Tags
Abortion, Bill of Rights, Birth Control, Catholic, First Amendment, Freedom of Religion, Obama, Sebelius
If you were to ask whether or not the Constitution guaranteed your right to freely live out your faith, you would be right. The First Amendment clearly says that the no laws can be made to establish a national religion, nor can they be made to prohibit your exercising that faith.
That is what ‘freedom of religion’ means. In the United States, nobody’s faith is “better” than anybody else’s in the government’s eyes. And people are free to act out their faith as they wish (with some exceptions.)
But in August of last year, and in a startling decision last week, the Obama Administration showed it does not believe that Americans have the right to Freedom of Religion. In their eyes, Americans have only the right to Freedom of Worship.
The difference is obvious, says Wesley Smith.
The former means that one may believe whatever one wants and worship privately without interference, whereas the latter allows one freedom to live in the world at large consistent with one’s faith tenets, even if they are not endorsed by the state.
In other words, as long as what you do fits our narrow classification of what your religion is allowed to do, you can do it freely. But if it goes outside that boundary, we have the right to legislate your behavior–even if you find it unconscionable.
The decision that has made this difference so clear concerns contraceptives–including those classified by the FDA as abortifacients. In August, Kathleen Sebelius, head of the Department of Health and Human Services, decided that all health-insurance plans in the United States must provide them, even religious institutions that find the requirement to be morally objectionable.
Her decision yesterday flew in the face of protests from religious leaders, sticking to her narrow definition of “religious institution” as one that actually has services, prayers, etc., take place within its walls. It doesn’t include hospitals, schools, colleges, etc.
Freedom of worship. Not freedom of religion. As Michael Gerson says in a well-written indictment of the president’s malicious radicalism:
Obama chose to substantially burden a religious belief, by the most intrusive means, for a less-than-compelling state purpose — a marginal increase in access to contraceptives that are easily available elsewhere. The religious exemption granted by Obamacare is narrower than anywhere else in federal law — essentially covering the delivery of homilies and the distribution of sacraments. Serving the poor and healing the sick are regarded as secular pursuits — a determination that would have surprised Christianity’s founder.
This is not freedom of religion at all. This is such a narrow definition of what the founders intended that it can’t even be called such, even though Sebelius tried to say it was:
This decision was made after very careful consideration, including the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty. I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.
Sadly, this is not just about birth control, and it’s not just about Catholics.
This is about the fundamental right of Americans to pursue and exercise their faith as they see fit–beyond the walls of the church, if need be, to schools, orphanages, charities, hospitals, and more. This is a president saying that he and his administration have the right to decide what makes something religious and what doesn’t.
Church? Yep, religious.
School? Nope, secular.
Synagogue? Religious.
University? Secular.
Mosque? Religious.
Orphanage? Secular.
If it’s not an actual “house of worship,” it doesn’t count as religious. In this world view, if it’s not religious, then the federal government can regulate what you can and can’t do. Michael Gerson again:
It is a view of religious liberty so narrow and privatized that it barely covers the space between a believer’s ears.
If you are a person of any religious faith, you should be concerned over this zealous attack on religious freedom. This new rule attacks the fundamental right of religious organizations–no matter what their faith–to conduct their public activities in way that reflects the tenets of their faith and their moral worldview.
The only worldview that matters to Sebelius and Obama seems to be the one that is determined by the federal government. And that worldview has determined that religious freedom is less important than free birth control.
One final reflection, from Ace of Spades:
For all the talk of Christians being rigid moralists, the dirty little secret is that the left is far more rigidly, arrogantly moralistic, and it is cheerleaded by our cultural institutions (media, academia) rather than pushed back against, so its arrogance is encouraged.
Obama is pushing, very hard, a rigid moral system, and attempting to “shove it down the throats” of people who do not seek nor need his moral instruction.
