As hard as it may be for some of my readers to believe, I find that I need to out-progressive Colorado’s progressives by pointing out that legislation should not try to create special carve-outs or privileges specifically for religious people. Any such effort violates not only the “equal protection” clause, because atheists are not afforded comparable protections, but the “establishment of religion” clause, because the law gives specifically religious people special privileges. At issue are the “Yes In God’s Backyard” bill and the abortion services bill. I discussed the matter of religious exemptions in a different context last September.
I’ll first mention the national context: Donald Trump will “direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead a task force on eradicating what he called anti-Christian bias within the federal government,” Reuters reports. It’s not entirely clear what Trump means. Obviously government should seek to root out “violence and vandalism” (as Trump says) not only against Christians but against everyone. But it seems like a lot of people who complain about alleged “anti-Christian bias” in government actually want to achieve a pro-Christian bias. As the film Bad Faith shows, Trump has openly aligned himself with Christian nationalists.
Yes In God’s Back Yard
Turning first to the land-use bill, Brian Eason reports for the Colorado Sun, “Colorado Democrats introduced legislation to become one of the first states in the country to allow religious institutions to build housing on their land—whether it’s zoned for residential construction or not.”
As an enthusiastic supporter of pro-housing YIMBY land-use reforms, I actually think this is an excellent idea. The problem is it should not be restricted to religious people. Other people also have the right to build and provide housing!
The bill in question, HB25-1169, as introduced rightly observes that “Coloradans are overwhelmingly burdened with the cost of housing.” The bill defines a “qualifying property” as any “real property that has been owned by a faith-based organization, a school district, . . . or a state college or university., . . . for at least five years.” So the bill is somewhat broader than just religious groups, but it excludes secular nonprofits. The bill says that a local government “shall allow a residential development to be constructed on a qualifying property,” with various exceptions.
I understand the optics here. The Democratic sponsors of the bill, knowing that rural Republicans these days are driven largely by Christian nationalism, want to play the God card. And, honestly, I don’t mind them doing so, so long as they do not violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments in the process.
Bill 1169 would be very easy to amend to include nonreligious nonprofits. I hope that Democrats, as well as Constitutional Republicans, push for the change.
Abortion Services
Next turning to the abortion-services bill, Marissa Ventrelli reports for Colorado Politics, “Under Senate Bill 130, the emergency departments must treat a patient and conduct an abortion if the latter is ‘necessary to stabilize the patient.’ . . . It carves out an exemption for healthcare workers who refuse to conduct an abortion by citing their sincerely-held religion beliefs.”
Specifically, the bill says that it “does not require a health-care provider to provide emergency medical services if the emergency medical services conflict with the health-care provider’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”
This bit would have almost exactly the same effect if legislators simply amended out the word “religious.” So long as some doctor is on hand who is willing and able to perform an abortion, it’s okay if other doctors choose not to.
Beyond the Constitutional issues, why should government favor specifically religious beliefs? The defining characteristic of religious beliefs is that they pertain to the supernatural, as opposed to the natural, and must at some level be taken on faith, as they are not supported by natural reason. In other words, religious beliefs are inherently irrational, or at least so I hold from my critical perspective. Why should government favor irrational beliefs over rational ones?
Also, regardless of what you think of the quality of their arguments, some atheists are sincerely “pro-life” in the sense of favoring abortion restrictions. (I’m a pro-choice atheist who nevertheless sees some room for reasonable restrictions late in term.) Why should a religious person get a pass when an atheist with comparable views does not get a pass? That is, again, just a blatant violation of the principle of equal protection under the law.
We can reasonably think that a hospital should not be able to market itself as an “emergency” center if it does not provide all of the normal emergency services, including abortion in relevant cases. So I agree government has grounds to ensure that medical clinics do not mislead prospective patients and emergency workers. But that’s not really the core issue of the bill at hand. (I won’t address other aspects of the bill here.)
I’m all for women being able to get abortion services, and I’m all for people being able to afford housing. But the law should say yes to an atheist’s backyard, too, and otherwise treat religious and nonreligious people equally.
