tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25087560.post5029514262749766319..comments2023-11-02T20:38:05.498-04:00Comments on A few simple words...: The Mandate…Fr. Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17997782632875230368noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25087560.post-71967230862232132612012-03-26T11:01:50.044-04:002012-03-26T11:01:50.044-04:00Doug,
First and foremost, this is not really a s...Doug, <br /><br />First and foremost, this is not really a suitable place for you to showcase your position on this clearly unconstitutional mandate...but since you did, and you have a right to do so, please allow me to respond. For now, let's forget about "the legality". I would like to counter your position with a simple thought...<br /><br />As a Catholic (I am assuming that maybe you are one, if not, forgive me for making that assumption), are you willing to stand before God and take the position that you were OK with funding, directly or indirectly, (it makes no difference) abortifacients and birth control which is contrary to the Church's moral beliefs? I am not comfortable with that. If we believe that ending the life of a fetus is murder, then providing, funding, legislating for and even passively allowing for abortifacients makes us accessories to murder. Plain and simple. This quasi robbing Peter to pay Paul scenario doesn't rid us from the moral dilemma. We believe that God sees things differently and judges us based on what we do and what we fail to do.<br /><br />Your understanding and articulation of the mandate and its associated talking points is impressive, but only in a worldly sense. We as Catholics are not concerned with the "worldly" view on this. It is how we will be judged in the eyes of God. Mandate or no mandate, making abortion more accessible in any form is contrary to moral teaching - and the Church will stand firmly against it and perhaps even suffer persecution for it. <br /><br />Since you are an intelligent person, a lawyer perhaps, and seemingly willing to research of US Law and its precedents, may I make a suggestion? Take some time to study Canon Law (especially Book III where it discusses the Church's role in Catholic Institutions) and read Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae. Maybe, at least, they will help you understand the Church's position in a better way. <br /><br />Ultimately, you have to decide who's side you are on: You either side with God or not - there is no middle ground. My priority is to place God above all things. I think we all get caught up in politics and sometimes forget what's truly important. Government should never take the place of your moral compass. <br /><br />One final thought: Can you really defend human rights if you cannot defend the unborn? Basic human rights begin with the right to life. All other human rights and civil rights are meaningless if you can't defend the defenseless. <br /><br />God Bless,<br />John R.John R.https://www.blogger.com/profile/12516395449986311402noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25087560.post-18007920991358403642012-03-24T16:04:09.317-04:002012-03-24T16:04:09.317-04:00I think you are mistaken in at least two respects....I think you are mistaken in at least two respects. First, questions about the government requiring or prohibiting something that conflicts with someone’s faith are entirely real, but not new. The courts have occasionally confronted such issues and have generally ruled that under the Constitution the government cannot enact laws specifically aimed at a particular religion (which would be regarded a constraint on religious liberty contrary to the First Amendment), but can enact laws generally applicable to everyone or at least broad classes of people (e.g., laws concerning pollution, contracts, torts, crimes, discrimination, employment, etc.) and can require everyone, including those who may object on religious grounds, to abide by them. (E.g., http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/494/872/case.html http://www.aafcp.org/cplm/files/12.pdf.) <br /><br />When the legislature anticipates that application of such laws may put some individuals in moral binds, the legislature may, as a matter of grace (not constitutional compulsion), add provisions to laws affording some relief to conscientious objectors. <br /><br />The real question here then is not whether the First Amendment precludes the government from enacting and enforcing the generally applicable laws regarding availability of health insurance (it does not), but rather whether there is any need to exempt some employers in order to avoid forcing them to act contrary to their consciences. <br /><br />Second, the law may not be one that some employers support as a matter of policy, but it does not put them in the moral bind you suppose. Many initially worked themselves into a lather with the false idea that the law forced employers to provide their employees with health care plans offering services the employers considered immoral. The fact is that employers have the option of not providing any such plans and instead simply paying assessments to the government. Unless one supposes that the employers' religion forbids payments of money to the government (all of us should enjoy such a religion), then the law's requirement to pay assessments does not compel those employers to act contrary to their beliefs. Problem solved. <br /><br />Some nonetheless continued complaining that by paying assessments they would be paying for the very things they opposed, seemingly missing that that is not a moral dilemma justifying an exemption to avoid being forced to act contrary to one’s beliefs, but rather is a gripe common to many taxpayers–who don’t much like paying taxes and who object to this or that action the government may take with the benefit of “their” tax dollars. Should each of us be exempted from paying our taxes so we aren’t thereby “forced” to pay for making war, providing health care, teaching evolution, or whatever else each of us may consider wrong or even immoral? If each of us could opt out of this or that law or tax with the excuse that our religion requires or allows it, the government and the rule of law could hardly operate.<br /><br />In any event, those complaining made enough of a stink that the government relented and announced that religious employers would be free to provide health plans with provisions to their liking and not be required to pay the assessments otherwise required. Problem solved–again, even more.<br /><br />Nonetheless, some continue to complain, fretting that somehow the services they dislike will get paid for and somehow they will be complicit in that. They argue that if insurers (or, by the same logic, anyone, e.g., employees) pay for such services, those costs will somehow, someday be passed on to the employers in the form of demands for higher insurance premiums or higher wages. They evidently believe that when they spend a dollar and it thus becomes the property of others, they nonetheless should have some say in how others later spend that dollar. One can only wonder how it would work if all of us could tag "our" dollars this way and control their subsequent use.Doug Indeaphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16049465653137283724noreply@blogger.com