When Does Religion Become Illegal?
Is it illegal to be a Catholic in the United States? That’s kind of a grey area, after Barack Obama’s Health and Human Services Department issued an Aug. 1 order requiring all employers offering medical insurance to cover “reproductive services,” including contraception as well as abortion drugs (hat tip: www.politicaloutcast.com). Under the “required health plan coverage guidelines,” HHS lists:
All Food and Drug Administration approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity.
That includes abortion-inducing drugs. If you manage a Catholic institution, you either violate your most basic religious principles or fail to comply. The correct answer, evidently, is that you can be a Catholic at home with closed shutters, but you can’t have Catholic institutions.
It’s still legal to be a Jew in the United States, but not in some parts of Europe. After a June 26 ruling by a Cologne court defining infant circumcision as “inflicting grievous bodily harm,” you can go to jail (at least in theory) for performing Jewish ritual circumcision. Although Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and other political leaders have promised to find a legislative way around the court and uphold religious freedom for Jews and Muslims, policies against circumcision are proliferating. Two Swiss hospitals have stopped circumcisions (although they continue to offer euthanasia). One Austrian province banned circumcision before the Justice Ministry intervened. Now Norway’s ombudsman for children’s rights demands that circumcision be replaced with a “symbolic ritual.”
While a ban on kosher slaughter was narrowly averted in the Netherlands, European rabbis warn that a new wave of attacks on this basic Jewish practice is in the offing. Jews who stand by while America’s largest religious community, the Catholic Church, should remember that we’re next. The Catholic Church is the only European institution that has consistently defended Jewish religious freedom in Europe. It would be hypocritical as well as self-damaging if we Jews failed to do everything in our power to support Catholics against this new persecution.
Make no mistake. These are revolutionary proposals, as revolutionary as Robespierre’s short-lived attempt to replace French Christianity with a new “Cult of the Supreme Being” or the Bolsheviks’ effort to ban religion altogether, or the Nazis’ campaign to introduce “Aryan Christianity.” The vehemence and thoroughness of the campaign against religious practice bespeaks a world in which our lives will be scientifically engineered by a benign and all-encompassing state.
Raising children, the Left believes, is too important to leave to families. The Left believes that the patriarchal family is the root of all evil. (I’m not exaggerating. I come from the Left. The witches’ brew of Freud and Marx and Frankfurt School and identity studies that the Left imbibes at our universities center on the evils inherent in the patriarchal family).
And family structure is weakening of its own accord in a culture that makes personal gratification the highest good.
Household Size Shrinks in the United States
America used to be a land of families; increasingly we are a country of singles and elderly living alone in tiny cubicles. The natural constituency for religion — the traditional family — is weakening. Fifty-one percent of births to women aged 20 to 30 occur out of wedlock. If individuals abandon family responsibilities, they will fall to the state by default. It’s not surprising that the true believers in a utopian state believe that their moment has come and that it is time to toss the remnants of traditional society into the dust-bin of history.
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Perhaps more specifically, “What happens when Judeo-Christianity” becomes illegal. Wikens, Giaists, Marxist, etc. will be welcomed, as long as their individual creeds support the religion of “Power to the Elite”. Nothing new here. Move along. (/sarc)
That’s “Wiccans”…
In the case of circumcision and kosher slaughter, as well as abortion pills, Muslim religious rights are affected as well. As I’ve said before, this is a case where Jews and Christians must defend the religious rights of Muslims, whatever our other differences.
As I’ve said before, this is a case where Jews and Christians must defend the religious rights of Muslims, whatever our other differences.
The important difference is in enforcement. As a nation we have placed enforcement, as in selective enforcement, above the law. Look at the 20 million or so illegal aliens living in this country for proof of that. The law can’t be enforced because that’d be racist, and oh by the way fattens up the labor market.
Moslems get selective enforcement on their behalf, too. Every two years or so we get a made-for-TV bust of a Mormon practicing polygamy; after 30 years we’re still waiting for the first such prosecution of Moslems. Even worse, the widespread practice of welfare fraud by placing the three mosque wives onto AFDC goes unenforced across the board. Why? The Infidel who would bring proof of this practice to the public’s eye is unlikely to do so for fear of ruination, maiming or even death. Forget the prime time stuff, the biggest effect of terror takes place every hour in quotidian realm of life, which over the course of hundreds of thousands of incidences spread across decades, will change a country’s culture.
