All it took was an ill-advised quip from Rush Limbaugh to turn the national debate about ObamaCare from concerns about religious freedom to one about an imaginary Republican war on women. But the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops are trying to refocus Americans on the threats to their religious liberty with a “Fortnight for Freedom” program planned for July in which they hope to get people discussing the ways in which the government is seeking to infringe on their rights to worship. Though predictably liberals are branding this as an effort to help Republicans, this is exactly the sort of project in which all faiths ought to participate.
The manifesto issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is an important document that is neither partisan nor an attempt to inflame sentiments on divisive issues. Rather, it is a sensible alarm issued to arouse Catholics to the insidious manner various government orders and legislation has sought to abridge religious rights. Examples include draconian immigration laws that conservatives have promulgated in Alabama. But is inevitable that the lion’s share of attention will be given to their citation of the way President Obama’s signature health care bill will force Catholic institutions to pay for contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs as well as the way various municipalities have driven Catholic agencies out of adoption and foster care services because of its stand on same-sex couples. Though non-Catholics, as well as many Catholics, may not agree with the church’s beliefs, it is vital they stand in solidarity with its call for freedom.
The blather about a fictional war on women has distracted the nation from the fact that while no one is actually preventing anyone from obtaining birth control, having an abortion or infringing on the rights of gays these days, the rights of Catholics not to support activities that contradict their faith is under siege. The issue, as the bishops rightly put it, is not so much whether Catholics are allowed to gather in their churches or pray as they like at home but whether they and their institutions are to go on being permitted to participate in our national life.
The principle at stake here is one in which it is clear that if the government gives itself the right to impose practices that contradict religious principles in this manner, it will fundamentally alter what the bishops rightly call our “first, most precious liberty” of freedom of religion.
As unfortunate as this movement to infringe upon religious liberty is, what is most distressing is the way the church has been largely allowed to face these attacks on its own. It is no small irony that many Jews who are zealous in their reaction to anything that might be construed as a violation of the separation of church and state or to impose majority beliefs on adherents of minority faiths or no faith at all are standing aside in this fight or opposing the church.
Laws that seek to force Catholics to subsidize actions that contradict their beliefs are, as the manifesto says, “unjust” and ought to be opposed by all people of good faith. In this context, the greatest tragedy would be if the church were left isolated in this battle because Democrats and liberals fear that advocacy on this issue undermines President Obama’s re-election. Far from the church playing the partisan here, it is those on the other side of this debate who are defending the indefensible simply because not to do so involves the defeat of ObamaCare.
The bishops write, “To be Catholic and American should mean not having to choose one over the other.” The same sentence applies to Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Mormons and any other group including atheists who should be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Catholics in defense of religious freedom.
Regarding "the rights of Catholics not to support activities that contradict their faith is under siege," Obama & Co. are at war with any faith, not just the Catholics. They are building a wall of separation–separating the people of America from their faith. They are secular relativist progressives, they worship Obama who is a narcissic fascist who worships himself.
Agreed on all points. The manifesto quotes with approval a statement by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, of which I am proud to be a member. n nI do have a quibble with the Manifesto's statement that "Lord Baltimore imagined Maryland as a society where people of different faiths could live together peacefully." True, as long as they were different Christian faiths. Maryland's 1649 Act Concerning Religion (also called the "Toleration Act"), which the Manifesto calls "the first law in our nation's history to protect an individual's right to freedom of conscience", is true only if that individual professed the divinity of a certain man. The Toleration Act did not protect Jews, Muslims, Unitarians and other non-Christians. Perhaps as a rebuke to Lord Baltimore, his namesake city is today home to one of the most vibrant Orthodox communities in the United States.
All Americans have to stand for this one and force the Dims completely down off this high horse. There is no other way.
Sandra Fluke is a put-up job to turn the Constitution inside out, for Dim Marxist policies that Americans do not and will not EVER sit still for. Rush put the situation mildly. n nLimbaugh was right – and Sandra Fluke showed herself for what she is – this IS a nation of Free Clinics with Free Birth control out of 50 different Govt agencies. nAnd not one single Constitutional paragraph provides for the FORCED PAYMENT by TAXPAYERS for the FRIVOLOUS expenses of a Hedonistic lifestyle of choice.
