“The question is not when should the government violate someone’s religious liberty, it is when should the government violate anyone’s liberty for any reason. And the answer is that the government should restrict someone’s freedom when their exercise of that freedom denies another person their equal rights or does them harm against their will.”

If the contraceptive mandate survives, then serious harm will be done to the concept of religious freedom in America – so much so that I think America will be fundamentally transformed from a nation that prioritizes religious freedom, to a nation that imposes a humanist vision on its citizenry at the expense of religious freedom.

Fortunately, I don’t think it is going to come to that, because I do not think the HHS mandate will stand. There is no evidence to support the idea that a majority of Americans really want to replace the idea of religious freedom with a nation where the state enforces a single ideology on its citizenry by brute force.

I am responding to the claim that Catholic organizations will shut down rather than comply with the contraceptive mandate. I am merely pointing out that I do not find the claim plausible, since no organizations have closed down because of state mandates, although some have chosen to self-insure. We don’t know how close the federal mandate will be to state mandates, since the federal mandate is under revision.

I don’t want to rehash old debates. I am saying it is not plausible that there will be a massive shutdown of Catholic charities, Catholic hospitals, Catholic schools, etc., if the contraceptive mandate survives in a from still objectionable to the Catholic Bishops.

Even if it were true that the two situations were analogous (and it has already been pointed out that there are major differences between the state and federal levels), it still does not stand to reason that because some Catholics have chosen to accept something that may violate their freedoms, that other Christians are morally or legally obligated to do the same.

Nancy Pelosi calls herself a Catholic and yet does things that most Catholics reject – for instance, she has defined being Catholic as something you do when you’re at Mass, and you don’t do when you’re not at Mass. Does it really then follow that because she holds that belief, that therefore all Catholics should hold that belief?

Or better yet, tell me again: why do you need to control other peoples’ religious beliefs, anyway? Contraception isn’t even medicine, and it’s already subsidized by the government, so what benefit is there to do this to them, other than that you get the chance to make Catholics adhere to humanist beliefs at the expense of Catholic beliefs?

JP,

Please see the article in the New York Times titled N.Y. Law on Contraceptives Already in Place, and Catholic Institutions Comply. Both New York and California have very strict contraceptive mandates that were fought in court and were upheld. Some Catholic organizations chose to self-insure to avoid the mandates, but I am unaware of any who were unable to avoid self-insurance who either stopped offering insurance or shut down rather than comply with the state mandates. If you know of any examples of Catholic organizations shutting down rather than complying with a state contraceptive mandate, I would be interested in hearing about them. I don’t believe there are any.

My personal position is that requiring Catholic organizations (of certain kinds) to provide insurance that covers contraception is an abridgment of religious freedom, but that religious freedom is not absolute, and the government may not be violating the First Amendment to impose the mandate. There is really no significant difference between an officially Catholic hospital and a Catholic hospital operating “within the Catholic tradition” other than an agreement with the local bishop. From the standpoint of the government, I can certainly see making the case that a hospital is a hospital is a hospital, and that the same laws that apply to for-profit hospitals should apply to non-religious not-for-profit hospitals and religious (including Catholic) hospitals.

I think it should also be pointed out that it matters not whether Catholic couples follow Church teaching concerning contraception. The Canon has in no way changed over thed decades. The Church still teaches that use of artificial contraception is a Mortal Sin (something that it has taught for centuries). It’s teachings concerning abortion go all the way back to the 2nd Century Didache. It isn’t going to change 2000 years of magesterial teaching in order to satisfy a subjective, evolving moral standard imposed from above. There are still some Catholics who still believe Church teaching that using artificial contraception puts their souls at riks. Forcing a citizen to co-operate with evil (as explicitly defined by the Church) is by definition oppression.

As I stated earlier, Peter Singer (and I suppose you as well) have this new notion that the free excercise of religion is something that must remain confined inside the church’s wall. The minute Catholics (or any Christian) steps outside, they become nothing more than subjects of an ever expansive state. One wonders why the President lied to Catholic Bishops. In the big scheme of things it doesn’t make any sense. Catholic Bishops were one of ObamaCare’s biggest cheerleaders. The President has offered over 1000 waivers and exclusions to a variety of organizations, which have a far larger impact on ObamaCare than the contraception exclusion for Catholics. With one stroke of his pen, the President picked a fight which he cannot hope to win.

“If I understand aright, you have the right to refuse to kill, but not to refuse to serve. Conscientious objectors can be made to serve in support roles (including chaplaincy and medical roles).”

The pacifist is being forced by you to serve in a support role, which to him means participating in evil. If you believe that Roman institutions shouldn’t cover contraception for their non-Roman employees because they would otherwise be participating in evil, then you would have to accept the pacifist desire to refuse to serve in a support role.

Everyone seems to want to simplify a complex issue into simple black and white.

Religious people as a group expect to be treated with respect no matter how totally irreconcilable their different accounts of reality are. If Jews are right, Jesus was not the Messiah. If Mormons and Muslims are right, there is no Triune God. If Hindus are right, there are many gods. If any particular religion is right, many others must be dead wrong. And yet few here would ridicule Christianity, Buddhism, Mormonism, Judaism, and so on.

Yet many religious people delight in ridiculing and deriding Peter Singer, who is word famous, has a well thought out, self-consistent approach to ethics and philosophy and is on the faculty of one of the most prestigious universities in the country (along with Robert George and Cornel West). I would not for a minute argue that all approaches to ethical and religious questions are equal. But it seems to me that if any one of the world’s major religions is as right as it considers itself to be, all the others are wrong, and arguably no more wrong than Peter Singer is if, say, Catholicism is right. So I think it ill behooves religious people (particularly Christians) to treat a person like Peter Singer with contempt when they, in turn, want to be treated with respect by him.