“If this goes through, it’s equivalent to North Korea”

This is a full transcript, in the original English, of my interview with Daniel Szirányi, member of the board of the Catholic school of Notre Dame, in Gothenburg, Sweden, regarding the Social Democrat Party’s proposal to close all religious schools in Sweden.

Esta é uma transcrição complete, no inglês original, da minha entrevista a Daniel Szirányi, do Conselho de Administração da escola católica de Notre Dame, em Gotemburgo, Suécia, sobre a proposta do Partido Social Democrata sueco de fechar todas as escolas religiosa naquele país. A reportagem pode ser lida aqui.

What is going on exactly?

The current situation is that Sweden organizes its school system mainly based on state schools and there are 71 confessional schools. 59 of these are Christian, 11 are Muslim and there is one Jewish school. Three of them are Catholic schools. The one I represent has been present in Sweden for approximately 150 years and it is the biggest in the Nordic countries.

We have a very good relationship with society and it has been ongoing for a long time, and the current government, which consists of the Social Democrat Party and the Greens... On the 9th of September we have elections in Sweden, so there is a heated political debate. The Social Democrat Party, which is the major party in the Government have made a new proposal which means they want to close down confessional schools altogether. The reason behind that is mostly because in recent years we have had major immigration into Sweden and there are different issues with Muslim immigrants, and maybe also from other confessions, and there is a party called the Sweden Democrats, which opposes immigration, and they are taking loads of voters from the Social Democrat Party, which has been the traditional big party in Sweden. This is a typical move to try and gain back some of the voters.

Unfortunately, this affects all confessions and religions, and the Christian schools would all be hit by it. If the law goes through we would cease to exist. This is the major problem.

Fortunately, currently there is no political majority in Parliament. The only parties which are interested in this type of radical legislation is the Social Democrats, supported by the former communist Left Party and also the Liberal Party, which is a smallish socialist-liberal party. But the three do not have a majority currently.

Nevertheless, it is a little problematic for us, currently, working with schools and children and education, being in the press, in the center of a political election campaign is not what we would like. Unfortunately, prejudices are up in the air, which we always have to, somehow, fight back against.

We do have the legislation on our side, so it would not be possible to close the school, nevertheless people, and our teachers and employees, are obviously nervous, and nobody knows what will happen.

So this decision seems to be a way to gain back voters from the Sweden Democrats, but this is not a cause espoused by the Sweden Democrats, is it?

When the Social Democrat congress decided this we began inviting politicians to our schools to show them that we are a normal school, with about 450 pupils, nothing to be afraid of. But they told us, unfortunately, that they wanted to close the school. So after that we called every party and had dialogue with every party to understand what position each party had. The Sweden Democrats are not planning to close any Christian or religious schools, what they told is that they would like to elaborate if there is a possibility to limit the creation of new religious schools. But it is a vague definition. After the elections they would like to see if that is possible, but that would not affect the current existing Christian or Catholic schools.

You said there have been concerns about immigration. Have there been any problems with Muslim schools?

I cannot tell you if there have been... I have not heard of that.

Obviously there are the classical problems that we see in other countries with segregation in the big cities, and of course people might be skeptical against schools where children are dressed in a certain way, but I cannot point out any specific incident.

But the background of what the socialist ministers are saying is that they want to avoid further segregation, they believe that when you have religion based schools people do not integrate into Swedish society, and that increases segregation. The problem is that we would, from our point of view, say the opposite. We are actually helping a large part of the Christian immigrant community to help them into Swedish society, so it is the exact opposite. For example, our Catholic School of Notre Dame, in Gothenburg, has about 80 to 90% immigrant families, from the Middle East, but also South America, Africa and Eastern Europe, from different nationalities, and this is a perfect way to understand how Swedish Society works and help them on their path into higher education.

We have been in the media several times now and our main point is that the main argument the socialist government has for this proposal does not make sense, because we actually help to defuse segregation. Our school is in the middle of the city, it is a wealthy area, and people from all around the city are coming to the school, so it is the exact opposite of segregation.

In our case we are helping society to diminish segregation.

Do you have non-Catholic students also at your school?

We have a small majority of Catholics and a large minority of Orthodox. Then we have a few Muslim families also.

