn't as though there aren't any dating websites that not only include but are specifically targetted at homosexuals. There are plenty out there. So why focus on this one dating service focused specifically towards heterosexuals?

eHarmony is hardly the sole example of this. One of the first articles I encountered about this type of issue was the account of a photographer in New Mexico. Elaine Huguenin and her husband own a small, family run photography company and declined to take a job photographing a lesbian commitment ceremony on the basis that it conflicts with their religious beliefs as Christians. They were sued by the prospective client and were forced to pay more than $6,600 to the prospective client.

In California, a case was recently won by a lesbian couple in which they sued a doctor for not performing artificial insemination for them. He refused to perform the procedure based on the woman's marital status and indicated that he would not perform an artificial insemination on any woman who was single. He referred her to another doctor and paid the difference in cost. This was a non-essential, non-lifesaving, elective procedure that would have cause the doctor to act in direct violation of his conscience and morals, yet the state of California says he had no right to refuse to do the procedure simply because his it would have violated his religious convictions.

NPR has compiled a host of other examples that include:

• Catholic Charities ceasing adoptions in Massachussets for refusing to facilitate the adoption of children to homosexual couples.
• Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine, an Orthodox Jewish private university, that was forced to allow same sex couples into its married dormitories, despite the fact that homosexual marriage hasn't been established in New York.
• A mental health counselor who was fired for refusing to counsel a lesbian on how to improve her lesbian relationship because it violated the counselor's religious belief.

So now that I have laid all this out, let me get to my dilemma.

I personally find all the above examples repugnant. They elevate certain people's "rights" above the "rights" of others. The government has stepped in and demanded that these people act in a way that directly violates their religious beliefs. Suddenly the right to practice one's religion has been demoted and cast aside to make way for non-discrimination.

These homosexuals and many more like them are clamoring for "their right" to obtain services from anyone they choose, even if those services, such as the case in eHarmony, aren't offered by the person or company. But what about my rights? My right to practice my religion free from government intrusion which would include the government dictating to me that I must conduct my business in a certain way that violates my core beliefs.

It is at this point however, that the comparison to racial discrimination often enters the conversation. I firmly believe that discriminating against someone because of the color of their skin or the country they were born is is a disgusting practice. But I see a distinct difference between racial discrimination and what I have described above.

None of the above cases involved discriminating against someone purely because they were a homosexual. Simply, the people above didn't want to engage in behaviors that could be seen as advocating and condoning homosexuality. They didn't want to further that cause, encourage people in that lifestyle, or do something that would legitimize their pursuing homosexuality.

Put simply, racial discrimination was largely about the individual. And certainly some homosexual discrimination has been about the individual, but none of the above cases fit that. This is about behavior and lifestyle. And not just any behavior and lifestyle, but one that a significant number of people feel is immoral and wrong.

There has to be a way to stop people from discriminating against an individual while not forcing them to act in violation of their religious or moral convictions by doing things that legitimize behavior.

How can we respect both "rights?"

A Right, Defined

I had a nice conversation with my dad this morning and in the course of it, a question I had been mulling over had come up. What is a "right?"

In our society, we throw around the term "right" rather loosely and I wonder if the term is becoming diluted and misapplied. I know the readership here isn't huge, but I am still working this out for myself and I am interested in what everyone else has to say.

So how do you define it?

Is there a difference between a right and a civil right?

Who grants a right?

Can you have a right to something that costs money?

What disqualifies something as a right (it'd be a right, but for X)?

I'm not going to debate, argue, or counter any comments that are left. I plan on taking in what is said and trying to form my own opinion that I'll post later.

Sobriety Checkpoints and the Fourth Amendment

For those not familiar with the Bill of Rights, the fourth amendment states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This is the amendment that keeps you the police out of your house and from stopping you at every turn for any whim they happen to have. Anytime you are engaged by a police officer and are not free to leave whenever you please, you are being detained. In the language of the above amendment, your "person" has been "seized."

The easiest example to use with this is being arrested for, let's say not showing up for court. In that case, the judge issues a bench warrant for your arrest. Thus, a warrant describing the person to be seized (you) is issued on probable cause (an officer of the court observing that you failed to show up as legally obligated). The police can then, under the authority of the warrant, seize your person (arrest you). Again, this is all contingent on "probable cause," a lower standard than what is necessary to convict someone in court, which is generally defined as a "a reasonable belief that a crime has been committed" or "reason to believe that an injury had criminal cause."

The courts have decided that police officers should have the authority to temporarily detain or seize someone to determine if probable cause exists. Thankfully, the courts didn't give carte blanche to officers to do this. The Supreme Court case Terry v. Ohio from 1968 established that officers need to have grounds to detain someone, although less than "probable cause." Instead, "reasonable suspicion" was established as the standard for such temporary detainments, commonly called a "Terry stop." The evidence, observations, and inferences must in totality be sufficient such that a reasonable person would believe that the person has been or is about to be engaged in criminal activity. It is in this case that the authority for traffic stops are based in. When an officer writes you a ticket, the officer is attesting to what he observed and gives you the option of simply paying the fine if you agree to the infraction or crime you committed or to appear in court to be judged. The detainments must be based on more than "a hunch" and must be brief in duration.

In other words, if the police do not have reasonable suspicion, then they do not have the authority to detain you. They simply can't pull you over while you're driving for no other reason than to see if you are following the law. Or can they...

