In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez that a public law school in San Francisco could impose an “all-comers” policy on campus student groups. The policy required groups to admit as members—and even leaders—any student who wished to participate. The Republican Club must accept Democrats. The pro-choice club must accept pro-life students. Religious groups like the Christian Legal Society with creedal membership or leadership requirements were unable to comply, and those groups are no longer welcome on the San Francisco school’s campus. The Court’s decision started a wave of similar policies that have removed some religious groups from college campuses around the country.
During the litigation in the Christian Legal Society case, the group Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty filed a brief highlighting the problems with the all-comers policy. Although the group promotes acceptance of members of the LGBT community, it argued that the all-comers policy sacrificed the freedom of other student groups to associate around religious convictions. The brief concluded that “the First Amendment envisions a better way: A confident pluralism that conduces to civil peace and advances democratic consensus-building.”
Confident Pluralism depends upon both legal frameworks and personal commitments. Legal frameworks focus on what we require of government to ensure the conditions that make Confident Pluralism possible. Personal commitments point to what we ask of ourselves.
The legal frameworks in this country are not where they need to be to foster Confident Pluralism. While our nation has a longstanding commitment to protecting difference and dissent, current constitutional doctrine fails to do so in important ways. In particular, current Supreme Court case law insufficiently protects the voluntary groups of civil society through a weakened right of association and an enfeebled public forum doctrine. These shortcomings risk harm to citizens of all stripes—religious and nonreligious, liberal and conservative. Religious believers would be wise to learn about these legal frameworks and their shortcomings in light of the decreasing cultural appreciation for religious liberty.
The personal commitments—what Confident Pluralism asks of us—cover the ordinary spaces of our lives that, for the most part, lie beyond the reach of law. In an earlier essay for CT, I gestured toward that argument by highlighting three aspirations to strive for: tolerance, humility, and patience.
Christians can pursue these aspirations in the spaces that the law does not regulate; we can choose to model kindness and charity across deep differences without sacrificing the claims upon which we stake our lives. That posture will affect how we talk to and treat others. The aspirations of tolerance, humility, and patience do not prevent us from expressing moral judgments or public claims of faith. But they will inform how we express such judgments and faith claims.
The aspirations of Confident Pluralism can help us recognize a common humanity in our neighbors, coworkers, and classmates. We can work toward partnership even when our differences will not be overcome. And we can find common ground even in the absence of a shared common good.
This call to find common ground is not an unworkable pipe dream. It unfolds in the unlikely friendship between Chick-fil-A founder Dan Cathy and Campus Pride founder Shane Windmeyer. It manifests in the surprising relationship between former Republican Senator Tom Coburn and President Barack Obama. It plays out in the creative partnership between Christian evangelist Kevin Palau and Sam Adams, the gay former mayor of Portland, Oregon (a partnership that has enabled 26,000 volunteers from 500 local churches to help “the city do everything from renovating parks, to counseling victims of sex trafficking and feeding the homeless”).
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