The headline said Unauthorized Class Action Sought Millions For Denial of Religious Freedom and Right To Marry By Utah and LDS Church. I missed “unauthorized,” muttered “and now the recriminations begin,” and set the browser tab aside for later. It turns out that the word “unauthorized” was pretty important:
Last Friday, a class action was filed in federal district court in Utah against the state of Utah and the LDS Church on behalf of “all persons denied freedom of religion and the right to marry”– at least 500 people according to the complaint. The complaint (full text) in Winburn v. State of Utah, (D UT, filed Dec. 27, 2013), describes the LDS Church as “an entity of defendant State of Utah,” and alleges violations of the Fair Debt Collection Act, the Utah Pattern of Unlawful Activity Act and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It seeks damages of at least $25,000 for each class member. Yesterday, the lead plaintiffs in the case filed a “Notice of Voluntary Dismissal” (full text). The plaintiffs, Pidge Winburn and Amy Fowler– a same-sex couple who were married on Dec. 23 after a federal court invalidated Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage– say they did not authorize the lawsuit, never spoke to the attorney who filed it, and learned of it only through a phone call from a reporter. Apparently attorney E. Craig Smay who filed the suit learned of Winburn and Fowler through a feature article about them in the Dec. 26 Salt Lake Tribune. According to yesterday’s Salt Lake Tribune, Fowler says she plans to file a formal bar complaint against the attorney.
I am really happy not to be E. Craig Smay today.
[M]any Christians do not… have the categories to address questions about the right-ordering of nature independent to questions of sin. Because we are legalists at heart, we are quick to reduce everything to a moral issue before we know how to think about it. However, consider a question that a friend of mine will often bring up to his students. Is it sinful to put a cow in a chicken coop?…
One of the reasons why it is hard for Christians to embrace a theology of food is because our nominalist presuppositions rob us of the categories with which to talk meaningfully about the telos of a thing (whether it be an animal or a human being), independent to questions about right and wrong. Thus, the only objective criteria many Christians recognize for making decisions in the area of food is sin-avoidance, and since sin is not a category that applies to food in the New Testament era, it is assumed that the only criteria we should recognize is personal subjective choice.
(Robin Phillips, The Chicken-ness of the Chicken; spelling corrected) Robin is writing here about what’s quaintly called “animal husbandry” (most of which gives husbands a bad name) and ripping of folk hero Joel Salatin‘s folksy farm metaphysics.
I’ve noticed the same phenomenon that led Phillips to his pithy opening sentence, but had never thought to put it that way.
The misadventure that comes first to my mind was my pedantically correcting a denominational religious magazine that referred to cohabiting fornicators as involved in “common law marriage.” I pointed out that common law marriage, where it’s recognized, is a real marriage and should not be conflated with fornication. I was, of course, misunderstood as approving of common law marriage. I don’t, for some of the same reasons as I disapprove secret marriage. I don’t consider either of them immoral per se, though. Bear with me. This wasn’t completely a digression.
Phillips concludes his foody reflection:
[B]oth producers and consumers of food would benefit from a strong dose of realist metaphysics. According to the right ordering of our nature as human beings, is it more fitting to eat stuff that was grown in the ground or produced in a laboratory? According to the right ordering of a cow, is it more fitting for a farmer to feed his cows grass or recycled animal products? According to the right ordering of a chicken, is it more fitting to treat them like bees and cram tens of thousands of them together in a barn?
I want to modify, and answer, Phillips question first question. Is it sinful to put beef in chicken soup? No, but it’s not chicken soup if you make it with beef.
And living people don’t get funerals, either.
To say that chicken soup requires chicken and that funerals require a corpse is not to say that beef soup, or living, is immoral. Really. I don’t even think I have a phobia that makes me say that.
But, please, E. Craig Smay: don’t sue me!
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 