Way too much bending over backward to appease muslims. They get a free ride if OUR heritage is protected in that OUR heritage is the protection of religious freedom.
Lest one forget, Islam is not a freedom of religion sorta thing.
ta
And don’t forget the accommodations for Moslems are given by the recognition that Islam is a religion. It is no such thing: Islam is a belief system that comprises government and military in addition to worship.
And, looking at Allah and Mo, what’s to worship. Ain’t religion supposed to be about goodness? That can be said about every religion or belief system that incorporates worship in the world, except one.
“And family structure is weakening of its own accord in a culture that makes personal gratification the highest good.”
Is this the inevitable outcome of modernity? As you forgot more economics than I know the opportunity costs of having children keep going up and up. Combined with a state welfare system that allows women with no ambition to have a family even if there is no father. Not sure how this will end up but I suppose I am channeling my inner Spengler.
I agree. I would like to point out that this is a classic case of what happens when you let government in where it does not need to be. The Catholic Church, which is very much in the healthcare business, actively supported Obamacare when it was introduced. This is why libertarians are so wary of shiny new government programs. Once you let the nose of the camel into the tent…
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/catholic-health-association-lauds-obamacare
Some differentiation must be made relative to that which the “Catholic” Church wants. One can argue that the Catholic bishops got what they DESERVED supporting universal health care, particularly enforced by a federal mandate to purchase said good. However, the mandate and its difficulties occur WITHIN the American NATIONAL tradition. In Germany, from the start of the reconstruction of Germany after WW II, Konrad Adenauer insisted upon the legal obligation for universal insurance (or some private form thereof). As a permanent resident guest in the country I was legally obliged to purchase health insurance or permission of residency would be denied. Which I did do with a semi-public company and I would not trade it for any offerings that I have read about in the USA. Being a non-German, I pay full price based upon my income. I have some idea of its real costs. What is the point?
The Catholic Church has evolved specific principles that are TRANSnational in accord with its “divine” mission, including extending aid to the poor. No Bishop in Germany would expect to have his conscience violated because he must instiutionally pay for sterilizations, abortions and counselling women on how to obtain abortion within any Catholic charity, including hospitals (as far as I know). Germans find it hard even to understand just what is going on in the USA. It often seems foreign to them. Some American critics, evangelics even, have snidely remarked that the Catholic Church in America, so-to-speak, got what it “deserves” for its support of Obamacare. This would be false because no person DESERVES governmental coercion that forces the believer to infringe upon one’s conscience (a right protected in the German “Fundamental Law” in the light of the Nazi acts of imposing compromise of conscience–and a possible visit by the Gestapo did make compromise vividly real). The Catholic Church in America can be faulted for letting its transnational social values blind it to the national values of a Pres. Obama (and Obama bulled the Catholic Church about his intentions before his election). Stupidity does have its price–one that the Bishops must now pay or forfeit organizational charity or organize successfuly political opposition. But, no religious organization deserves being forced to violate its conscience!!!
However, there is a religious endangerment that applies to Christians, Jews and (in Germany) to Muslims. The danger resides therein that a secular goverment decides to withdraw “legality” for the religiously derived practices of religious instituions and believers. It is not so much that the believer in the realization of his/her faith is made “illegal” as it is that the believer in the realization of her/his faith loses the “legality” of said practices. Any German (or, for that matter, American or French or Spanish or etc.) LEGAL prohibition of Judaism and Islam in Germany because of circumcision or of Catholicism in America because of refusal to realize the HHS Mandate would be revealed for what it is, i.e., surpression of religion. As such abuse is open to political opposition. But, the withdrawal of legality from religous practices is more insidious and, accordingly, more difficult to defend against. The sum of it all is that the exercise of religious conscience is either losing its legality (which incurs punishment for failure of complying) or the religious conscience is being forced to act in direct contradiction to the imperatives of said conscience.
