I have twice written here about “freedom of worship’s” attack on “freedom of religion,” that is, the attempt to shrink free exercise into a mere right to worship. President Obama has pushed that theme once again in his speech at a White House dinner celebrating the end of Ramadan. From the speech:
Of all the freedoms we cherish as Americans, of all the rights that we hold sacred, foremost among them is freedom of religion, the right to worship as we choose.
No, Mr. President. It is much more than that.
August 13th, 2012 | 12:54 pm
Should the Romney camp assume Obama is trying to drawn them into a debate on this? Perhaps. Freedom of worship vs. the free exercise of religion might be too complex for the campaign, and Obama might relish the idea of framing the Romney response as “wanting to impose their private religious beliefs on everyone else.”
What is the best response for Romney? I’m not practiced in this particular debate, but perhaps it would go something like “President Obama now wants to redefine the 1st Amendment from one of a freedom to exercise your faith and live it out, into a far more restrictive ‘freedom of worship.’ Like all of the President’s efforts to redefine your freedoms, he’s hoping you won’t notice the fine print because that’s where he wants to change everything.”
August 13th, 2012 | 1:44 pm
I think most people, including Obama, use freedom of worship and freedom of religion interchangeably. I think this controversy is baseless. See the following:
Having differing opinions on a few issues as to where to draw the line, freedom of religion not being absolute, does not amount to a campaign to abolish freedom of religion.
August 13th, 2012 | 1:52 pm
I rather fancy “freedom of worship” is a translation (and not a very happy one) of « La Liberté des Cultes » a phrase that figured prominently in the French Enlightenment.
The expression is rather equivocal. « Le culte » means adoration or worship; it also means religion, particularly, but not exclusively, in the sense of denomination (« Le culte juif » = the Jewish religion, « un ministre d’un culte » = minister of religion) It does not have the pejorative overtones of the English word “cult,” for which the French equivalent is « La secte. »
Originally used to signify opposition to the legal monopoly of the Catholic Church, nowadays it means “‘the independence of the political authorities and of the different spiritual or religious persuasions [« options » in the French] This signifies an absence of political intervention in religious matters and an absence of religious sway over political authority.” This is also known as laïcité.
August 13th, 2012 | 2:05 pm
Mr. Nickol: if you think that the Bush administration, or, to be accurate, any administration, was/is friendly to religion, you are sorely mistaken. Religious groups may be more or less useful to politicians, and treated better or worse depending on how valuable their support may be to those currently at the helm. But religions are always viewed with, at best, suspicion by the state; the strategy is to co-opt or corral them. The right has chosen the former option; the left the latter.
August 13th, 2012 | 4:58 pm
David Nickol,
The difference between the use of the term “freedom of worship” as a synonym for “freedom of religion” by George W. Bush and Barack Obama is this: W was clearly a religious man for whom religion was an important factor in resolving his drinking problem and to which he frequently and publicly looked for spiritual guidance and support (to the derision of many anti-Bush partisans). His interchangeable use of the terms can be chalked up to carelessness and imprecision rather than malevolence. Obama, on the other hand, clearly is (to put it kindly) less sympathetic to religious doctrine (eg, abortion) and has exhibited, in his HHS secretary’s mandate for example, an overt hostility to constitutional guarantees of religious freedom so that his mixing of the two terms can reasonably be interpreted as intentional and in the service of his far left political agenda.
August 13th, 2012 | 5:13 pm
Obama, on the other hand, clearly is (to put it kindly) less sympathetic to religious doctrine (eg, abortion) and has exhibited, in his HHS secretary’s mandate for example, an overt hostility to constitutional guarantees of religious freedom so that his mixing of the two terms can reasonably be interpreted as intentional and in the service of his far left political agenda.
Carl,
Obama may be less sympathetic the the religious doctrine you believe in, but that does not make him less sympathetic to religious doctrine. And whether abortion should be legal or not is not a matter of religious doctrine. It is a matter of law.
If you are referring to the contraceptive mandate as evidence of “an overt hostility to constitutional guarantees of religious freedom,” it has not been established by the courts yet whether the mandate is constitutional or not. If it is upheld, it may be upheld based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which is not the constitution. It may very well be constitutional but against federal law (RFRA).
August 13th, 2012 | 10:05 pm
The First Amendment speaks of freedom of religion which includes ‘freedom of worship’ within it, but means much more [except the obvious 'establishment clause]
The Catholic Bishops of the USA are very much aware of the change of phraseology and its implications for the present but most of all by the future. They give a series of intrusion by ‘the state’ into the affairs of the free practice of religion (of which none is a prohibition of worship]. The HHS Mandate is only the most glaring example, but is by no means unique. If the Mandate or even the whole “Obamacare” had been struck down by the US Supreme Court the Catholic Church in America would still be speaking out about the threats to ‘freedom of religion’
August 14th, 2012 | 9:51 am
David Nickol:
“And whether abortion should be legal or not is not a matter of religious doctrine. It is a matter of law.”