We have very good relations with them. In many of these Muslim countries they have Christian schools which are considered to be strong schools, which is why they are happy to have their children with us, even though they are Muslims. So in our case we have a very mixed population.

Just to clarify... The Social Democrat Party is left of center, correct?

Yes. We have three parties to the left...

The Left Party is the Ex-Communist Party, which is out of Government, but they are supporting the government. The Government consists of the Social-democrats, which are around 30%, they are historically the largest party, classical socialists and members of the European Socialist movement, and then we have the Green Party, which is between the communists and the socialists. Those three are on the left side.

Then we have three small center-right parties, the Christian Democrats, the Center Party and the Liberal Party, and then we have the larger Conservative-Liberal Party, which is moderate and has about 25%.

Finally, we have the third group, which is the Sweden Democrats, which are difficult to position as left or right, and it looks, from the polls, like they are going to win the election.

The big question that everybody asks is who will dare to join them in a coalition if they win.

When they say they want to close down the school, does that mean to literally close it down, or just remove public funding?

The rhetoric in the media is that they don't want to allow us to exist.

And keep in mind that the Swedish legislation is already very tough on religion and schools already. It is a very secular society, and we are, for example not allowed to have any religious impact during school hours in our Catholic school. So the only time we are able to have a morning mass, is before or after school hours. This is very important to understand, if you compare to a Catholic country such as Portugal, for example.

Regarding Public funding, being on the board, and based on my conversations with the principal and the management, that is actually what we are afraid of, that this particular legislation might not go through, but we will have limitations on funding, this and that, or other restrictions, and that obviously could impact our activity in a negative way.

Sweden has a state religion, the Lutheran Church...

Yes.

Some years back once you were born you were automatically considered a member of the Church, but now that is not the case.

But there is a relationship. I imagine many of these schools are Lutheran, have they spoken out?

Yes, and we are collaborating very well with each other. And what is nice to see is that many of these Christian schools are really strong schools, top schools in Sweden, and it is difficult to argue that they should close down, when their performance is so strong. So the clergy from both sides have spoken out together and we, in the schools, have helped each other out.

Do you know about any other country in Europe which has no confessional schools?

We did some research; it might not be complete... My family is from Hungary and I suffered under a communist dictatorship, but the only countries we have found which have these sort of limitations, they are very few in the world, and these are all dictatorships. We have not found any European country which has a full prohibition against Christian or religious schools.

What is important for the Swedish public, regardless of your opinion on religion, is to understand that if this goes through it is a very radical decision, equivalent to North Korea. People need to understand how severe this topic is. And I am not sure people are aware of this.

You seem to be confident that you have legislation on your side. You mean European legislation as well, correct?

Yes. The European Convention grants the freedom of each family to choose the school and the education of the Children, based on their faith. That is written in law, and Sweden has signed this Convention also, so it is valid in Sweden.

Now obviously, as you know, the national legislation can always be twisted back and forth, and this is what we hope they will not do, but keep the hard line and keep the European legislation alive in Sweden too.

But we are not there yet. Now we have a political campaign in Sweden, and that is why this topic is heated. I am not sure... I really hope it will be less important later on, once the elections are done, but obviously, if we are still threatened, we definitely will need to take legal action and get legal help, jointly with other Christian schools.

Obviously this is a threat to religious freedom in Sweden. Is it one of many? Are there other acts of hostility, or is this a unique situation?

This is the major topic when it comes to issues against religion, nevertheless a few months ago there was an attempt against a Synagogue in Gothenburg... There are some negative activities going on, but I would not say that there is a significant religious threat, other than the discussion about the schools.

It is not so easy to be a religious person in Sweden, because it is a heavily secular and atheistic country, even though we have a State religion. It is difficult to defend the faith, but this is how we live, and this is why it is so important to have confessional schools that provide an alternative for families which are not convinced by atheistic education.

"We need to be willing to take a hit for Religious Freedom"

Lord David Alton

This is a full transcript, in the original English, of my short interview with Lord David Alton. It took place in September 2017, at a reception at the Houses of Parliament, which he hosted for participants of the Alliance Defending Freedom Press Symposium.

