Civil liberties are very important in American society and politics, but despite this not everyone appears to understand just what a commitment to civil liberties entails. Defending civil liberties requires defending them for all people, equally, even if those people would promote ideas which are anathema to us.

In Free for All: Defending Liberty in America Today, Wendy Kaminer writes:

What distinguishes a civil libertarian is a focus on preserving fair processes rather than obtaining particular results. A commitment to civil liberty simply requires fealty to the golden rule: extend the same rights to both your friends and your foes — the right you hope to enjoy yourself.

This is, in part, a political strategy: Power shifts between your allies and your opponents, often unpredictably. Your rights are most secure if they derive from established constitutional principles, not patronage. But the equal allocation of right is also a moral imperative. I oppose censorship not simply because I fear that the power to censor might be turned against speech I like but in the belief that people have a moral right to indulge in speech I hate.

The right to view Nazi porn or tune in to Jerry Springer or Bill O’Reilly may seem ignoble compared to the right to read Montaigne, but it includes the individual’s essential right to entertain moral preference. Restrict it and you substitute the authority of the state for the individual conscience.

The importance of process over results was made very clear in the Terri Schiavo case: although procedural rules were consistently adhered to throughout the course of the case, the Christian Right sought to thwart this process because they didn’t approve of the results. They wanted particular results regardless of the cost to the principle of procedural fairness. On a fundamental level, this served to demonstrate that the Christian Right is no friend of civil liberties.

At the same time, though, Kaminer’s analysis suggests that the Christian Right is no friend of Christianity, either. One can argue that a fundamental principle of Christianity is the ability of people to exercise moral choice. Unless people can choose right from wrong, they cannot function as autonomous moral agents; Christianity, thus, requires that people be able to choose right from wrong in order to be saved.

Thus it would appear that a necessary condition for Christianity to function properly is that people be provided the opportunity to entertain and exercise moral preference. There is nothing morally valuable in not viewing pornography if one doesn’t have the opportunity to view pornography. There is nothing morally laudable in being a Christian if one doesn’t have the opportunity to be anything but a Christian.

Christians, then, should seek to preserve the ability of people to make even immoral choices, so long as no one is harmed. Unfortunately, this is the point which the Christian Right misses. They feel that they need to eliminate the opportunity to make certain immoral choices, even if no one else is obviously harmed. Their agenda, then is both politically dangerous and morally self-defeating.

 

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