LDS church disciplinary action and its relation to freedom of speech and association

I haven't done much with my blog since I started it; some of that was how busy law school keeps me but some of it is also just my trepidation about really entering the "blogosphere." But as I saw social media begin to implode today over the newspaper articles detailing how the disciplinary action has been started against Mormon social activists (is there a proper, politically correct term for them or have I already lost credit with half of you?) Kate Kelly and John Dehlin, it got me thinking. And the more I chewed on the topic the more I felt I had to write something. So here it is.

I wish these things could be worked out differently, I really do. I can already see that heartache this is causing and will cause to people. But I also can't blame the church for the actions that it has taken and I think, as I will explain, that the actions they have started are appropriate.

I'm going to make my best attempt at a Rawlsian "public reason" argument (Thanks Professor Geddicks!).  John Rawls is an American philosopher whose works are some of the leading contemporary thought in modern moral and political philosophy. When it comes to public debate and deliberation he helped create an ethic that says basically, in a pluralistic society where you have many people of different political, moral, religious, etc. backgrounds and persuasions, if we're going to justify a position in public by way of reason it must be by "public reason." What is public reason? Essentially, it means that when debating things in public among a diverse citizenship you have to justify your arguments by appealing to reason and logic that we all could accept regardless of our background. For example, when it comes to a debate on a given social topic I can't try to persuade the public by appealing to Mormon theology because most other people are not Mormon and don't share my persuasions, I have to appeal to a logic that we can all share. (Did I get that right Professer Geddicks? I'm kidding myself if I think he actually reads this...I'm sure he has no idea it exists :) ) Now, that is not to say that because I am Mormon, my Mormonism cannot influence my thought or that I can't speak in an official capacity as a Mormon. It just means that at some point, because we live in a pluralistic society I have to translate my arguments into a logic or form that all can accept if we're going to get along and be able to accomplish anything.. This makes sense in a society where there are many people with different backgrounds and beliefs. If Catholics, Mormons, Atheists, etc. all just appealed to the tenets of their own beliefs to justify everything that society should do, society wouldn't be able to talk with each other. That's my best attempt at an explanation of Rawls, probably not 100% accurate (one class day on the topic is all I got...sorry) but you get the gist.

So I'm going to try to make a public reason argument for why the church is well within its right to act like it did and why those who wanted to criticize the church for acting in the way it did should rethink how they protest this (at some point I want to make a Mormon based answer to the churches actions...another day). Because as I watched conversations unfold this afternoon, I saw many people who really thought that the church was out of bounds and intolerant because it had decided to initiate disciplinary action against Kate Kelly and John Dehlin. This leads me to the title I gave my post: LDS church disciplinary action and its relation to freedom of speech and association.

We all have a general idea of what freedom of speech is and I think we all believe in it, especially as it is enshrined in our 1st amendment. I'm no scholar on the topic I'm just a law student who occasionally hears things (I haven't taken a 1st amendment class but would like to). I'm sure we more or less think of it kind of the same: you have a right to say what you want to. I'm sure some of my fellow law students could expound on it better than me but we'll leave it at that. Now you can engage in freedom of speech as an individual or you can engage in it as an organization. Both have rights to freedom of speech, as I understand it.

Now critically related to freedom of speech is freedom of association. If you are an organization it becomes really hard to engage in freedom of speech if you do not have freedom of association. If an organization cannot associate with others who think and want to speak in the same way that the organization intends to, it makes it hard for the organization to have a clear message and say what it wants to say. Your message will become blurred if people in your organization are saying different things. Hence freedom of association. It is not enshrined in our amendments but has been held to be an un-enumerated (is that a word?) right by our courts in the US (or so smart people at the law school say...sorry I don't have THE Supreme Court case citation on that...I apologize to my first year writing professor). Freedom of speech and freedom of association go hand in hand. You need both, especially if you are an organization, if your right of freedom of speech is to be protected. (notwithstanding some recent Supreme Court cases that I think should have gone differently).

