In most situations, we place great importance on freedom of conscience - and rightly so, IMO.
We generally recognize that it would be an unjust burden to, for instance, force a pacifist to serve in the armed forces, or make an ethical vegetarian have to choose between starving and eating meat, or forcing a devout religious person to work on a holy day of worship.
We even get into debates around things like whether bakers should be able to refuse to make cakes for same-sex weddings, or whether county clerks should have to issue wedding certificates to same-sex couples. Even in these cases, the question isn't whether the person's freedom of conscience isn't important; it's about other issues (e.g. whether their freedom of conscience can be honoured in other ways, or whether it's so important that it overrides the rights of others).
Now... in a recent discussion (this one here), I saw a few people asking things like "why would a same-sex couple want anything to do with the Catholic Church?" To me the answer seemed obvious: when people have been raised from birth to believe that the fate of their soul depends on staying in the Catholic Church, some of them will stay even if it's uncomfortable or if they're disrespected.
In a lot of ways, we tend to treat religions as optional, and religious membership as a free choice. While I think there's some merit to this idea in the abstract, I think it ignores the deep significance that many people find in their religions.
When a church instills the idea that any member who leaves will face a fate worse than death, or when they say that the Eucharist is "spiritual food" that's as vital as physical food (and they're the only place where you can get the "real" Eucharist), or when leaving would mean being shunned by their support network, losing their job, etc., I think it's reasonable to say that when members stay, their decision to stay can't be automatically assumed to be a free choice... IOW, these people's continuing membership may be coerced, just as much as someone threatened with a gun or physical starvation is being coerced.
So if members don't feel free to leave - or at least it would be an extreme violation of their conscience to leave - and the religion deliberately instilled this feeling in their members, does the religion have an obligation to accommodate the freedom of conscience of their members on issues where they might disagree with the religion's official position?
TLDR: if a gay person doesn't feel free to leave the Catholic Church (for example) because the Church has inculcated them from birth with the idea that they must stay, has the Church also taken on an ethical duty to accept the person's sexual orientation and the things that go along with it (e.g. a same-sex partner)?
We generally recognize that it would be an unjust burden to, for instance, force a pacifist to serve in the armed forces, or make an ethical vegetarian have to choose between starving and eating meat, or forcing a devout religious person to work on a holy day of worship.
We even get into debates around things like whether bakers should be able to refuse to make cakes for same-sex weddings, or whether county clerks should have to issue wedding certificates to same-sex couples. Even in these cases, the question isn't whether the person's freedom of conscience isn't important; it's about other issues (e.g. whether their freedom of conscience can be honoured in other ways, or whether it's so important that it overrides the rights of others).
Now... in a recent discussion (this one here), I saw a few people asking things like "why would a same-sex couple want anything to do with the Catholic Church?" To me the answer seemed obvious: when people have been raised from birth to believe that the fate of their soul depends on staying in the Catholic Church, some of them will stay even if it's uncomfortable or if they're disrespected.
In a lot of ways, we tend to treat religions as optional, and religious membership as a free choice. While I think there's some merit to this idea in the abstract, I think it ignores the deep significance that many people find in their religions.
When a church instills the idea that any member who leaves will face a fate worse than death, or when they say that the Eucharist is "spiritual food" that's as vital as physical food (and they're the only place where you can get the "real" Eucharist), or when leaving would mean being shunned by their support network, losing their job, etc., I think it's reasonable to say that when members stay, their decision to stay can't be automatically assumed to be a free choice... IOW, these people's continuing membership may be coerced, just as much as someone threatened with a gun or physical starvation is being coerced.
So if members don't feel free to leave - or at least it would be an extreme violation of their conscience to leave - and the religion deliberately instilled this feeling in their members, does the religion have an obligation to accommodate the freedom of conscience of their members on issues where they might disagree with the religion's official position?
TLDR: if a gay person doesn't feel free to leave the Catholic Church (for example) because the Church has inculcated them from birth with the idea that they must stay, has the Church also taken on an ethical duty to accept the person's sexual orientation and the things that go along with it (e.g. a same-sex partner)?