Esta é uma transcrição integral, no inglês original, da minha curta conversa com Lorde David Alton. Decorreu no passado mês de Setembro, 2017, durante uma recepção no Parlamento Britânico, que ele organizou para os participantes no Simpósio de Imprensa convocado pela Alliance Defending Freedom. A reportagem portuguesa está aqui.

Is religious liberty and freedom of conscience under threat in Western Europe and in the UK specifically?

Article 18 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights insists that it is every person's right to believe, not to believe or to change their belief, and all three elements are under attack both here in countries like the UK, where people are discriminated against, or outright persecution in countries like Saudi Arabia, or China, where it is impossible to follow your beliefs in the way you would wish.

So there is a sort of hierarchy. It would be absurd to suggest that in countries like the UK that it is as difficult to be a Christian as it is in North Korea, obviously that is absurd, but nevertheless we should be careful about the erosion of our fundamental freedoms.

The attacks come in a slightly different way. The devil comes in carpet slippers, in a society like this. So you see a harbinger in the dismissal of two catholic nurses, midwives, in Scotland, who refused to collaborate in an abortion. They said they are called to deliver babies, not to take their lives. As a result of that they lost their jobs. If they had been doctors they would have been protected under a conscience clause. But because they are not doctors they weren't, and I think we need to strengthen our laws so that conscience prevails in situations of that kind.

There is one case I know affected you personally, to do with the Catholic adoption agencies, at the time of gay adoption legislation. Are these the types of situation which are mounting up to pose a threat to conscience protection?

Yes, and society loses a great deal when it discriminates against religious communities because it can't accept that they are entitled to have a different view about something such as adoption or marriage. These are fundamental questions that affect people in a very personal way, and people have got to learn to live and let live.

Forcing the closure of adoption agencies hurts children, it becomes part of an ideology, the latest of which is gender ideology. And I think we have got to stand firm against these things and say that you must learn to live alongside us respectfully, and we must learn to live alongside you respectively. Its the dignity of difference.

You mentioned Tim Farron and Reese Mogg in your speech... Is it in fact becoming increasingly difficult, or even impossible, to hold public office and espouse religious beliefs?

Well, it goes up and down. If you think, here we are standing on the terrace of Parliament. If you think back 200 years, there was a young man who was the youngest member of the House of Commons, who was criticised for trying to impose his Christian views on the House of Commons. His name was William Wilberforce. He was opposed to slavery. It took him 40 years to challenge people's belief that it was their right to choose to own another human being as a slave, merely because of the colour of their skin. If he had accepted the criticism that he had no right to argue his beliefs in our House of Commons, we would probably have slavery with us to this very day.

So in every generation you have to be willing to take a hit. People don't like what you have to say, that doesn't mean it is wrong. The beauty of democracy is that you have to win the argument. Why are they so frightened of even hearing the arguments? Why are they saying that someone like Tim Farron shouldn't be able to lead a political party because of his Christian Faith? Why are they saying that someone like Jacob Rees-Mogg shouldn't be a Conservative member of Parliament because he opposes abortion? If they are in favour of choice, let them also be in favour of also hearing alternative views, and let people then choose which one they happen to want to support. It shows a fear, I think, on the part of people who are opposed to things that men like Tim Farron and Jacob Rees-Mogg stand for.

In terms of conscience protection and traditional values, is Brussels an obstacle or a help in this situation?

I think it very much depends on the issue. You take an issue like human embryology, our laws, which permit the destruction of human embryos over the first 14 days of their life, has led to the destruction of 2 million human embryos. We've even permitted the creation of animal human hybrid embryos. This is something that is prohibited in most EU countries and not facilitated by the EU.

Take things like the abortion laws. We allow abortion up to and even during birth, on a baby with a disability, and up to 24 weeks gestation in other circumstances. The EU average term limit is around 12 weeks. So who'se laws are more liberal, and who's are more conservative? But take euthanasia, and in Holland and in Belgium they have permissive euthanasia laws. In Holland more than 4000 people die every year from Euthanasia, 1.000 of which are without the consent of the patient. In this country, the UK, we have prohibited that. So this is a debate which is running at different levels in different jurisdictions. This isn't about left or right, its about right or wrong. Its not about being European or British, its about standing four square in the belief that every human being is made in the image of God, that they are therefore unique and worthy of our protection.