So what does this mean for the church? As an organization they enjoy these rights and as anyone who knows anything about the Mormon church, the church feels like it has something to say to the world (see over 50,000 missionaries or whatever the number is now). The church has a message and it wants to share it with the world, but when members of the church want to share a different message than the one that the church has, it makes it hard for the church to control its message. Especially in the internet, social media, blogosphere age where information travels around the globe faster than you can say the first vision. So, at some point, the church must feel like in order to control its message it needs to figure out a way to help those who aren't spreading its message to either conform with the message or it will have to disassociate itself from them. Otherwise it can't deliver a consistent message. I am not there at the time those decisions are made but I don't think those are decisions that the church (or in this case the local leaders) makes lightly.

The church is simply doing what all organizations who engage in freedom of speech do: they are trying to exercise their right of freedom of association in order to control its message. I wonder what the response would be if the tables were turned. Let's flip what's going on and say that a member of the Ordain Women's movement decides that she (or he) no longer believes what the movement believes but believes what the Apostles and Prophets of the Mormon Church are currently saying on women and the priesthood. That is fine, it is her (or his) right to do so. But what if that person insisted on remaining in the movement and wanted to continue to very publicly say and teach things that were directly against the movement's teachings while continuing to insist on being a part of the movement? How would the Ordain Women's movement act? How should they be able to act? What should the movement's rights be? If the movement came to the conclusion that it was at an impasse with the person and that they could not reconcile their differences, should the movement be able to decide to cut ties with the person to preserve its message? But that's intolerant! Is it? Or is it just the movement saying "in order to effectively exercise our freedom of speech we need to exercise our freedom of association so that we can deliver a consistent message?" I guess I can't speak for everyone but it would seem that everyone who wanted to criticize the church for the actions it took as intolerant would have no problem if the Ordain Women's movement wanted to cut ties with a member who was a dissenting voice. It's funny to me that the same people who want to criticize the church for what they see as denying other people their rights on certain social issues would have no problem denying the church its own rights. We all love our rights when they help us but hate it when other people's rights go against what we want.

Now I don't want to be misunderstood as saying that other people can't disagree with what the church did or even talk, blog, tweet, etc. about it. Of course they can. But what you can't say is that the church shouldn't bring disciplinary action against someone that is distorting the church's message and consequently its rights of freedom of speech or association because that is intolerant. How else are they supposed to keep a consistent message? That is not a legitimate reason for saying that the church shouldn't do that. The church is acting within its rights. Now you could disagree with me in saying that you don't think that Kelly or Dehlin's actions were actually hurting the churches ability to get its message out there. That could very well be, I don't  know enough of the particulars about each case to be able to say otherwise. But I will say that I don't think most of us know what effects these peoples' actions were having. I don't know because I have no idea where these people live or what wards and stakes they are in, but we don't know what discord or dissension Kelly's or Dehlin's actions may have been having in their wards or stakes. Maybe there was no effect, but maybe there was. I have never been a bishop but I have a father who is one and from watching him and watching other bishops as I have grown up, I do not think that, for the most part, a bishop would not take this step unless he felt he had to. My point is, we just don't know what effects the church was seeing and how it felt its message was being distorted and thus the local leaders felt the need to take this step.

Please don't think me mean spirited. I am not blind to the personal effect that this is having and will have on Kelly and Dehlin and their friends and family. I can't imagine what they are feeling now. I wish there is was another way to solve this and maybe there is. I hope and pray that it can be solved without the church needing to see its disciplinary action to the end. I firmly believe (okay so maybe this isn't all public reason...sorry) that the church doesn't want to do this-did you read it's press release? That whole statement in context sounds to me like a church who doesn't want to do this but feels that this is the step it has to take. I think if the church and the local leaders felt like they had another option they would take it. I don't know if that is really the case, it's just me speculating. But I really believe the church would rather see people in the fold then out of it. I think the church has really tried to do its best to engage and listen to these people. But at some point, when red lines are drawn that people insist the church cross that are against its doctrine and revelations, absent crossing those lines, there is nothing the church can do that will satisfy people unless it is going to change what it believes to be right. If I offended anyone I apologize. If I misrepresented what Kelly and Dehlin think or say, I apologize. I pray for Kelly and Dehlin.

Anyways, that's my attempt at a public reason argument for why the church is well within reason for doing what it is doing. But hey what do I know...I haven't even finished law school yet.

