The Ethics of Freedom of Religion

In America, no one ever questions the right to religious freedom; we’re taught in school from an early age that some of the first colonies established on this continent were founded by religious dissidents looking for a place to worship as they saw fit. And while most of the mythology that has grown up around the Pilgrims is as factually incorrect as any other national mythos, it is hard to deny that freedom of religion belongs in the Constitution, right up there with freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The real problems arise when people begin to apply religious beliefs to everyday life – that is, to make decisions on very mundane issues based on faith, which hasn’t traditionally worked any better than making decisions of faith based on law or social custom. Given that we’ve had several particularly troubling outbreaks of this complex in the last few weeks, I thought it might be interesting to take a closer look…

First off, it’s important to realize doomsday preachers and splinter sects that believe the end of the world is upon us are not a new concept, and neither are people who start behaving as if they’re going to heaven next Saturday as a consequence. History is full of examples, including some (such as the “Heaven’s Gate” cult in 1997 or the Jonestown mass murder/suicide in 1978) that don’t involve Christianity or the biblical end of the world at all. Most of the allegedly Christian versions avoid suicide pacts (since these don’t fit in well with the rest of Christian theology) and just claim that the world will end on its own, but even in those cases there have been exceptions, and many of the more do-it-yourself cults appear to have been based entirely on how the “leader” is feeling at the time he (or in a few cases she) decrees the end of the world. It’s also important to remember that in some cases, the cost of this religious freedom has been lives – and in some cases, hundreds of them…

In the most recent example (May 21, 2011) there were a indeterminate number of doomsday-related suicides, at least one murder-suicide involving a mother and her two children, and a number of cases where people maxed out their credit cards, quit their jobs, gave away everything they had, and generally destroyed their lives because they didn’t expect any of it would matter in a few days. If any other class of individual were to go around broadcasting claims that the end of the world was next week, and encouraging others to act accordingly, he or she would be arrested, charged with fraud (or possibly false advertising), and vigorously sued – assuming the FCC didn’t just shut them down in the first place. But religious speech is protected under the First Amendment, and thus can’t be shut down, no matter how many people it endangers or how many innocent lives it destroys. No one is saying that free speech should not be available to everyone, or that religious freedom isn’t integral to our way of life – but there have always been limits on speech (hate speech isn’t protected, and neither are threats or incitement to violence), and it may be that it is time to consider if there should be limits on freedom of religious speech as well…

Which brings me to the question: should someone who claims to have absolutely solid faith that the end of the world is imminent be allowed to broadcast that belief to the public? Especially since, this being a matter of faith, there is no way for anyone to judge how reliable that belief is? Does our answer change if we know for a fact that a non-zero number of people will kill themselves and murder their innocent children if such broadcasts are allowed? How about if the preacher making them is the head of a media empire, and has received over $109 million USD in donations from people who believe in his teachings? Or to put it another way, do we really want to give an industry that has become infamous for financially, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and sexually abusing its customers the freedom to operate with an impunity not granted to any other kind of organization? And if not, how do we restrict religious broadcasting in any way at all without violating the principles upon which this country was founded?

It’s worth thinking about…