Lori Beaman on Religion in the Public Square

Full transcript of my interview with researcher Lori Beaman on religion in the public square. The news item can be read here, in Portuguese.

The XXI Century has been seriously marked by the issue of Religious Freedom, both in terms of physical persecution and moral and political conflicts in the Western world. This surprises many people who thought that Religion was not going to be an issue anymore in our age. Does is surprise you?

It’s not so surprising to me because this is what I study and have spent my life on. But it also depends on how you characterize things like the return of religion to the public sphere, and so on. But if we think about migration, increased diversity in societies, it means that people who are different, in different ways, come into contact with each other. And of course if we welcome newcomers to our societies they need to feel that they are included, and the way they feel included is to feel equal.

The conflict arises when people maybe don't feel included, don't feel equal, and it emerges naturally when you have increased diversity and increased difference, and maybe not always the mechanisms for resolving that difference or even normalizing it, in some way, whether it’s through ideology or political strategy. For example in Canada we have this notion of multiculturalism, which is also enshrined in our charter of rights, that we have to interpret rights according to the multicultural heritage of Canada, and so it is a kind of broad platform from which we understand difference.

What do you identify as the major religious freedom issues of today?

I am hesitating because people go immediately to the Muslim example, and I'd really prefer not to do that, but it is one that is very present. So for example in Canada we have a case going through the courts of a woman who would like to wear a niqab as she takes her citizenship oath. So this is a case which has caused a great deal of controversy, it’s involved our prime-minister, so it's politically controversial as well as from a juridical standpoint. So this is one example which comes to mind.

Another is a decision which came from the Supreme Court a few weeks ago – and these sorts of examples are not just applicable to Canada – involves the display of religious symbols in the public sphere, as well as prayer before a municipal council meeting. So there is on one hand a rhetoric that we live in a secular society, but on the ground there are all these religious practices which infiltrate day to day life.

The Supreme Court ultimately decided that it was not appropriate to say this prayer, as it was being said, in this city in Quebec, it was a use of state power in an inappropriate way, that the state was not being properly neutral. But the surprising thing about the decision was the response to it, which was all across Canada towns, villages and cities emerged as still saying some version of a prayer, the Lord's prayer, before council meetings, before doing the business of the local council.

This was quite astonishing, but what was troubling was that many of these places said they were going to keep saying the prayer, in a nation that is so called secular. So that is an issue, in other words, how does a majoritarian religion, even in countries which think of themselves as secular, how does it infiltrate daily practices, institutions and so on, and how does that make people who don't belong to those groups feel excluded, or not included, and how does that, in turn, impact on social cohesion. This is a very important issue, how do people feel included and welcome to participate, in their societies, in democratic societies.

A third issue I'd mention is of religious exemption, which is essentially religious people or groups asking to be exempted from practices. For example, a doctor who does not want to give birth control, or facilitate women's reproductive freedom. There are many examples of people requesting these exemptions, and the question then becomes where are the limits on those, and what kind of a patchwork society do we end up with if people can be exempted from these practices.

I think that is a very careful negotiation, because we want people to have their conscience and religious beliefs respected, but we also need people to receive services. So it’s tricky, and it’s delicate, but it’s a conversation that has to be had.

We have seen an enormous increase in tension in the USA. Why?

I think in the USA the constitutional provisions create a situation in which there is a greater willingness to take these matters to the end. In Canada they emerge but perhaps not quite as frequently as in the US, but maybe those are my Canadian rose coloured glasses. Maybe it’s not actually that way at all...

I also think the lines of battle are a bit more hardened in the US than in Canada, we tend to have a tendency to navigate and negotiate a bit more, and be less willing to put our religious beliefs and practices out front, if you will, we are a little more reserved than in the American context. That might be a simplistic answer, but I do think there are differences and there is a greater willingness in the USA to be more confrontational and to frame conflicts from a rights point of view, rather than thinking about negotiation and other solutions.

Recently the NDP in Canada declared that all their candidates were expected to be pro-choice… This is not some fringe radical party, it’s the main opposition party. Is it the pro-life position that has become a fringe position?

