For many liberals these days, defining religious liberty is more a matter of circumstance and fashion than principle. Thus, when a plan was put forward to build a Muslim community center and mosque in the shadow of New York’s Ground Zero, the mere expression of concern such a decision was insensitive to the victims and families of the 9/11 attacks was taken as a sign that opponents of the project sought to repeal the First Amendment. The right of prisoners to practice their faiths is often allowed to trump other concerns. The Supreme Court has made it imperative the government must have a compelling reason to impinge in any way on the right of believers to observe religious rights and customs. But this belief in the value of diversity only goes so far. Thus, when President Obama chooses to force Catholic institutions to pay for services for their employees that the principles of the Church forbid, the government’s abrogation of their religious freedom was seen by many of the same liberal commentators who applauded the ground zero mosque as being of no consequence.
That’s the conundrum the president’s anti-Catholic fiat exposed, and the reaction to it from much of our chattering classes is hardly encouraging for those who worry about the government’s willingness to trample on the rights of believers. One needn’t agree with the Vatican’s stand on contraception to understand that if the law regards the government health care agenda as being more sacred than the rights of Catholics not to be forced to subsidize practices they abhor, then the principle of religious liberty in our country truly is in danger.
That’s a conclusion many in our chattering classes refuse to accept. In noting the comments of Republican presidential candidates on the issue in an editorial today, the New York Times put the words “religious liberty” in quotes as if the mere notion that the church’s rights were imperiled was something of a joke.
The reason for this is no secret. For liberal secularists, church teachings about contraception are antiquated and contrary to the progressive spirit of the age. If the church thinks condoms and morning-after pills are wrong, then so much the worse for it. Their beliefs are to be suppressed largely because they are seen as wrong and therefore not worthy of protection let alone tolerance. The triumphal tone of many Church critics betrays a sense that a faith hierarchy that is seen as conservative and/or patriarchal is being put in its place.
Supporters of the president have tried to portray his decision as being made in defense of workers who are being deprived of essential health coverage. But this is a subterfuge. Health care plans vary. Anyone who views birth control benefits as necessary to their terms of employment need not work for a church institution. But the point of this measure is about a political agenda in which free contraception becomes a universal right, not the particular needs of individuals.
While liberals scoff at the idea Obama is waging a war on Catholics, there is little doubt the government’s refusal to accommodate the Church represents a clear choice about the legitimacy of its beliefs. As Politico notes in its analysis today, this may come back to haunt Obama in November as white working-class Catholics who voted for him in 2008 abandon his cause in 2012. But the more important point to be made here is if Catholic rights can be trampled in this fashion, so can those of other faiths even if their liberal adherents think they are untouched by this controversy. Religious liberty either exists for all or for none.
[...] Liberals and Obama’s War on the Church, Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary, February 2, 2012 . [...]
All religious groups would be better off if they could wean themselves off federal money and just get by on private donations. That would mean radically downsizing much of their physical presence in communites. For example, they could sell their hospitals and concentrate on primary care clinics. They could still fulfill their missions to the poor and sick that way.
You write: For many liberals these days, defining religious liberty is more a matter of circumstance and fashion than principle. nThis is SO interesting. That only conservative can be interested in religious liberty? I don't see where 2+ 2 add up to that at all. Many liberal religious groups are all about religious liberty – and it is a guiding principle. Fashion you say? Seeking religious liberty for all does not include mandating what others can do/say. Liberty is for ALL not just for some to follow your way. Conservatives to not own the link to religious believers.
It's high time we atheists fought back against the tyranny of the church. You may believe any hocus pocus you wish but keep it out of my face and out of my bedroom. n n Read – Matthew 6:5
cf. Matthew 5:10-11
Utterly irrelevant to the topic.
You can fight…you will lose.
As everyone knows, this has nothing to do with contraception, and everything to do with the First Amendment and the free exercise of faith. But it is being reported that way deliberately, by people who know exactly what they're doing. Like the Times. n Obama believes he can drive a wedge between Catholics left and right. Perhaps he thinks Sibelius or Pelosi or Biden are credible Catholics. But you know that plan is in trouble when a Renfield like the WaPo's E.J. Dionne takes you to task. n Moreover, apart from the rights issue, this damned thing adds even more to the titanic burden of debt to be born by future generations –a "social justice" issue that liberals simply can't grasp. And it is a further example of the way the modern welfare state –especially under an ideologue like Obama– works to replace the horizontal relationships that unite people in traditional communities, with vertical relationships that bind atomized individuals to the State. n
If Catholics refuse to follow federal guidelines attached to federal grants and subsidies they have eliminated them selves from the programs. Don't make this a religious issue. This is big religion asking for an exemption to commit fraud on tax payers of many faiths by receiving federal money with no intention of delivering the services mandated to the public or the employees.
ajfneri, n nHow is "big religion" not delivering their services to the public or their employees? nIf you don't like "big religion", don't go a hospital operated by one. n
What part of "this isn't about contraception" do you not understand? This is about the limits that the Constitution imposes upon government, and the ambition of the Obama administration in particular –and Democrats in general– to exceed those limitations. And it is about the threat posed to all our freedoms: if such encroachment is not checked here and now. what is next? What will you say, when –having done nothing in this instance– this administration –or the next one– threatens something you do care about?
Mr. Thomas, Plato once had Socrates say that no man could possibly do ill but out of ignorance, so I think this faithful Catholic will give you the benefit of the doubt. In America, those Catholics who honor the Church's teachings by practicing NFP certainly have far more reverence for women than those who choose to ignore the teaching on contraception. It takes planning and intelligence to practice NFP, any idiot can use a prophylactic. n nOf course those dissenting from Mr. Tobin's argument are missing the larger point. If the government can mandate you to buy health insurance and, against your religious beliefs, force you to pay for insurance that covers items you would prefer not to pay for, there would appear to be very little room for liberty (religious or otherwise) left. If Obamacare is allowed to stand, in the name of cutting the US Carbon footprint, theoretically the government could order health plans not to provide natal coverage for more than two pregnancies. One may scoff, but a number of moral boundaries we thought were impenetrable 40 years ago have been trampled in the intervening years.