Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, and is appointed in the Law School, Philosophy Department, and Divinity School. She is the founder and
coordinator of the Center for Comparative Constitutionalism. Her book, From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation & Constitutional Law argues that disgust has been among the fundamental motivations of those who are fighting for a variety of legal restrictions affecting lesbian and gay citizens. In the excerpt below Nussbaum uses religious history as a metaphor to inspire us to treat all citizens as equals regardless of sexual orientation.
Many of the first American colonists came to the New World in search of religious freedom. Dissenters of many types from the Anglican orthodoxy of Britain…they sought both the freedom to express their beliefs without penalty and the freedom to practice their chosen forms of worship. Often, they failed to connect their search to politics of respect and toleration inclusive of those who disagreed with them…
Gradually, however, the very experience of living – often in taxing physical conditions – with people whose religious convictions differed from their own led many colonists to the realization that a good common life, and perhaps survival itself, required protecting religious liberty for all, and doing so with an even hand. Such policies had practical sources: people needed one another’s help if they were going to flourish in the new land…They began to notice that it was possible to live together on the basis of a moral consensus about values such as fairness, honesty, and impartiality, without necessarily agreeing on theological principles…
The trend in favor of religious liberty emerged, then, from the very experience of living together. It also had a theoretical foundation, in the idea of conscience that many if not most of the new settlers brought with them…According to this view, all human beings have a capacity for searching for life’s ultimate significance and moral basis – for the meaning of life, we might say. This capacity is a key part of what constitutes our dignity as human beings. Conscience is present in all human beings, regardless of their beliefs, and it is present equally…
The early settlers were very far from having a view that many if not most Americans now have – namely, that many, or even all, religions are legitimate paths to salvation. Virtually none of the early colonists accepted such a view. They all though that many of their fellow citizens were damned…We should not delude ourselves into thinking, then, that the policies of religious respect and fairness that gradually came to dominate in the colonies, shaping our Constitution, were inspired by respect for differing religious beliefs and practices. Rather, they were inspired by a more basic underlying idea of respect for persons, for our fellow citizens as bearers of human dignity and conscience…Because human beings are of equal worth, conscience is deserving of equal respect.
…The American tradition…argues that respecting conscience involves granting ample liberty to each person to pursue his or her own way in matters of conscience. Roger Williams used two illuminating metaphors. Conscience, he said, must not be imprisoned – meaning that people must be given plenty of space to practice their religions, including acts of worship that