I don't know if that is a fair characterization. Again, I think there is a greater reluctance to engage in these kind of confrontations. Until very recently in my home province of New Brunswick the pro-life position was predominant, but it wasn't done through confrontation or publicly visible means, it was more discreet. So the process by which women could access abortions was strictly controlled at a policy and administrative level, which essentially meant that it was very difficult to get facts around who was seeking abortion and who was being denied. And the public rhetoric was that it was an accessible service, and there had been a coalition of Catholic and Evangelical doctors in order to limit, in extreme ways, access to abortion.

Also there was the case of the Christian Law School whose graduates were effectively boycotted from joining the Ontario Law Society, not because of the quality of the teaching, but because of the social and moral values defended by the institution, until a court stepped in to reverse the decision. How do you interpret a case such as this?

That case is actually a very difficult case. Partly because the legal positioning has pushed people into corners, so what happens is that all the people who worked at Trinity Western University were characterized as holding a homophobic stance, which is completely inaccurate.

Few people in the public realize that they have a gay student's club, that there are faculty pressing for a revision of the clause that the university makes people adhere to if they are at Trinity Western, so the problem has become one where people are pushed into corners, harden their positions and rather than try to figure out a way to give them the space to come on board, if you will, or move in the direction that most of Canada has moved to, I think the university has been pushed to take a hardened stance. And the rhetoric has not been in the spirit of working things out and finding a solution.

It goes without saying that most Canadians are opposed to the idea of discrimination on the basis of sexuality, so the question then becomes how to work that out so that certain schools can still be who they are and yet not discriminate, and there has been very little room for working that out. Law doesn't always have the answers for these cases and unfortunately when law becomes involved positions become hardened, rhetoric flies and there is less and less possibility that people can shift, change their minds and work things out.

Another major issue is the conflict between the Catholic Church, and others, and the Obama Administration regarding contraception, abortion and ObamaCare. The court has still not decided. I’m interested in knowing not only which way you think the decision will go, but also why is the Administration taking this so far? Wouldn’t it be easier to grant an exemption to the Church run institutions? It seems to have become ideological…

It’s a good question, and I'm not as familiar with the US context as I am with the Canadian context, but I think there comes a point where... The idea of an exemption means that many people who need a particular kind of care are not receiving it, and I think that goes against good public policy and good caring for your community as a whole, and by community I mean the whole country.

But speaking specifically about women's rights, and thinking of access to women's reproductive health is a huge issue, and that is probably why it has gone as far as it has, and the idea of exemption, if you look at what is happening in the US right now, is very messy. It's extremely messy... There was a controversy a few weeks ago about a pizza shop saying they wouldn't cater to a gay wedding, and there was a huge backlash against that particular statement, so there is a sense in the US that maybe enough is enough and it is time to start thinking about other ways. Always wanting to protect religious freedom, but at the same time saying that there are other things which are important too.

The other day, before the Supreme Court, Obama’s solicitor general admitted that Catholic schools which teach that marriage should be only between a man and a woman might risk losing their tax-exemption status if Gay Marriage becomes federal law. Could this really happen? Could we be headed for a time when Churches and church run institutions are pushed out of the public square?

I think that would be too dramatic a statement, to be quite honest. I don't think that will be the case, but I do think that churches may need to rethink or renegotiate their positions on certain issues. And certainly adoption by same sex couples, same-sex marriage is one of those issues that I think will push that.

Certainly there is the possibility of exemption around some of those cases, so in Canada, for example, clergy can exempt themselves from performing same sex marriages, and I think that is the same in many places where same sex marriage is possible. So I think it is possible that churches might have to think, to renegotiate, but I don't think that churches will ever be completely pushed out of the public sphere.

Are you aware of the religious freedom versus politics issues in Europe at the moment?

Nothing immediate... I use some of the European Court of Human Rights decisions in my own work, I think about some of those cases, so for example I recently mentioned the Lautsi case, about the crucifix on the Italian classroom wall. Some of the cases in Britain I am familiar with.

The interesting thing about the Lautsi case is that some of that language migrated across the Atlantic, into the Canadian setting, into the Saguenay which was just released by the Supreme Court in Canada, so I don't think we can see these issues as belonging just to specific nation states, that they migrate, and they are coming up in surprisingly regular ways across countries. This is why I think it is interesting to think about what is happening in Portugal and Canada, in conversation, one with the other. So for example, the Supreme Court in Canada also ruled recently about whether a Catholic High School in Canada could be exempt from teaching a state course on Ethics and Values, and so thinking about these questions, they may be specific to a certain country, but the broader issues are more general.

