Forced Funding for Circumcision?

Pretty much
any law school worthy of its bias toward left-liberalism and socialism
has a clinic dedicated to fighting poverty, to promoting welfare
rights, opposing gender and racial discrimination, advocating
socialized medicine, tenants’ rights, countering the death penalty,
etc. But now there is something new under the sun in this realm
of legal education: a conservative legal clinic at the Stanford
University Law School of all places, bastion of “progressive”
thinking (apart from its Hoover Institute).

What, pray
tell, will be the mission of this Religious Liberty Clinic? It
is funded by a $1.6 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation,
via the good offices of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
As such, it will be teaching its law students how to represent
“Seventh-day Adventists who were fired by FedEx for refusing
to work on Saturdays, a Jewish convert in prison whose request
to be circumcised was rejected and a Muslim group that was told
its plan to build a mosque violated land-use laws” (Bronner,
2013).

But do Seventh-day
Adventists really have a right not to work on Saturdays as their
religion requires, if their employers want to hire people to labor
on that day? Of course not, at least not according to libertarian
law. Forcing firms to make special arrangements to fulfill the
religious sensibilities of some employees violate their
rights of free association. Under this rubric, bosses cannot be
prevented from engaging in voluntary labor contracts with whoever
agrees to accept their offer, and that certainly includes working
on the Sabbath whether for Seventh-day Adventists or Jews. Of
course, if an employer makes special accommodations for religious
minorities such as this, he is likely to be able to hire them
at a lower wage than they would otherwise command. But then, presumably,
this new conservative legal clinic would sue the company in question
for pay discrimination.

Do converts
to Judaism really have a right to circumcisions — paid for by
other people? Certainly not, again, at least not on the basis
of libertarian law. That would be a positive obligation, and libertarianism
only recognizes negative rights. From the latter perspective the
very purpose of prison is to ensure that the convict works at
hard labor, the proceedings of which go to compensate the victim.
Instead, it currently costs more than university tuition at prestigious
institutions to house criminals. This is because instead of being
compelled to work, they are coddled with air conditioning, psychological
services, gymnasiums, color television, and forsooth, if Stanford’s
Religious Liberty Clinic gets it way, free circumcisions at taxpayer
expense. Thus, the target of the crime is victimized not once
but twice. First by the criminal, and a second time by being forced
to pay for his cozy existence, including these religious “rights.”

The institution
of slavery has demonstrated that forced labor can be organized
at a profit. While victimless “criminals,” those guilty
of violating the law regarding pornography, prostitution, gambling,
drugs, etc., should all be set free, forthwith, rapists and murderers
and others of their vicious ilk should be in effect enslaved until
they pay off their debts to their victims or heirs.

Yes, Muslim
groups have a right to build mosques wherever they wish, provided
only that this is on their own land. The Stanford clinic may well
do some good in this one area. Posit, however, that this were
a libertarian, not a conservative, undertaking. It would then
attempt to repeal all land use laws such as zoning, rent
control (landlords are prohibited from converting their property
to condominiums), eminent domain, environmental, etc.

Curiously,
the Stanford law group refuses to defend a Christian photographer
who declines to take pictures for a homosexual wedding, and a
religious employer who is unwilling to undertake health plans
that make contraceptives available to employees. The reason appears
to be that this Stanford group wants to focus on believers rather
than governments. But the photographer and the contraceptive-refusing
employer seem to fit that precise bill.

Perhaps on
reflection there is not all that much new under the sun. Yes,
conservatives at a law school or anywhere else in academia for
that matter is certainly to be remarked upon, there are so few.
But insofar as protecting liberties, true liberties as libertarians
see them, there is nothing new here. So keep on moving citizen,
there is nothing to be seen here.

A libertarian
law clinic in sharp contrast to those of both the left and the
right, would defend the “undefendable” (Block,
2008): those who wish to engage in discrimination on the basis
of race, or sex, or age, or, indeed, anything else. Free association
is the key here. It would sue in behalf of those guilty of economic
“crimes,” such as practicing numerous professions without
a license: hair braiders, teeth whiteners, gypsy cab drivers,
and, yes, doctors, lawyers, dentists, veterinarians, etc., too.
It would devote great efforts to freeing people guilty of victimless
crimes, particularly regarding drug prohibition. A libertarian
clinic at a law school would be a very different kind of creature.
Where is campus diversity when we really need it?

This article
originally appeared at Backbencher.