Remarks for December 15th Special Town Council Meeting in Bloomsburg, PA

EDIT: There were a few changes between what I typed up and ultimately said.  Only minor changes, but I've updated the text below.


My name is Anthony Beard and I am here to speak against this ordinance on grounds that it is unnecessary and limits religious freedom.

John Locke said “the end of the law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.”  In other words, our laws and ordinances only ought to be written to protect another’s life, liberty, or property, and this ordinance would do none of that.

We’ve recently seen the damage done by unnecessary laws.  In the wake of the Eric Garner tragedy, Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter recently wrote on such damage:

On the opening day of law school, I always counsel my first-year students never to support a law they are not willing to kill to enforce.  Usually they greet this advice with something between skepticism and puzzlement, until I remind them that the police go armed to enforce the will of the state…It’s useful to remember the crime that Garner is alleged to have committed: He was selling individual cigarettes…in violation of New York law.

Carter’s point is that laws need to be absolutely necessary to society if they are to be in place.  So we need to do a brief cost-benefit analysis between having this ordinance and not having this ordinance.

If there is no ordinance, and we allow business owners like the Millers to participate in society according to their religious beliefs, the worst damage done is that someone has to buy a dress elsewhere.  That individual is free to share this experience and convince others not to buy a dress at that business either. If advocates of this ordinance are correct in that the Miller’s behavior is not tolerated in Bloomsburg, they will either go out of business or change their policy; The end supporters of this ordinance desire with no law ever being needed.

 However, if there is an ordinance, the Millers are forced by government either to close their shop or go against their religious beliefs.  Whereas the free market approach gets to this desired end peacefully and simply, our local government must go against guarantees of religious freedom seen in both the U.S. and the Pennsylvania Constitutions.  So instead of getting it resolved by individual citizens quickly, it will be dragged out through the courts.