I have said it before, and I will say it again. Religions do not, indeed, the cannot, respect boundaries. They always overstep the limits of reasonable, civilised discourse and behaviour. As an example, take the Obama Administration’s recent attempt to compromise with the Roman Catholic bishops. “No way!” say the bishops — and here, if you please, is their complaint (The full bishops’ statement can be accessed here):
the church leaders said the policy offers “second-class status to our first-class institutions in Catholic health care, Catholic education and Catholic charities.”
What’s the compromise? Well, it’s as simple as 1-2-3. They don’t have to fund contraception, but women are entitled to contraception at no cost. Couldn’t be simpler? You have to factor in the religious and their demands first, and then, suddenly, the whole thing is a mess of religious demands for their rights and your subordination.
The problem, it seems, is this. First of all, the compromise:
The proposed guidelines would allow religious-affiliated organizations opposing contraception to opt out of a federal mandate requiring that they provide their employees with insurance coverage for birth control.
The policy would give women at non-profit, religious-based organizations, like certain hospitals and universities, the ability to receive contraception through separate health policies at no charge.
But according to the bishops, the women would not be permitted to opt out of the program. According to Cardinal Dolan of New York:
It appears that the government would require all employees in our ‘accommodated’ ministries to have the illicit coverage—they may not opt out, nor even opt out for their children—under a separate policy.
First of all, notice the word ‘illicit’. How did that sneak in there? But, additionally, this is not only strange, it’s simply unwarranted. No one can force women to take contraceptives. Indeed, some of the women in question, presumably, would not want to be on contraceptives, because intending to have children. So Dolan’s point is far-fetched. What he’s saying is that women who want contraceptives would receive them, no matter what the bishops try to do! So, it is not mandatory, but those who want them won’t have to pay! So, what’s the problem? Well, the bishops don’t like the idea of women in their employ receiving contraceptives, unless they have to pay! Bastards!
The truth of the matter seems to be this, and this is the very point at issue:
Cardinal Dolan also said the proposal refuses to acknowledge conscience rights of business owners who operate their businesses according to their faith and moral values.
This is where the violation of boundary conditions arises. For, why should businesses have the right “to operate their businesses according to their faith and moral values”? After all, consider the degree of freedom that this would afford business owners. They could restrict their businesses to men or women only, depending upon their faith values; they could require women to be bagged in burqas; they could demand that no employee be permitted to receive blood transfusions or vaccinations; or that they should not receive other than homeopathic remedies, or faith healing. The Roman Catholic Church may think that their moral foundations are sound — though I beg to differ; nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Church is not the only possible faith position out there, and some of them are possibly even more offensive than the Roman Catholic position. To make it a general principle that businesses should be permitted to govern themselves according to their faith and values is precisely the kind of thing that the separation of church and state is supposed to protect: the right of individuals to conduct their lives without the interference of religion. It is intolerable that these high-handed moralists, who believe that their truths are handed down to the ragglety-tagglety occupant of the supposed throne of St. Peter, should get to base the benefits of lack thereof that they supply to their employees should be based on their faith and moral values alone. What a bunch of assholes! (And that’s bloody strong language from me!)
Would it not be in bishops’, cardinals’, priests’ better collective interest (and those of children) to get insurance coverage for some sort of Anti-Viagra? Or would they resist that, saying that it would reduce the virtue obtaining from the valiant effort to resist the sexual urge?
Do the Bishops think Catholic women will be tempted by free contraception and give in to its use? I guess if one believes the Adam and Eve story (and Catholic clergy’s view of women being what it is) – women will offer condoms to their husbands or, heaven forbid, a vasectomy. Slippery slopes all the way to hell.
Much cheaper to have them born Catholics than to convert them as adults and the church needs money – the Los Angeles archdiocese is begging its flock for $200 million US to pay for the abuse scandal.
If I had the right to operate my business ‘according to my faith and moral values’, I’d sack all the ugly employees and stop paying my creditors. If I can’t get away with that, then why should the Church?
I think it is a valid assessment given the circumstances.