In the 1990 Supreme Court case of Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, the court overturned the Michigan State Supreme Court ruling that the use of sobriety checkpoints was unconstitutional. While the majority held that the state interested in preventing drunk driving outweighed the intrusion. The dissenting minority disagreed and noted several things I find I highly agree with in this matter. Per Justice Brennan:

Some level of individualized suspicion is a core component of the protection the Fourth Amendment provides against arbitrary government action.

By holding that no level of suspicion is necessary before the police may stop a car for the purpose of preventing drunken driving, the Court potentially subjects the general public to arbitrary or harassing conduct by the police.

That stopping every car might make it easier to prevent drunken driving. . . is an insufficient justification for abandoning the requirement of individualized suspicion.

Justice Stevens also wrote a dissent and referred to a Maryland checkpoint system that made use of 125 checkpoints and only resulted in a 0.3% arrest rate. Comparing this to Michigan's proposal, he notes:

Yet, even if the 143 checkpoint arrests were assumed to involve a net increase in the number of drunken driving arrests per year, the figure would still be insignificant by comparison to the 71,000 such arrests made by Michigan State Police without checkpoints in 1984 alone.

Any relationship between sobriety checkpoints and an actual reduction in highway fatalities is even less substantial than the minimal impact on arrest rates. As the Michigan Court of Appeals pointed out: "Maryland had conducted a study comparing traffic statistics between a county using checkpoints and a control county. The results of the study showed that alcohol-related accidents in the checkpoint county decreased by ten percent, whereas the control county saw an eleven percent decrease; and while fatal accidents in the control county fell from sixteen to three, fatal accidents in the checkpoint county actually doubled from the prior year."

Perhaps my favorite point from the dissents was by Justice Brennan when, quoting himself from another Supreme Court case, he wrote:

Moved by whatever momentary evil has aroused their fears, officials - perhaps even supported by a majority of citizens - may be tempted to conduct searches that sacrifice the liberty of each citizen to assuage the perceived evil. But the Fourth Amendment rests on the principle that a true balance between the individual and society depends on the recognition of `the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.' Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).

So, with the matter being decided in 1990, why am I bringing all this up and boring you with lots of legal stuff? Well, because it wasn't completely decided.

10 states, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming (I found conflicting information on Alaska), don't allow checkpoints by prohibiting them in state law or, in Washington's case, because the state constitution provides higher protection against search and seizure than does the federal law.

In the 1988 case of City of Seattle v. Mesiani, Washington's Supreme Court upheld that sobriety checkpoints violate Article 1 Section 7 of the state constitution which says, "No person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law." The court went on to say that "sobriety checkpoints are highly intrusive subjectively because the officer personally searches the driver for evidence of intoxication, including smelling breath, looking for open containers, and attempting to elicit evidence of lack of dexterity by asking for a license." The court finally said that sobriety checks were illegal searches thus would require a warrant. So, 20 years later, the governor of the state of Washington, Christine Gregoire, has proposed legislation that would legalize sobriety checkpoints in the state by allowing judges to issue a warrant. How would a warrant cover the search of dozens if not hundreds of drivers? Well, that's simple. Issue it for a place and time, and have it cover everyone who happens to be there!

An article regarding the proposed legislation in The Oregonian explains Gregoire's proposal. The police will have to get a warrant from a judge to set up the roadblock at a specific place and for a specific time. All vehicles would then be stopped with failure to stop being a gross misdemeanor. In other words, the warrant would not be specific as to who would be stopped nor would it have to show any probable cause regarding the person being stopped other than the fact that there are a lot of alcohol and drug related accidents that take place at that location.

Governor Gregoire said, "We will go where the impaired drivers go, with the goal of getting them off the road."

You see, the problem is that the government already has the authority to "go where the impaired drivers go." Cops can sit on the roads that bars are on, can blitz the area and have increased manpower patrolling just outside a bar at closing time, and heck they can even sit across the street and watch for anyone staggering over to a car and falling inside the drivers side door.

So, I'm left wondering why Governor Gregoire feels the need to suspend our civil liberty and our rights to privacy and protection against seizures of our person with out individualized reasonable suspicion? Why does she feel the need to go against the state Supreme Court?

The checkpoints are intrusive. The checkpoints are illegal. And unless the residents of Washington step up and do something, the checkpoints are coming your way.

How do you step up?
Take a minute and either call or write your state congressmen or women and ask them to oppose HB 2771. The link will let you search for them and will give you their office phone numbers and email addresses. You don't have to write much. A simple: "I am writing to express my opposition to HB 2771 which would allow police to conduct sobriety checkpoints. I am opposed to it because I feel it is (pick one or more: unconstitutional under the state constitution, illegal as per the 1988 Washington Supreme Court ruling, invasive, [some other reason]). I would appreciate you standing with the concerned citizens of Washington and supporting our civil rights by opposing this bill. I look forward to hearing your response and how you anticipate voting." Simple enough.

Then write or call the members of the state house judiciary committee (where the bill currently is in the legislative process). You can probably skip the committee chair and vice-chair, as they are sponsors of the bill and have probably already made up their mind on how to vote.

Then tell a friend. If you care to do that by sending this post to someone, you can do that by simply clicking on the little envelope icon at the bottom of this post.