There have been issues regarding circumcision and halal and kosher slaughter… As an academic what are your thoughts on these debates? Will they ever appear in North America?

They already do. They haven't been as explosive maybe, as they have been in Europe, but they are certainly on the table. A couple of years ago a colleague of mine organized an event in Quebec which brought together veterinarians and religious people around animal rights issues, essentially.

I think part of the problem is that when people actually sit around a table and talk about these things, in good faith, and are not driven by a media frenzy of coverage which is not always as sensitive as it could be, then what tends to happen is that much of the controversy disappears. So I think that it is unfortunate that we tend to have quick reactions to subjects like these, without paying more attention to detail, like where is circumcision performed? Under what conditions is it allowed, which countries are still allowing it, where, when, how, what does it mean? Of course there is religious circumcision and non-religious circumcision...

One of the things I think we fail to do is ask broader questions about other practices. So for example, one of the issues I have looked at in Canada is so-called “honour killing”. This was a topic of hot discussion in Canada, a few years ago there was a really horrific case, where several young women and their second mother were murdered. And the discussion around honour killing was very pervasive in Canada.

So I insisted we step back and ask bigger questions about that. The conversation was around honour killing as existing only within a specific group, namely Muslims. And I said let’s think about violence against women more generally and think about the pervasiveness of that in our society, and while we are talking about this, if you look at the case law around men who have killed their wives, if you look at the language it’s all about honour, "she deserved it", "she had it coming", "what were people going to think of me?". So if you start to unpack things like that and look for similarities we'll see some similarities which then allow us not to be so smug about ourselves and question our own achievements of equality between men and women, which is presented as something which has already happened.

Then we look at cases, such as university campuses, where there have been problems of violence and sexual assault against women, then we can stop being so smug and start asking are their bigger issues, questions we need to be asking. And I think circumcision might be one of those issues.

During the circumcision debate, the ombudswoman for children in Finland suggested replacing circumcision with a symbolic alternative. Does this demonstrate a lack of religious sensitivity among elites? Is there a divide between political elites in secular countries and the people on the ground? The religious communities?

I think that assumes that elites are not religious, and I don't think that is necessarily the case. And it assumes that people on the ground are religious, and I want to slip through that divide a little bit and say that I am not sure it is as neat and tidy as that. What I do think is that people for whom religion is not important find it difficult to understand that you can't just substitute.

In Canada, during the Multani case, which was the case of a Sikh schoolboy who wanted to take his kirpan to school, the Supreme Court said yes he could, but he did negotiate wearing his kirpan with the local school, but then the school board took issue with it. One of the suggestions during the negotiation process involved him keeping the kirpan in a cover, sewn shut, and so on, underneath his clothing, so there were all kinds of negotiations around what was acceptable to him. But at one point somebody suggested he could just wear a little symbol around his neck, a little kirpan, like others wear crosses. But that was not acceptable to him and I think some people have a hard time understanding why that is unacceptable, but also why to some Sikhs it might have been acceptable. So the variability amongst people who are religious is also something which is often misunderstood and if one person says that's ok with me, people want to know why it isn't acceptable for somebody else, not understanding that religion too is lived, interpreted, practiced in very different ways. So there are divides, to be sure, and I think also we need to be careful about ratifying what we imagine to be a divide.

Sometimes people sitting down at a table and having conversations, wherever they situate themselves, can lead to some solution to these problems. They may not, because there may be a fundamental inability to appreciate that a particular religious symbol is so important to somebody and so essential to their practice and their identity... There is sometimes an inability to understand that if one is not oneself a religious person.

“Moral relativism of Hollywood showed me there must be Truth”

Full transcript of my interview with Fr. Denis Heames, pastor at St. Mary’s, in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. During my visit to Central Michigan University in September 2013, I attended a conference on gay marriage and religious liberty, and in the context spoke to Fr. Heames about these issues. News story here.

