The BLOG: Faith and Law

Sexual identity vs. conscience: The Justice Department conceals the facts

Imagine that graffiti were found painted on a mosque or Islamic community center. Imagine that the graffiti contained various biblical references and other phrases indicating that the vandals were evangelical Protestant Christians. Imagine that the Obama administration’s Department of Justice investigated, prosecuted, and obtained a guilty plea from the perpetrators.

What do you suppose the Justice Department’s press release would say about the incident and about the vandals’ motives? Would it neglect to mention that the vandals were Christians? Would it neglect to speculate about a possible religious motivation for their actions?

Now imagine that the graffiti says the following:

(i) “Allahu F—bar;” (ii) “Queer insurrection;” (iii) “It’s okay to be gay!” (iv) “Now is our time!” (v) “Bash Back;” (vi) “You bash us in Pakistan we bash here;” (vii) “Allah was gay;” (viii) “[illegible] unite;” (ix) “Satanic trans” (with circle around Star of David above); (x) “F— straights;” and (xi) “Bash Back lives.”

No need to imagine this. It’s a real case. But here is what the Justice Department’s press release reported about the graffiti.

Smock admitted that on Jan. 7, 2011, he and two other individuals (one of whom was a 14-year-old minor) spray-painted graffiti on the exterior walls of the Islamic Center of Springfield.  The graffiti included explicit and offensive language in addition to such statements as “Bash Back,” “Now is our time!” and “You bash us in Pakistan we bash here.”

No mention of the sexual vulgarity in the actual message, nor the celebration of homosexual identity, nor the anti-heterosexual epithet.

Eugene Volokh reported the discrepancy between the Justice Department’s press release and the evidence recited in the plea agreement that the Department drafted and signed and filed with the court. Volokh explained that “Bash Back” is not a random term but rather the name of a sexual-identity organization that …

… turns out to be a “national anarchist group …, which has described itself as largely composed of gay, lesbian, transgendered, bisexual, and queer activists.” In the Mount Hope Church case, Bash Back! disrupted a church service in Michigan by shouting “It’s OK to be gay” (which also appeared in the Islamic Center graffiti) and “Jesus was a homo” (again, compare “Allah was gay”) “while flinging pamphlets, glitter, and condoms into the air.”

Volokh suggests that these facts, omitted from the Justice Department’s press release, put a “different cast” on the facts that were reported. That’s putting it rather mildly.

Michael Rappaport is more direct. The discrepancy between the facts of the case and the Justice Department’s press release about it is “significant.” He speculates that the Department’s motivation is political: Muslims and sexual-identity groups are both within the Democratic Party’s coalition and the administration does not want to reveal that their interests are at odds.

Perhaps political motivations are mixed in, but it seems to me that the most likely explanation is more principled. I think this administration really believes in sexual identity über alles. To the extent that a cynical consideration entered into the Justice Department’s reasoning, it was most likely to conceal from public view the inherent hostility of sexual-identity activism toward moral and religious conscience, including the conscience liberty of American Muslims.

The conviction at the bottom of Muslims’ conscience — that human flourishing is best promoted by a culture that protects and celebrates true marriage, the union of a man and a woman — is shared by Christians, Jews, ancient pagans, modern Buddhists, and every known civilization in the history of the world until just a moment ago. Sexual-identity activism that aims to redefine marriage and to force people of conscience to participate in its reduction is inherently hostile to all who share the classical, well-founded view of marriage and human sexuality, including faithful Muslims.

I’ll have more to say about the nature of that hostility in my next post.

Adam J. MacLeod

Adam J. MacLeod

Adam J. MacLeod is a member of the Maine and Massachusetts (inactive) bars and an Associate Professor at Faulkner University, Jones School of Law. He is the author of “Property and Practical Reason” (Cambridge University Press) and dozens of articles in journals in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, many of which can be accessed at his website.