Further, lawsuits are already underway all across the US and cert has been granted by the Supreme Court.

Little Sister speaks at Congressional reception
Created on Friday, 29 June 2012 14:48

http://www.littlesistersofthepoor.org/resources/little-sisters-blog?start=10

Totally agree on the invasion of Iraq bit; unfortunately/fortunately, it’s also true that an individual’s responsibility to pay taxes is held to a different standard than either an organization’s or an individual’s right to practice their belief in other direct-action ways than tax.

I understand fully that scholars of the Constitution often draw a line when rights are in tension; but the choice to draw the line here seems absolutely absurd. It’s akin to forcing religious schools not to pray; i.e., an inconsistent application of the separation between church and state. I can’t think of a situation when religious organizations are held to the same standard as other institutions in oversight and control over services rendered.

If this issue were about a rabid Republican state trying to force its businesses to furnish their employees with guns (mirroring a politically-jokingly proposed individual gun mandate from South Dakota), we would be up in arms (purely figuratively) about how that state has “No Right to Force” businesses to give dangerous weapons out to people. Try to touch contraceptives, and now suddenly, the state has not just a right, but a “Responsibility to Force” businesses to dole out potentially-hazardous chemicals to people who might put them in easy reach of small children.

No, I’m not actually worried about child contraceptive overdose.

Yes, I’m worried about the precedent of *forcing,* well, anyone, but particularly religious organizations, to violate their own religious beliefs. If your creed is in fundamental contradiction with the law of the land, then typically speaking, the law of the land makes an exception for you, with the caveat being that there’s no exception if you’re endangering others or violating their Constitutional rights. That’s what we did with the children of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who wouldn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance in our schools. That’s what we did with the Peace Churches who opposed anything to do with draft and conscription. That’s the very reason why we allow religious schools NOT to teach their children about evolution; not because it’s somehow good for the state to have less people understand decent biology, but because it’s good for the state to allow the religious freedom to be ill-informed about scientific principles. And again, not that the misinformation is good, but that the freedom is in fact a good, acceptable, and morally justifiable thing, worth more than the improvement of the science curriculum in a few of our schools.

I want to return to the adjective I used above to describe rights; they should be Constitutional. There’s actually no right to healthcare in the Constitution; and while I think healthcare certainly is a right, I don’t think the way we do it can violate what is also most certainly not just a right, but a Constitutional one. That right is in fact called freedom of religion; and while that’s certainly not a cure-all or do-anything card, it most certainly does entail a certain governmental responsibility to respect non-mainstream non-secularized belief

I see no reason to think that his law sets anything other than legal precedent for forcing certain Christian religious schools to violate their own moralistic principle of not teaching evolution, or more importantly for the dissolution of any number of religion- and philosophy-based exemptions; and I’ve always felt that the freedom to deviate from mainstream, most especially in belief and thought, has always been one of our greatest cultural strengths.

While I understand and agree that it is good to expand contraceptive access; I do not understand the idea that this particular method is as good as others, let alone better. We needed a simple exception that allowed a religious exemption from select services by religious organizations, and then enabled access for those workers to a separate plan paid by taxes and limited to only those services to which their organization is conscientiously objecting. Such a clause wouldn’t have made the bill significantly longer, and we would’ve then avoided this very political battle; and even if you *are* for some reason incontrovertibly set against support for the religious freedom of even the majority religion, I hope you can at least admit that avoiding this battle would’ve significantly improved the politics of the rest of this contentious bill.

Forced to leave? Operating ethically? I don’t understand why the only alternative that Catholic opinion-makers give on this matter is to close up our schools, hospitals, and orphanages. There is an even simpler answer and one which is bound to work: Civilly disobey.

Don’t pay the fine. Don’t give out birth control and abortifacients. Don’t comply. Let Federal agents threaten to come and start hauling doctors, nuns, and priests away from the bedside of sick patients. One picture of the ensuing chaos on Drudge and Huffington and the entire Church will be granted a waiver.

If I see leaders of my Church throw their hands up and say, “Oh well!” and close, all because of Obamacare, which almost all of the USCCB was supporting publicly — except for the part that made their complicity with the law immorally — only then will I have lost hope.

The very fact Church leaders are opting to close rather than civilly disobey leaves me disheartened.