Rose, n nYou have clearly neither read nor listened to what Sandra Fluke herself testified and therefore have a totally inaccurate understanding of her position, courtesy, I gather, of the Great Misrepresenter, Rush Limbaugh. What she had actually explained was: n n1. Georgetown students pay for their insurance policies *themselves* without ANY taxpayer OR school subsidy, so with respect to Georgetown students like herself the issue was NEVER about any religious-affiliated entity being required to "subsidize" artificial birth control, only about preventing students from receiving contraceptive coverage as part of THEIR purchase with their OWN money — which Georgetown faculty and staff *already* receive (so that horse left the barn long ago). n n2. Fluke was NOT advocating a "hedonistic lifestyle" and NEVER discussed her own use — or not — of contraception, nor did she EVER suggest that anyone should "subsidize" her "lifestyle" (whatever it might be — she never even mentioned her own sex life). n n3. Fluke explained that the bills she was testifying against would not only allow institutions such as Georgetown to prevent students from obtaining contraceptive coverage from the school-approved insurance companies from which the students purchase their *unsubsidized* health insurance, it would ALSO allow such institutions to prevent women from receiving coverage of oral contraceptives for serious NON-contraceptive medical problems such as: n n(a) polycystic ovarian disease, n(b) endometriosis, n(c) dysmennorhea and n(d) irregular menstrual cycles (which can render a woman infertile) . n nFor all of these conditions oral contraceptives are often prescribed NOT for contraceptive purposes but rather to TREAT such painful and sometimes life-threatening conditions. One of the principal examples Fluke had offered in her testimony was this: n n
n nA woman can hemorrhage to death if she's unable to receive surgery in time after such a cyst bursts: a friend of mine only barely made it to the hospital in time when it happened to her. She nearly died because by the time the surgeon opened her abdomen, she had already lost nearly half her blood supply. n nLimbaugh didn't merely attack Fluke in an indefensibly misogynist manner, he LIED, and listeners such as yourself happily drank the Kool-Aid. That's what makes him the paradigmatic demagogue.
This is the sort of obfuscatory BS that gives lying such a bad name. Did Ms Fluke exclude herself in advance from benefitting from the changes she was advocating? No? Then what the hell does it matter if she didn't discuss her own "lifestyle"? She didn't have to. Fluke was advocating changes to health-insurance coverage that would also have covered contraceptives for every student, including her. Your tedious dwelling on the case of an individual who couldn't get coverage for her "ovarian syndrome" is a contemptible Ann Landers column and amounts to an enormous non sequitur as far as what Limbaugh was saying. You can't seem to get this through your skull: not everyone believes that pregnancy is an illness. If that woman was stupid enough to buy a policy that did not have an exception for using birth-control pills for legitimate illnesses, then tough. She's going to have to pony up the hundred bucks a month — if that's what it is, which I very much doubt — and save the sob story for her diary. Life can be harsh to stupid people, but even so, twelve-hundred dollars a year scarcely makes her Jeanne Valjeanne. n nAmazingly, you seem unable to understand the concept of insurance, which is a collective affair. Ms. Fluke may pay her own health-insurance premiums without ANY subsidy (something I very much doubt), but that doesn't mean SHE pays for her own HEALTH CARE. Everyone at Georgetown who is in the student-health-insurance plan is paying for her health care with their premiums. And a lot of other people beside, I suspect, including Georgetown University. (The idea that the university through its sponsorship has nothing to do with the final out-of-pocket costs that Ms. Fluke et al. pay for health insurance is ridiculous on its face.) n nHealth-care dollars are scarce. For that reason things are excluded. Insurance companies ask questions. Lots of them. Moreover, there is nothing whatsoever private and sacred about freely going to other people — in fact, to a faux-congressional hearing on national television! — and bawling "Pay my sexual-recreation bills! Even if I am not ill!! Even if I want to copulate like a crack whore during fleet week!!!" Uh uh, lady. No way. Fluke's not entitled to a nose job or a boob job even though she's paying her own premiums, is she? So guess what? If she wants to get laid and not worry about the consequences, well, my dear, she's not entitled to that either, thank God. This is about the proper expenditure of dollars and cents, got that? Not, yawn, about "policing women's bodies." Yawn. She had no need for her gynecologist to accompany her to ask for birth-control coverage, did she?
I sympathize with the Church's battle with this federal policy, but, "we told you so". The Church helped create this very monster that has turned on it. If only they'd come to understand that the government that can mandate what "health care" they much pay for, can mandate anything.
Cheers, Mr. Tobin! Thank you for writing this accurate and sensible op-ed. All Americans of good will should join this fight to defend/regain our most fundamental freedom, the one on which our nation was built–freedom of religion–from the insidious attacks of the Obama administration.