The problem entailed goes beyond the justified warnings of libertarians IN America relative to new and grandiose govermental undertakings. (Such warnings are not germane for Germany.) The offense is much more profound. If Obama can manage to bring Catholics to violate their conscience, he has nationalized said the religious conscience, specifically in the form of its strongest institutional opponent. In other words, religion becomes a function of governmental property. And that includes Jews, Muslims, etc., and even in a way A-theists.
I did not say that they deserve anything at all. It is a consequence of what happens when religious organizations become entangled in issues, such as health care, not directly related to religion. Politics is dirty and unprincipled. Religion should stand above that.
I think it is exactly the sort of thing libertarians warn about. Problem is most people do not take libertarian arguments seriously. Hence, when things get serious it is “beyond” libertarianism.
Germans would not understand any of that but this is not Germany. They should have been amazed that we have had a functioning Medical system at all without government control. That is why euros were at such great pains to point out its deficiencies. It was not the deficiencies they were worried about. It was the heresy that something like Medicine should be a private enterprise at all.
Unintentionally, no doubt, you have highlighted the problematic by writing that this is what happens when churches get entangled in health care issues “not directly related to religion”. But faiths, of all types, are concerned with the welfare of people, of and beyond their practioners. That means that any church must of necessity be involved in political matters, even if a purely private system of health care is method. For afterall, even a purely private system must have legal ramifications and hence politics. Any time a religion goes beyond its immediate worship of God, it entails political ramifications. If “religion” is defined as only worship, then we have Obama’s view on the matter, i.e., insofar as legalities relative to exercising the faith beyond the buildings of worship and the acts of worshipping. The question: Is “religion” just a matter of “private” worhsip activity or does it entail interacting on non-worship matters with one’s “neighbor”–> religious run hospitals, for instance? If you say such activity is beyond religion, you are on Obama’s side and, from my point of view, oppressing religious belief and its ensuant activities. If activity beyond worship pertains to religion, then automatically there arises political dimensions. You cannot avoid the problematic situation. I would like to see private charity flourishing within the American system. That means that political entangements follow. Your advice is well taken, but too limited in its grasping of the complexity of the matter.
You are, in addition, missing the point of Goldman’s article. He was not just concerned with health care. In Germany there is the real possiblity that circumcision will be outlawed. That would mean that the activities of circumcising by Jews and Muslims (and any American residing in Germany who wishes circumcision for a new born child) lose “legality”. The connection with health care problems in the USA IS the loss of “legality” for Catholic charitable activity, including in hospitals to act in accordance with conscience. This loss means that the moral conscience of Catholics is abridged, i.e., it is not legal to refuse realizing the promotion of contraception– which includes sterilization, abortion and refusing to provide counsel about such health acts to female employees. The “freedom of conscience” is the common thread running through the oppression that three religions are experiencing in different forms in different countries. The original Catholic support of Obamacare is incidental to the problematic discussed in the article. In the case of Germany, the government, based upon so-called medical views concerning circumcision, might even enter into religious acts “directly related to religion”. For Catholics in America the concern is with turning acts of charity in to acts of “murder” (which is how abortion is seen). Freedom of religion is ultimately at issue.
Addendum: It is of no interest to me within the context of these comments what a reader may think of Catholic opposition to abortion, for which I above used the term “murder”. What does interest me in the comments is that the seriousness of forcing Catholics to violate their conscience, particularly in Church organizations, becomes “deadly” clear to the reader. I find that it would be valuable for the reader to have an inkling of what is involved in the violation of the Catholic conscience. With this desire in mind, I urgently suggest that the reader turn to “Priests for Life” in internet and examine the offerings. This group of priests (and some associated Protestants) is affiliated with the Church, but as a “private” organization, insofar as the term has meaning within the functioning of the Catholic Church. There are two things to note if the website is contacted:
1) You will see from the argumentation or, if one wills, the “propaganda” just why these priests see in abortion a horrible attack on the life of the most defenseless humans, the unborn. You will see the “usual” plethora of photos of aborted children. You can even watch an abortion of a first term child as the abortion is going on. –Try it, it is makes it clear as death what the HHS Mandate can mean.– The squashing of the head of the “unperson” in the womb will upset you, but inform you–and that is the point of the exercise. Again, I am in no way seeking to convince any reader of anything, rather I hope that he might obtain an emotionally tinged insight into what abortion means in Catholicism and, thereby, also for its true believing practioners.
