There's been a kerfuffle on the 'philosophy blogs' of late which may be of interest even to those of you who aren't interested in the philosophy world, because of its relationship to questions of 'religion in the public sphere', etc.
The controversy is over Christian colleges in the USA who (allegedly) discriminate in their hiring policy against homosexuals. The thing kicked off with a call from many philosophers on Leiter Reports, the premier philosophy blog, to ban such colleges from advertising in the American Philosophical Association's job listings (and a subsequent petition to the APA). This led to a response from a certain section of the Christian philosophical community -- followed up by a counterpetition to the APA. The counterpetition was met with derision on Leiter Reports, and has thirty times less signatures than the original petition.
The Christian response here seems to be predictably weak -- basically, that the schools should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of homosexual behaviour, whilst nevertheless not discriminating agains those of homosexual orientation (i.e. they think they should be allowed to discriminate against those that act on their homosexuality but not those who are merely disposed to homosexual acts). Doesn't seem very convincing to me -- in fact it makes me angry. Any thoughts?
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What makes you angry about this?
Why shouldn't a Christian college be able to discriminate on the basis of behaviour it considers unacceptable - given that this is exactly what the anti-Christian petition intends to do.
If you behave in manner X (practice homosexuality / discriminate against homosexual practice) then we will impose sanction Y on you (no jobs in this institution / no adverts in our publication).
The only difference is a different idea of what behaviours should be forbidden.
Don't forget that the petition is also about the right to have the same advertising privileges as non-discriminatory institutions, rather than simply about the permission to have discriminatory practices. The original petition is asking that instutitions that discriminate abhorrently be excluded from advertising in Jobs For Philosophers (or, at least, that they be marked as discriminatory institutions).
But why is it morally acceptable to discriminate on the basis of religious beliefs, but not in terms on other beaviour people chose?
Probably the majority of Christians worldwide and throughout history have believed that homosexuality is forbidden in the Bible.
It is not a self-evident truth that discrimination based on behaviour is "abhorrent". But if it is, why is discrimination based on religion considered acceptable?
I don't see that there's any reason to mention religion at all in the reasons for reducing their access to the advertisements. Rather, the 'discrimination' is against discriminators of any shape. Saying "we won't allow you to advertise in this publication if you discriminate on the basis of gender, race or sexuality" isn't, on its own, enough to count as discrimination based on religion. Not allowing Christian colleges to advertise -- or perhaps even not allowing those who believed homosexuality was wrong to advertise -- would count. But none of the proposals amount to that.
Of course religion is relevant - given that it is the logical implications of religious beliefs that people are objecting to. Surely you must think that behaviour reflects beliefs.
Christianity is not just a collection of facts to be accepted without impacting behaviour. Christian beliefs affect behaviour. It is natural that a college that seeks to be distinctively Christian would expect the behaviour of those it employs to match the beliefs they hold.
there aint no justice like vigilante blog justice
It seems to be pushing it to say that Christianity "logically implies" that if you set up a college, you must not allow teachers (of any subject) to practice homosexual behaviour. But that point isn't crucial here.
More to the point, why does a discriminatory belief gain greater prestige simply because it is held by a religious group? I can imagine all sorts of awful practices "logically following" from various religions that I would not want to legitimate simply on that basis.
Just as it is "natural that a college that seeks to be distinctively Christian would expect the behaviour of those it employs to match the beliefs they hold", so it is natural for a group who finds the discriminatory practices of this college unacceptable to refuse to support the college through advertising its jobs.
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