By Rick Plasterer, Juicy Ecumenism.
(Editor’s note: The charitable institutions of other denominations face similar legal challenges to their policies founded on Biblical sexual morality. Helen Alvaré recommends some responses.)
An earlier article reviewed the treatment in Helen Alvaré’s 2022 book Religious Freedom after the Sexual Revolution of the legal challenges in maintaining Catholic social services (educational, charitable, or health services) in the wake of the sexual revolution. These challenges are the legal requirements from law or adjudication in many jurisdictions which require acceptance of sexual activity outside of opposite-sex marriage. The same challenges would face other religious social services adhering to a standard of opposite-sex monogamy. Alvaré argued that these social services are not merely concerned with providing the service they are specializing in, which secular social services could also provide, but are providing service as a religious exercise, in obedience to the divine command to love God and neighbor. They are also to some extent evangelistic, to draw people to the truth. For these reasons they must adhere to the opposite-sex monogamy taught in Scripture and Christian tradition.
While the religious nature of this social service activity is the basic legal argument, it is important in the court of public opinion, and therefore to some extent in law courts, to show that opposite-sex monogamy is not “unloving” or “unChristian,” as is claimed by critics. To do this, Alvaré addressed common accusations against religious institutions holding traditional sexual standards, showing these standards to be well-supported by empirical evidence.
Common Accusations against Traditional Sexual Morality, and Recommended Responses
Alvaré finds four arguments that are directed particularly at Catholic institutions, although again, they might be applicable to certain other religious institutions.