2) Now, this organization has 6 or 7 paid lay female employees for which the group must by mandate buy health insurance, including for abortion and that this group is legally obliged to inform and counsel said employees about the use of abortion. The group obviously sees abortion as, well, “murder” and must now participate in an Obama system that mandates support of “murder” for them. (This fact is of importance to me as I live in country that ca. 70 years ago, legally of course, “murdered” millions, particularly Jews, by means of, say, post partem abortion –a term now popping up in med. journals of ethics–be aware.) “Priests for Life” has announced that it will not comply with the HHS Mandate. This means that, within ca. 6 months when the current insurance contract runs out, this group of priests will be faced with the choice of participating in “murder” or being penalized out of existence by the federal government. This is what losing legality in the exercise of one’s religion can mean.
I have made the following suggestion so that one does not get lost in the irrelevancies of libertarian concerns about the blindness of the Church relative to the fundamental problematic of big government projects. Perhaps fully true, but secondary in importance. Whatever the Catholic Church, wisely or stupidly, has done relative to support for a national health care system, that is fully irrelevant to the situation that bishops, priests , nuns concerned lay people are now confronted with. (I have not mentioned here Protestant and Jewish opposition. Their problematic is no different. But, as opposition to Obama, they are less serious politically.) If the federal government can appropiate the Catholic conscience in such a murderous matter, what else can the federal government appropiate in matters of freedom of conscience? Once David Goldman wrote to the effect: First they came for the Catholics, now they come for the Jews. –And in Germany the Jews and, yes, Muslims are facing legal prohibition of the practice of their religion. So they are, indeed, coming for the Jews. I accept Goldman’s thesis that also the exercise of religion by Muslims must be protected.
The Catholic Hospitals are in a pickle. I have great respect for the institution which has been driven by the highest of motives and has brought healing to the most destitute throughout Christian history. This is a transition which is going to be tough to navigate.
We cannot ignore the fact that this is a 100 billion dollar business. Catholic Hospital Assn. runs 15% of hospital beds in this country, they are responsible for many thousands of jobs and have cared for more of the destitute and uninsured than any system in the country. You need money to do that and the old system, patchwork and creaky as it has been is now collapsing as the government is taking over. Should the Bishops carry through the threat to close the system it would be catastrophic.
As an aside, the Jewish Hospitals were created for an entirely different reason. In the old closed network Jewish doctors were shut out from many hospitals due to prejudice so they opened up their own. That is no longer a problem and does not impact much in this issue.
So maybe this was inevitable. The premises of Obamacare and what the Catholic Hospitals stand for are irreconcilable. We cannot avoid this anymore. I still think it was a mistake to embrace Obamacare but that ship has already sailed.
I think the Church should take the moral high ground and refuse to comply with the regulations. Let the government try to shut them out and see what happens when they close down St. Vincent Charity. The public will not stand for it.
The bigger point has to do with freedom of religion including circumcision, wearing of overtly religious symbols, Jewish, Muslim, et al. and I am all on board with that. We cannot give ground on these points or we have lost everything this country was founded for. This is not France or Germany which have entirely different relationships between church and state.
There is the clumsy quote in german language: Die größten Kritiker der Elche
waren früher selber welche.
It is very interesting for me meeting a former moderate leftist here
becoming a more right man over his lifespan. So, I am not alone and happy with this diagnose.
http://dict.leo.org/forum/viewUnsolvedquery.php?idThread=1035675&idForum=1&lp=ende&lang=de
Thanks for the explaining a bit of Germanic wisdom. Whatever the meaning, it has its limits. Are the greatest critics of murder, former murders? Or, are libertarians as the greatest critics of governmental projects, closet planners, just lusting to spend big? This can go on ad adsurdum, no? Frank is right, the not so shining Germanic wisdom is “clumsy” and should be but of passing interest. Oh, oh, does my critique of “clumsy” wisdom say something about me?
Clumsy in a way are people who use such quotes, f.e. people in my village neighborhood, but they are not stupid. That means there can be some truth in the quote. So we change our opinion, but how can we know we are right this time, finally?