Transcrição completa, no ingles original, da entrevista ao Pe. Denis Heames, pároco de St. Mary’s, em Mount Pleasant, Michigan. A entrevista foi feita no context da conferência sobre casamento homossexual e liberdade religiosa a que assisti durante a minha estadia na Central Michigan University em Setembro de 2013. Areportagem está aqui.

The approval of gay marriage seems unstoppable; it seems that this is really going to be approved, state by state. Do you foresee a time when Catholics will have to afraid of making their voice heard on this issue in the public square?

Wow. I do, now that I hear you say it that bluntly. I think it will reach a point in the public square where we will lose the freedom to be against this. I think that is coming. I don’t even think this is even a debate anymore.

Because of the Supreme Court ruling on DOMA*, basically eviscerating the heart of DOMA, in terms of the definition of what marriage is, as recognizable by the federal government; and how the justices wrote their opinion with so much of a favourable slant towards those 11 states** which have enacted same-sex marriage legislation, I think with the two together, we’re going to see an avalanche of overturns.

The implication is that if this is a federally acknowledged, not just benefits, because the language is not just about giving people access to benefits, it is an innovative restructuring of the very concept of marriage, I think we are going to be completely limited in our ability to disagree in the public square.

How about internally? There seems to be a divide among the Catholics in the pews. Is there a risk that Catholics will accept this?

Probably, but I think if we take a step backwards when we see through history there are always shake-ups and things take a while to work out within the body of the church. So part of me takes a long range vision of that, in terms of the internal corpus and how we think.

You’ve got Catholics working in jobs where their co-workers could now be married gay men raising three kids, and so you are constantly engaging society and that is a challenge to your faith. How do I hold on to this teaching, which I believe to be true, but in this public way. That could be part of the rift we are going to see.

There have also been some calls for the Church to just get over this debate. Could that happen? Might the bishops say forget it, let’s get on to something else?

They could. I don’t want to think for the bishops on that level. They are at their bi-annual meeting right now, and I’m not sure how the bishops are going to respond as a unified voice on this, but in terms of the Church we will always maintain this vision of marriage between one man and one woman, and the sacramental dimension of what that love is capable of.

It may be that we will reach this point where our silence to this means we’ve lost the fight. I could foresee that, I don’t know if it will happen. I do think we’ll see a surge against it though, especially as the states experience these fights. I think we’ll have to at least try to maintain something. If we don’t that will be even graver for us. We have to try.

There is a generational gap, with under 30’s being hugely in favour of the idea of Gay Marriage. Do you notice that? And those who are faithful, are they suffering?

Yes, yes, and yes, if I can be so silly.

There is the Catholic who says he was raised Catholic and left the church. And often the issues that gave them the impetus to leave have to do with sexuality. Gay Marriage will always be the first one up there, pre-marital sex will be a close second, after that you realise there is really not much faith in the discussion… they don’t really care.

Then there are the occasional church-goers. They come, they are struggling with some of these issues. They are active in some areas, social justice and things, but they have these divisions and some of them are working on that.

In the larger university body I think it depends on the school. Here in Central Michigan University I think that there is a small minority which is vocally in favour, but I think there is a silent majority which doesn’t quite go along with it, but the problem is, it’s silent, and I think that the academic institution has a very clear bias.

For example childhood education, people who are studying teaching and development, and things like that, when they get into issues of diversity, or literature, those are very clearly angled towards this agenda. I do see students who are Catholic going into these areas struggling with these issues. “How will my faith be able to be lived in this work environment when there is such a heavy pressure, ideologically?” Books on the shelves in your elementary school classes like “The Two Princes”, and so on.

I do see that students who come here, and get involved, who take their faith seriously, who start to learn about the teachings and the “why?” of the Catholic Church experience a revolution. A load is lifted, their eyes are opened, they see why this is. It’s not because some guy in white decided to say that this is wrong, but it is buried in the heart of what it is to be human, its buried in the heart of what it is to believe in God, its buried in the heart of basic good human philosophy and truth. That is where I see a real revolution happening.

You had a bit of a Hollywood career…

I did! I graduated high-school in 1990 and literally three days later moved to Hollywood in a VW Bug. It was great, kind of adventurous. I started studying and a month later was auditioning for films and stuff and I landed some small parts, decent parts in some TV movies, and stuff. It was a modicum of success, without any real training, without any real knowledge of how the system worked.

