Religious Freedom #2 [essay]

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Lately, I started - and did not finish - a thought-piece discussing "religious freedom" in the United States, because one hears in the public discussion fairly often these days the charge - usually made with considerable anger - that religious freedom is currently "under attack."

The claim emerged prominently on the scene in response to a provision of the 2010 federal reform of health insurance, requiring religious institutions - like the Catholic Church - to offer the employees of its social-service agencies and universities health insurance covering such controversial therapies such as birth control.  Although the churches and other such institutions were exempted from this requirement, the other organizations operated by them are not exempt.

In my earlier essay, I reviewed the Constitutional provision for "the free exercise of  religion," pointing out that the individuals employed by these organizations were of course free to exercise their religious conviction that contraceptive is immoral, even if it is covered by their insurance policy, and that those employees whose religious convictions did not prohibit use of birth control methods remained as free to use it as the majority of American women who have it covered by their insurance.

Why, then, I asked, was there so much vitriol in the claims that this provision violates religious freedom?  And I simply couldn't think of an answer to my own question.

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One reader helped me out by explaining that perhaps a person opposed to contraception, for whatever reason, would resist paying insurance premiums, revenue from which would be used for others using birth control.  "My religious freedom," such an individual might claim, "will be violated if others use, in part, my money to use birth control."

That's the kind of explanation I was looking for, so I appreciate the coaching.  We could imagine that a person fervently condemning contraception of any "unnatural" kind (unlike abstinence) might even be moved to great anger by this impression, even if this individual were to realize that her or his opposition to anyone else's use of legal birth control methods is another matter, properly addressed by efforts to change the law.  Just because we disagree with a law, we do not have a right to ignore it. 

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Also, the way group insurance works is that every group-member pays the same premium for the same plan, even though the great majority of the conditions covered by the plan are never used by that individual.  Some of my premium, for example, would go to cover the treatment of a person seriously injured in a car accident that killed someone else, which was caused by the survivor's having been drunk at the time.  I do not approve of drunk driving, but a little of the money used to treat this jerk's injuries would come from my premium.


Finally, church-affiliated universities, hospitals and charities would not have to provide or pay for the controversial coverage. Instead, we are told, coverage for birth control could be offered to women directly by their employers’ insurance companies, “with no role for religious employers who oppose contraception.”

Since there is no real issue actually threatening the religious freedom of the religious institutions involved, it is right and proper for all of us to support the freedom to choose contraception of women employees (or students) of the non-church organizations involved.

And anger and vitriol expended in this discussion by true believers is more properly directed at the law making the use of birth control legal.

I'm beginning to think that when people claim they value FREEDOM, they mean  their freedom to prevent other people from doing what they freely choose to do. 

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Religious Freedom #1 [essay]

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There has been a lot of talk recently, by Catholic leaders and by various Republican politicians, about what has been called "religious freedom."   One politician has also said that he values religious freedom and follows all the (other) values in our country's founding documents.  However, just what is meant by these individuals when they speak of "attacks on religious freedom" is unclear.

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It is true that many of the original European immigrants to America in the 17th and early 18th centuries came here in search of freedom to worship according to their own creed and their own practices.  The "pilgrims" who came to Plymouth Rock are of course such individuals, and their historic "Mayflower Compact" was the result of negotiations between the Christian sect emigrating from Europe, the Puritans, and those they called "strangers" who did not share their religious convictions.


My own ancestors on my father's side in 1733 came to Georgia along with others from the Palatine region of what is now Germany who were called "Salzburgers,"  Protestants who had been persecuted by warring Catholic and Lutheran forces from both French and Germanic regions during the 100 Years War.  (My own ancestors were apparently pursuing that other goal that drove many Europeans to colonial America: economic advantage.  The "Dariks" found passage along with their highly religious neighbors from the Palatine region to England  first and from there to Savannah.)

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Also, of course, the very first provision in the Bill of Rights amending the Constitution protects those in the United States from the government's establishment of one particular religion as the official religion of the country, and prohibits Americans from preventing an individual from exercising his or her own preferred religion.  We are guaranteed the right to worship - or not to worship - as we see fit, without hindrance from others.

It seems that this right was considered of vital importance by our founders, not really because they believed every individual should be allowed to worship or not as she or he decided, but because the founders themselves had already chosen a wide variety of different sects to follow: Puritans, Baptists, Anglicans, Catholics, and so on.  No one wanted someone else, even the democratic majority of "someones else," to dictate how they themselves would worship and conduct themselves morally.


The First Amendment, for our founders and for us, would seem to indicate that neither individuals nor groups may impose their religious beliefs and practices on others.  "Freedom of religion," then, essentially means freedom from possible interference in one's individual choice about which religion to follow, if any, and what moral principles to pursue in one's own behavior.

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The specific cause of the recent claims that "religious freedom" is now "under attack" was apparently the health insurance legislation passed by our representatives in Washington in 2010, which requires all health insurance companies to cover contraceptive procedures and therapies.  Religious organizations like churches are exempt from this requirement, but the insurance policies offered by the universities, social service agencies, and other organizations that are supported and controlled by religious organizations are not exempt.  According to the new law, their employee health insurance policies must cover birth control treatments, .

Now, many - perhaps most - of the employees of these organizations such as a university or a hospital do not share the beliefs of the supporting religious institution.  Even those who do  apparently value their freedom to go against their church's teachings and use birth control anyway.  (98% of American Catholic women do so, as we have learned.)  And of course, no one is required to use birth control just because it is covered by her or his health insurance policy.

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In America, however, the basic motivation of "religious freedom" has been protection of individuals from enforcement of religious practices on those who do not share the beliefs behind them, from the "strangers" (non-Puritans) on board the Mayflower to the anti-Church of England sentiment behind the first amendment of the U. S. Constitution.


The 2010 law would seem entirely congruent with the traditional meaning of "religious freedom" on this continent.  The individual may not be forced by the government to follow the religious beliefs or practices of soneone else's religion.  So where's the "attack on religious freedom" in the 2010 health care law?


And why all the anger?  The rage over this issue doesn't appear to be mere posturing covering up deeper or darker reasons that the complainants have for opposing President Obama and those who supported the 2010 law.  (It does so for many Obama opponents, it seems.)  This anger seems to be genuine.  Some seem to actually think that the new law imposes on them someone else's religious beliefs and practices, which would be "an attack on their religious freedom."

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So, the question is, In what way does the new law impose anti-Catholic or anti-Christian beliefs or practices on the Christians in the U. S. of A. today?

[PAUSE.  Resume two weeks later...]

Well, I give up.  I can't answer my own question.  It seems impossible to find a reasonable and logical way to explain how the new law could be considered an infringement on one's right to freedom of worship.

Rather, all the vitriol - other than the made-up rhetoric of those pursuing merely political gain - seems to derive from some people's belief that contraception is so very contrary to their own religious traditions that it should not be permitted for anyone, ever... and should certainly not be facilitated by law or by health insurance.

Maybe someone could speculate why anyone - let alone quite a few people - think this, but that is clearly beyond my own imaginative powers.  What we can observe is that according to the primary law of our nation, The Constitution, it is equally prohibited for a law to impose a core belief on others who do not share it as it is to impose on others a more trivial religious custom (like attending worship services, for example... it would probably be rude to mention divorce right now...).

Am I wrong?  Have I missed something?

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