DRB

Welcome to my blog

Hi all,

So I've been thinking about creating a blog for awhile. As I've looked out at the world and what is going on, I've felt like I had something to say about different things happening and but I didn't feel like I had an appropriate forum to express them. Hence, this blog. This won't be so much about my life and what's going on in it (though I can't rule that out) but more on my thoughts on different topics in society often focused on religion and law. 

I hope it's helpful and informative. I have hesitated to do this because I often feel, when it comes to  discussions about developments in society and important social issues, people often hear what they want to hear and take offense when none is intended. I feel like discussions like this should really take place face to face where a person's tone and intention are much easier to discern. The anonymity and distance that the internet creates often works against their being any actual civil dialogue.  The space the internet creates is a great one for dialogue but I think it also helps to perpetuate misunderstanding. I welcome thoughtful and respectful comments but I hope that this can be a place for civil dialogue if you chose to comment on the things that I write about. Let me be clear though I do not intend offense to anyone, their religious or political leanings, their lifestyle, or any other reason for which they might be offended. Also I may or may not respond to comments so please don't feel bad if I don't. It's not that I don't want to respond, life is just life.

Some of my thoughts will be discussions of LDS doctrines and beliefs and I feel the need to make the disclaimer that they will be my opinion about what some LDS doctrines and beliefs mean and the implications that we can draw from them. If they're helpful to you, great. If not then just realize that I'm just one man and don't in any way speak for the LDS church. With that being said I try to anchor my thoughts in LDS scripture and teachings. This will all probably make more sense after you see some of my first posts. 

At any rate, thanks for reading. I thought in closing I would include a quote from Elder Dallin H. Oaks that he made in an Ensign article back in 1992 entitled "Religious Values and Public Policy" that I love. He discusses the shift in our society away from a society rooted in the idea that there is such a thing as moral absolutes or principles and values that do not change to moral relativism or the idea that there is no absolute right or wrong, just a persons own personal conception of what is right and wrong for them personally. He says:

"One of the consequences of shifting from moral absolutes to moral relativism in public policy is that this produces a corresponding shift of emphasis from responsibilities to rights. Responsibilities originate in moral absolutes. in contrast, rights find their origin in legal principles, which are easily manipulated by moral relativism. Sooner or later the substance of rights must depend on either the voluntary fulfillment of responsibilities or the legal enforcement of duties. When our laws or our public leaders question the existence of absolute moral values, they undercut the basis for the voluntary fulfillment of responsibilities, which is economical, and compel our society to rely more and more on the legal enforcement of rights, which is expensive.

Some moral absolutes or convictions must be at the foundation of any system of law. This does not mean that all laws are so based. Many laws and administrative actions are simply a matter of wisdom or expediency. But many laws and administrative actions are based upon the moral standards of society. If most of us believe that is is wrong to kill or steal or lie, our laws will include punishment for those acts. If most of us believe that it is right to care for the poor and needy, our laws will accomplish or facilitate those activities. Society continually legislates morality. The only question is whose morality and what legislation."

I think he hit is right on the head there. The only real question is whose morality and what legislation? It's funny to me to listen to some people talk about different social, moral or political issues who assert their opinions as if they are amoral. Or as I use that word, they assert something as true and that  they're not making a moral value judgment at all- they're simply declaring things as they are. When it comes to things that deal with morals or ethics or whether or not doing something is right or wrong there is no such thing as an amoral statement-or a statement in which no value judgment is made about whether something is right or wrong. All statements on topics like that are making a determination about what is right and what is wrong. The fact that your premise for every decision about what is right or wrong is that morality is relative does not make your determination of right and wrong any less of a value judgment. But our society has become so caught up in this idea that morals are relative that it doesn't even see that there may be other legitimate ways of seeing things. You hear all the time things like "you're on the wrong side of history" or "you can't legislate or enforce your morals on someone else." The fact is there is no way to legislate things, especially things in which we're making value judgments on what is right and what is wrong, without someone's morals being legislated. So once again the question is: Whose morals and what legislation?

I could go on about this and moral relativism for a while, maybe I'll create a post for it at some point, but suffice to say that I think about this a lot and I think this animates my thinking a lot as I look at the world. At any rate, thanks for reading and I hope to have my first real post up soon.

DRB