Then it was as if the carpet was just pulled up from underneath me and I was left with this empty vacuum, lonely, struggling to know what I thought was right. I remember realising, seeing the whole Hollywood scene around me and wondering: “is it really that whatever you want to do is OK? That whatever floats your boat, you can do it?” There were some crazy things people were doing.

It was the moral relativism of Hollywood that forced me to say there must be truth. Seeing guys walking in opposite sides of the street, and just hooking up. I was just like, can this really be right? If it’s right then I had nothing to say, they can do whatever they want. But I just couldn’t.

There had to be truth, and it couldn’t just be true for me and not for you, It had to be true because we’re all human. So that is where my faith journey started. Hollywood was part of the conversion.

*Defense of Marriage Act. Uma norma que obrigava o Governo Federal a considerar que o casamento é apenas entre um homem e uma mulher. O Supremo Tribunal decidiu que se tratava de uma lei que revelava “animosidade” para com homossexuais e declarou-a inconstitucional, abrindo as portas para processos ao nível estadual para abolir todas as leis que limitem o casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo.

** À data da entrevista, em Setembro de 2013 / At the time of the interview, in September 2013.

Religious discrimination due to same sex marriage in the US

Fotógrafa multada em 7000 dólares por
recusar colaborar com "casamento" gay

In September of 2013 I attended a conference on threats to religious liberty in the US, due to legislation on Same Sex Marriage. This is a full transcript of the interview with the speaker, who asked not to be named. The news story, with video, is here.

Em Setembro de 2013 estive numa conferência sobre as ameaças à liberdade religiosa nos Estados Unidos, devido à legislação sobre casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo. Esta é uma transcrição completa da entrevista à oradora, que pediu para não ser identificada. A reportagem pode ser lida/vista aqui.

You are here to speak about gay marriage and the possible effects on religious liberty of the approval of gay marriage. You have asked me not to identify you and not to film you. Why is this?

There is a concern about losing my job. I work for a corporation. And although I am not aware of anything in particular in my company, I have seen cases of individuals who have lost their jobs in private companies simply for stating things as innocuous as “I support traditional marriage”, not even anything that is disrespectful to anybody suffering from same-sex attraction.

Have there been other cases of persecution because of their beliefs? Because their line of work has clashed with same-sex marriage or homosexuality?

Some of the more recent ones are in the area of marriage services. A couple who owns a bakery would not provide a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. They were fined, sued and ultimately she closed her bakery. We have a more recent case in New Mexico with the photographer who refused to provide photography services at a same sex ceremony. So those are more in the business sector, related to providing services. Those are some of the more prominent and recent ones. Then there are cases of people losing their jobs from saying things outside of work.

How about the school system? Should people be concerned with the education of their children if they don’t agree with this?

They have started teaching it. Massachusetts is the first state in the USA that approved the redefinition of marriage. In that state they are teaching that the homosexual life-style and gay marriage is natural and good, and that is being taught in the schools. Parents have not been able to object to that or even be notified. There is a concern that that kind of teaching and restriction on parents will also go into other states that approve same-sex marriage.

How far do you see this going? Could there be a backlash, or do you think that society is coming round to this idea?

Right now in the states, especially because of the youth, it looks like the wave will be that most states will ultimately accept same-sex marriage. But I think that if we get on top of that and educate people about what marriage really is, we might stem that.

California is a great example, it is one of the most liberal states, and for California to pass a constitutional amendment that defines marriage between one man and one woman, is I think is only by intervention of God.  The unfortunate part is that the court disagreed with the people of California, but the fact that there could be any kind of a public campaign and education on what marriage is, to bring California public opinion around to that, I would be optimistic we could do that elsewhere.

In California there was an enormous backlash against the Mormon Church, for having backed Proposition 8. Obviously the Catholic Church will always be against the concept of Gay Marriage, can we foresee a time when the church will be pushed out of the public square because of what it defends?

I think we are seeing more of that, and we are expecting to see more. And I think it is unfortunate that we are having commentators coming out and indicating that the Church should get out of this debate, because they are concerned about the backlash to the church. I hope the hierarchy doesn’t listen to that, I think we have to take this head on. Because of the religious liberty issue it is really critical to us.