“Clumsy” was your term, not mine! My comment entails a bit of irony derived from pushing the “Voksweisheit” beyond its limits. I wanted to engage in comic relief from the very serious matter of the article. So, I know the intent of the “Spruch” and in no way did I claim that users of said widsom are “dumb” (though I, living in a large German city, do find a heck of a lot of “dumb” city dwellers, if I may be allowed the counter thrust). Alas, you take me too seriously–which is a problem that an American “Elch” such as I have long had with Germans, and for over 30 years. I do presume from your comment that you are German. If not, you suffer from the same German propensity to take things all too literally, leading to a conflict of humor mentalities. Nothing can confuse a German so much as a good old fashion American “Übertreibung”. So, take it easy! Und das ist keine Übertreibung. Oder?
I am more interested in the facts of the quote here: people change their habits over time. Maybe it is more our age which decides our habits or some other accident is it. Maybe it is not modern being left wing, it is not the time for that. Maybe it is not us who decides, more the circumstances, some say God is it and so on.
I am always impressed when people claim some special social thought or habit and I ask: how can they know?
… people change their habits over time.
I’d like to see a study of how Moslems have changed theirs over the past 1,400 years.
What hasn’t been covered in the MSM press is that Islamic organizations in the United States have been given exemptions to the HHS mandates that Christian organizations have not been given.
It is only Christian groups that are the target of these policies, not Islamic ones.
Can you please provide a link or source on this?
http://pjmedia.com/blog/obamacares-muslim-exemption/
Sorry, I don’t have time to ferret out the actual text of the exemption regulation, but I believe it would be buried deep in some edition of the Federal Register. If he see this, perhaps Mr. London can provide such a link.
Well done. Point to you. Herb London is an excellent source.
Even though the language is neutral the law seems to have been written to accommodate Muslims, a privilege not extended to Catholics regarding the requirement to provide access to reproductive system health care.
If the law is not extended to all, then in practice and effect it is illegal. As the the Washington Times stated in the opening of an editorial on the illegality of Obamacare exemptions, “Selective enforcement of the law is the first sign of tyranny.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/20/obamacare-waiver-corruption-must-stop/
Reply to APF –
The WT editorial to which you linked refers to “Obamacare” waivers.
The piece from Herb London which you cited earlier discusses a law which appears to be written neutrally but which may only benefit one group (Muslims) by allowing them to avoid violating their faith by compelling them to make interest-like payments. I would say that the important objection to make is that the same consideration is not afforded to Catholics so that they are not required to violate their faith by paying for objectionable reproductive health treatments. IMHO, laws should not be written to require religious groups to violate their faith unless there is a very compelling national interest. A clear case would be prohibiting devotees of the Aztec religion from practicing human sacrifice.
Yes, I understand the distinction. And, yes, I also understand, and agree with you, that no legislation should override religious conscience. But instead of working to artfully apply a very bad piece of legislation, the conversation should be about writing laws to which no exemptions can or should be made.
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I may be losing it, but I was shocked at the Louisiana Purchase and Kornhusker Kickback were made in exchange for votes. I can’t recall such open, unapologetic corruption ever happening in our federal government before. But the press seemed to barely notice.
America used to be a land of families…
Which wouldn’t be possible without AFDC, HUD Section 8 and several other laws. Here’s an idea: the state and federal governments should put together a website with pictures and salient info on every person currently receiving welfare of any kind, from AFDC to taxpayer-subsidized rent to taxpayer-subsidized healthcare to taxpayer-subsidized whatever. Why not? When you agree to take other people’s money to live, you’ve relinquished your right to privacy.
The welfare queens of the world would be suddenly motivated to get their pictures and info off of the Web, for themselves and for their kids. Remember, it’s all about the kids.
… increasingly we are a country of singles and elderly living alone in tiny cubicles. The natural constituency for religion–the traditional family–is weakening. 51% of births to women aged 20 to 30 occur out of wedlock.
I recently met an educated and well adjusted girl who immigrated from Moscow years ago. In her late twenties, she was on the verge of going onto maternity leave to have her first child. When I asked about the dad, she explained – without a hint of anger or disappointment – that he’d decided to not “participate” in the family. What struck me is that, while she’s from a communist upbringing, I’ve seen the same thing from American girls.
The cultural difference between America and communist countries seems to have disappeared.