The Catholic bishops are being insane, to insist that business operate according to their faiths is to want to go back on the principles their founding fathers had when they asked for separation of state and church. For the state to support any such policy it will have failed it’s people and will have supported discrimination of people of other faiths or the faithless! It is purely ominous
Sometime in the future, the word “catholic” will engender from the community at large the same emotional response as “dog turd on my shoe”.
Good points well put. This further compromise proposal is a politically expedient way to moot specious, yet distracting objections to the law. Notwithstanding the bishops’ arm waving about religious liberty, even without this latest compromise proposal, the health care law does not force employers to act contrary to their consciences. Under the law, employers have the option of not providing qualifying health plans and instead simply paying assessments to the government–assessments that are far less than what they otherwise would pay for health plans. Unless one supposes that the employers’ religion forbids payments of money to government, the law does not compel them to act contrary to their beliefs.
Some nonetheless have continued complaining that by paying assessments, they would indirectly be paying for things they oppose, seemingly missed that that is not being forced to act contrary to one’s beliefs, but rather is a gripe common to many taxpayers–who don’t much like paying taxes and who object to this or that action the government may take with the benefit of “their” tax dollars.
In any event, those complaining made enough of a stink that the government relented last year and announced that religious employers would be free to provide health plans with provisions to their liking and not be required to pay the assessments otherwise required.
Nonetheless, some continue to complain, fretting that somehow services they dislike will get paid for and somehow they will be complicit in that. They evidently believe that when they spend a dollar and it thus becomes the property of others, they nonetheless should have some say in how others later spend that dollar.
Nonetheless, some continued to complain, fretting that somehow the services they dislike will get paid for and somehow they will be complicit in that. They argued that if insurers (or, by the same logic, anyone, e.g., employees) pay for such services, those costs will somehow, someday be passed on to the employers in the form of demands for higher insurance premiums or higher wages. They countered what they called the government’s “accounting gimmick” with one of their own: “Catholic dollars.” These dollars, it seems, can only be used to pay for things conforming to an employer’s religious beliefs even after the employer spends them and they thus become the property of others, e.g., insurers or employees. (I can only wonder what proponents would think of their tag-the-dollar idea if they realized that I have loosed some “atheist dollars” into society, some of which have found their way into their wallets. Those dollars can be used only for ungodly purposes, lest I suffer the indignity of paying for things I disbelieve. If one lands in your hands, whatever you do, for god’s sake, don’t put it in the collection plate.)
The real aim of those seeking an exemption for all employers claiming religious objections is to free employers of the law’s requirements and thereby free them to foist their religious views on their employees. In their latest statement, the bishops confirmed just that–tacitly acknowledging that employers themselves would not be compelled to act contrary to their consciences, but objecting that their employees would remain subject to the law’s requirements and thus employers could not press employees to conform to the employers’ beliefs.
Question: Does this post & the supporting applause suggest that atheists neither comprehend nor respect the notion of “religious freedom” & neither comprehend nor respect the notion of “separation of church and state” as expressed in Thomas Jefferson’s letter (not in the US or Canadian constitutions)?
No, it doesn’t. A devoutly-religious or pious owner/manager of a private sector business remains as free to believe and to speak whatever s/he wants to believe, and to practice whatever religious rituals s/he wants. And so can the managers of a religiously-affliated institution that is not a church, such as a Catholic “public” hospital or university.
What is at issue here is whether such owners and managers should be able to give their beliefs the local effect, within their workplaces, of a law,and to prevent employees from having the same access to contraceptives that other private-sector employees of other businesses have. . . . even if the pious or religiously-affiliated employers are not compelled to pay for such coverage.
Eric is right: It is very difficult for any organized religion to respect boundaries, to refrain from overreaching, for very long. It’s not enough for a band of believers to believe something (or to make a good show of it) and to be happy in that belief. No. Everyone else must be made or convinced to believe that something as well, and to conduct their lives according to that belief.
Al H, but it suggests from your comment that you don’t. Nobody has the right to impose his or her religion on someone else.
Pingback: Articles. « Loftier Musings