February
29, 2012
Column
#1,592
“We’re
All Catholics Now!”
By Mike
McManus
A month ago I wrote,
“President Obama has picked a fight with America’s Catholic Bishops over
religious liberty. He’ll lose.”
As Mike Huckabee put it
recently, “We’re all Catholics now!”
Richard Land, President of
the Southern Baptist’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, opened his
column in “The Christian Post” this week with two paragraphs:
“Let’s begin by making one
thing crystal clear. The debate generated by the Obama administration’s
requirement that virtually all health care insurance plans provide free
contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization services in all health
insurance plans is not a debate about contraception or `reproductive
services.’
“This is a debate about
coercion, not Catholics; conscience, not contraceptives; and freedom, not
fertility. This is about principle, not `pelvic politics.’”
From a theological point of view, Southern
Baptists are poles apart from Catholics. Each Baptist church is autonomous
vs. the hierarchy of Catholics, led by the Pope and his bishops.
Yet they are equally
devout in their commitment to the first of the freedoms in the Bill of
Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
The regulations to enact
Obamacare initially declared that all organizations other than churches had
to provide sterilization, contraceptives or abortion-inducing drugs at no
cost – even Catholic colleges and hospitals which provide a sixth of all
hospital beds in America.
That touched off such an
uproar that the Administration made an “accommodation” that would not
require religious institutions to provide these services, but all insurance
plans.
“This so-called
`accommodation’ changes nothing of substance and fails to remove the assault
on religious liberty and the rights of conscience which gave rise to the
controversy,” said a statement, “UNACCEPTABLE” issued by 500 Catholic,
Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders, university presidents and scholars.
“Under the new rule, the
government still coerces religious institutions and individuals to purchase
insurance policies that include the very same services…It is morally obtuse
for the administration to suggest (as it does) that this is a meaningful
accommodation of religious liberty because the insurance company will be the
one to inform the employee that she is entitled to the embryo-destroying
“five day after pill” pursuant to the insurance contract purchased by the
religious employer.”
Among signers were Timothy
Cardinal Dolan, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Chuck
Colson of Prison Fellowship, presidents of Harvard and Catholic
Universities, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, founder of Zaytuna College, the first U.S.
Muslim college and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik of Yeshiva University.
These regulations, stemming
from a law passed by Congress, amount to an establishment of a secular
religion to which all Americans must bow, and prohibit the free exercise of
religion by those opposed to it. Every organization with 50 employees must
buy health insurance that includes offensive provisions to millions.
Congress is considering a
bill, Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, that would prevent the
imposition of regulatory mandates violating religious or moral convictions.
It is likely to pass the House, but not the Senate. Even if it did, Obama
would probably veto it.
One top Protestant asserted
Obama has made a “huge miscalculation. He saw polls that 98% of Catholics
use contraceptives, and felt he could drive a wedge between the clergy and
laity. But even those Catholics don’t want government telling bishops what
to do.”
Obama’s people believe that
sexual rights trump religious rights. He named a lesbian law professor,
Chai Feldblum to the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, who has said
that when the rights of gays, lesbians and transsexual people conflict with
religious people, the “religious must give way.”
Simply put, it costs only $10
a month to buy contraceptive pills. Any woman can afford that. Why insist
that Catholic University or its insurer provide pills free to any employee
or student?
Lawsuits have been filed, but
they take time. The Supreme Court has already scheduled an unprecedented
length of time for arguments about the constitutionality of Obamacare. It
will focus primarily on whether Congress has a right to require every
citizen to purchase health insurance, or pay a significant fine. The freedom
of conscience issue surfaced only recently and is unlikely to be part of the
Court’s deliberations this spring.
Whether the Court
declares Obamacare constitutional or not, I preduct this issue will grow
over upcoming months. It will be intensely controversial in such swing
states as Ohio, which is 44% Catholic, moving millions to vote against
Obama. It could even give safe Democratic states like New York, two-thirds
Catholic, to Republicans.
Don’t discount committed
Protestants. ”We are all Catholic now.”
Copyright © Michael J. McManus, President of Marriage Savers, is a
syndicated columnist.
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