“The vehemence and thoroughness of the campaign against religious practice bespeaks a world in which our lives will be scientifically engineered by a benign and all-encompassing state.”
That state is the only thing that can stop Islam. Christianity and Judaism will flinch and fall without the support of an openly secular state. Complementary systems work for the older religions; the theocratic fusion model very strongly favors Islam in the long run. It is made for it.
Religion becomes illegal when it causes harm to an individual. Group rights are determined by law, not ritual. Abortion is a gray area, at best, that Catholics could have tackled decades ago, but they now get to reap the consequences of their past indifference.
Families, for what it’s worth, largely prop up the university left, the bureaucracy, and the entertainment industry. They have never offered resistance to liberal divorce laws, or any kind of resistance to anything. They just exist, not ever really taking action.
It was always a false system. America looks to be returning to an historical norm, with families looking like the nobility/patricians, a very small percentage of the population. The frontier is history and the West is in a late era of its civilization. It is returning to the rule of women, who do not want to live with beta male family formers.
We will not make any law concerning a religion. Any religion may not break any of our laws, this would include: conspiring to disenfranchise any American based on Gender, Ethnicity, Race, Creed, Religion, etc, conspiring to teach Americans that the constitution and it’s inalienable rights do not apply to them, Marking and disfiguring infants to mark them as members of their Mob,…selling and buying women of any age for marriage and a host of other atrocities power mad ideologues would ascribe of themselves.
When Does Religion Become Illegal?
That’s an easy one. When its adherents hold views more in line with the political opposition.
When does a religion become illegal? The answer to this question might be found in Nigeria, Pakistan, Egypt, the Sudan and northern Iraq. Talk about a rich field of study.
Have to give The One (aka Diocletian II) credit for this: he’s created a unity among believers beyond anything previous.
There are many reasons that the American Healthcare Act should not have been passed; however Reproductive Services, IS NOT one of them.
There is a fundamental difference between something that is offered and something that is banned. Many people who work at Catholic institutions are not Catholic. For example Loyola University in Chicago. Out of 650 faculty members and staff, 150 are Jewish. Why should the 23% who are Jewish be deprived of “contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity”?
Remember, NO ONE is being compelled to use them.
It is unreasonable for you to compare the outright bans on circumcision and kosher slaughter to a mandate to offer reproductive services.
It is not like kosher which applies only to Jews so no problem with non kosher food in the cafeteria. The Church considers something like the morning after pill to be abortion and universally wrong. There is no middle ground here without reversing the whole doctrine on contraception and abortion which is central to the faith.
In practice Catholic Universities and Hospitals are very egalitarian open places to work or attend. I am Jewish and myself and family have had many interactions with those institutions. My wife has a degree from a Jesuit University for example. Our country would not be the same without them.
Our government painted itself into a corner. Obamacare should have avoided any such controversy if it’s proponents want it to succeed. My comments about where the Church could have done better before signing on are posted above.
Similarly, NO ONE is being compelled to work at Loyola University. Nor is anyone being compelled to work at any other Catholic institution.
This is not hard. This is the USA. Here, we have a constitution. In that constitution are some clauses delineating what freedoms should be expected. The first of which describes something called “Freedom of Religion” and posits that this cannot be infringed by the state. Now, Last I checked, Catholicism is a religion, so…. What is the problem with that line of reasoning?
If somebody is working for Loyola, ADL, CAIR or any other religious sponsored organization and they don’t like the rules, precepts, beliefs or any other aspect of their employment; tough beans! They should go somewhere where they can get whatever benefits they desire and can associate with others like themselves. They should go soon while we can still move about freely without showing our papers
The Catholic Church wanted Obamacare and now they got it! Too bad! I say F* ‘em! I personally find Obamacare more offensive than abortion. They supported the most shameful entitlement in the history of the world, they want to destroy this country economically all in the name of their BS compassion. How many businesses will collapse as a result of Obamacare? How many regular Joes who have to pay for their own unaffordable insurance will go broke. And Im supposed to care about about a bunch of holier than thou religiosos who cant mind their own business and feel the necessity to stick their noses up womens vaginas! Let the church stick to their stupid principals and not comply and pay the fine. Just like all the regular folks who dont comply with Obamacare will have to do!