I have to break down the question of "Do religious people have the right to be homophobic?" in order to answer it properly according to my own opinions.
First off, I want to clarify what is meant by "to be homophobic." Does this mean that the religious people in question have personal distaste for homosexual people in their own minds? If that is the extent of the definition, then we are asking about rights to opinions. I believe we all are allowed our own opinions without question. Opinions, by definition, are concepts. The only actions justified to be attached to opinions involve sharing the opinions via spoken or written word, or by some other form of communication. If, however, the "to be homophobic" extends to actions not merely communicative but resulting from opinions, well, now we're in shadier territory.
If the action is not associating with homosexual people in a social atmosphere, I believe that falls under the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" category. Saying someone has no right to decide his preferred social settings would be interfering with his "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" category. So here, yes, a person has a right to be homophobic.
If the action extends beyond mere social settings and into cases of denying employment or some other business transaction ordinarily extended to non-homosexuals, then a "right to being homophobic" can't be upheld. An employer or business person is acting as an agent for the business. Businesses are not individuals, and thus can not have "opinions." They can have best-interests (efficiency, profit, etc.) but these are not protected above rights of individuals. Persons acting as agents for businesses are granted rights to opinions, but only those opinions directly affecting the best-interests of the business can be upheld. There is nothing in the definition of "homosexual" that I can think of which would interfere with the best-interests of a business, despite the possibility of there being a conflict with the personal opinions of the business's agents. Thus while personal opinions are justified for individuals, this does not carry over when individuals act as agents for businesses. In this case, the only opinion justified is that of the best-interests of the business.
Secondly, let's address the attachment of religious people to the question. Religion creates its own morality which is independent of rational morality. This is not a slam to the religious, but simply a definitional distinction. Rational morality is based on independent reasoning, whereas religious morality has religious doctrine as the core from which the morality is derived. Since opinion based on religious morality is still opinion, it is protected as a right.
When religious morality is used as a defense for action, that's when things get shady. Religious morality can state that something is immoral simply because it conflicts with religious doctrine, and there is no argument against that classification without withdrawing or ignoring the article of doctrine condemning the act. Since rational morality is conceived independent of doctrine, there exists a potential conflict with religious morality. Rational morality poses questions to the act: is there harm caused?; is harm justified by the ends?; does the act serve a greater good than denying the act?; etc. There are acts that can be considered moral in rational morality and immoral in religious morality, and vice versa. There are acts that can be considered moral according to one part of religious doctrine, and immoral according to another part
of the same religious doctrine. Additionally, since religious morality is based on religious doctrine, it will necessarily vary from religion to religion. Since we are a secular state, and in order to maintain freedom of (and from) religion, we must adopt the rational morality model. In doing so, when there is conflict between religious and rational morality, the latter must prevail.
Another question is since we do live in a country with freedom of (and from) religion, does a religious morality justification of an act hold when the act is committed against an individual not sharing the same religious morality? Would this be considered imposing the religion of one upon another?
Up until relatively recently, religious morality dictated that blacks were to be excluded from the Mormon church. This was based on the doctrines accepted within the religion. Thus a Mormon could deny a business transaction with a black person through his religious morality. The question I ask is if the Mormon would "have the right" to be racially prejudiced to black people. Following what I've written above, he would be justified in maintaining his opinion, but not in his discriminatory business transaction. Thankfully for black people, there are laws protecting them in these situations, and I doubt "religious morality" would hold up in court as justification of a violation of these laws. And this is why anti-discrimination laws need to have sexuality written into their descriptions.
Thus a person does have a right to be homophobic in opinion when that homophobia is protected by religious morality, but that is not extended to justifying acts resulting from homophobia founded in religious morality. You can have your opinion, and you can share your opinion, but when your opinion results in acts which interfere with my rights to "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" then I believe you have stepped beyond your rights of religious freedom. Religious freedom refers to your right to practice your own religion, not impose it or its rules upon others not following it.
Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.