The fact that abortion IS legal is not the same as whether it SHOULD be legal…and that is precisely a matter of religious doctrine informed by first principles.
August 14th, 2012 | 10:47 am
Carl,
It may be a matter of Catholic religious doctrine that abortion should be illegal, but it seems to me the Church gives so little guidance as to how it should be illegal that the doctrine has no more practical application Catholic Social Teaching about helping the poor. There are so many ways of interpreting such principles and so many ways they might be implemented that as guidelines for political action, virtually anyone of any political stripe can claim to be in accord with them. In any case, the pro-life movement in the United States doesn’t want to make it a crime to procure an abortion. They want to make it a crime to perform an abortion. Mothers would not be legally culpable for arranging and paying for the death of their unborn children. How such an arrangement could be called justice for the unborn is beyond my comprehension.
August 14th, 2012 | 3:21 pm
I think most people, including Obama, use freedom of worship and freedom of religion interchangeably. I think this controversy is baseless.
Except for the fact that Obama’s Justice Department (and Nancy Pelosi) keep using language that makes clear that the right formerly known as religion does not exist, and that the “right to worship” means you can do whatever you want, but only if you are in the right kind of building during the right kind of service.
August 14th, 2012 | 4:52 pm
Blake,
Neither Obama nor Pelosi has any power to alter how the courts interpret the Constitution. I don’t think they even have any influence. If Obama wants to change “freedom of religion” to “freedom of worship,” he is going to have to name five new justice to the Supreme Court to replace five of the sitting judges. Because on the last big freedom-of-religion case, the court voted against Omama and the Justice Department unanimously.
Now, on the other hand, there is one man who actually did deal a major blow to freedom of religion, and that was Antonin Scalia in Employment Division v. Smith who made it more difficult for citizens to prevail against the government in freedom of religion cases—so much so that congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to try to undo what Scalia had done. And then, of course, the court found RFRA unconstitutional as applied to the states.
Obama is not in a position to do anything even close to what Scalia did.
Obama may prevail on the contraceptive mandate, and I understand why many would consider that a serious blow to freedom of religion (although I don’t agree). But as for shifting American jurisprudence from interpreting the First Amendment to guarantee only freedom of worship and not freedom of religion, Obama simply hasn’t the authority or the influence to do that.
August 14th, 2012 | 4:54 pm
David Nickol:
By legalizing abortion on demand, Roe v. Wade not only made abortion readily available, it also institutionalized the concept that killing an unborn baby is an act which our society considers acceptable. This increased acceptability and availability, of course, has led to a dramatic increase in the number of abortions since 1973. Criminalizing the performance of abortions would certainly not eliminate all abortions just as laws against other murder have not ended all murders, speed laws have not ended all speeding on the roadways, etc. Adding criminal penalties against women seeking abortions would not likely result in significantly further reductions in the number of (illegal) abortions. But the combination…illegality and moral unacceptability…would go far toward providing justice for the unborn. Let’s not hold the good hostage to the perfect.
August 14th, 2012 | 7:13 pm
This increased acceptability and availability, of course, has led to a dramatic increase in the number of abortions since 1973.
Carl,
Actually, the abortion rate has been dropping since 1990 and is down about 25% from its peak.
Adding criminal penalties against women seeking abortions would not likely result in significantly further reductions in the number of (illegal) abortions.
I can understand why the pro-life movement would find it politically necessary not to promote the idea that a woman who procures an abortion should be punished for it. But I simply can’t be persuaded that that would not be unjust and not be less effective than holding women criminally responsible. Mother Teresa said:
For those who believe an abortion is the killing of an innocent human being, I don’t see how they can argue with that. It seems to me to criminalize abortion and not to hold the mother legally responsible is to accept that a mother can kill even her own child. I have heard all of the arguments again and again, so there is no point in discussing it here one more time. I can never accept that—for those who consider abortion murder—it would not be unjust not to hold the mother legally responsible in some way. I’m not saying the penalty would have to be time in jail, but not to hold the woman responsible in any way who delivers herself to the abortionist and pays for the abortion makes no legal or moral sense to me.
August 14th, 2012 | 9:21 pm
“Actually, the abortion rate has been dropping since 1990 and is down about 25% from its peak.”
True but there was a dramatic increase (I believe doubling) of “legal” abortions between 1973 and 1979. 1990 was indeed a peak but the decline since then has not offset the initial surge of abortions after Roe v Wade.
August 16th, 2012 | 6:34 am
In Scotland, under the old law, prosecutions of abortionists were almost wholly confined to non-medical practitioners.
Medical practitioners invariably claimed that they had performed a D & C to remove post-partum placenta after a spontaneous miscarriage.
the requirement of corroboration meant that prosecutors usually relied on the Moorov doctrine, under which witnesses to individual episodes of a course of criminal conduct are mutually corroborative. Thus, two women testifying that a doctor had performed an abortion on them would provide the necessary corroboration against him, but, as their own admissions were usually uncorroborated, there was insufficient evidence on which to prosecute them and, having testified, they were immune as socii criminis.
Any law criminalising abortion would be subject to the same constraints
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