Religious Freedom

Recently the Obama administration decided to deny Catholic institutions such as hospitals, clinics, etc. religious exemption from the requirement to provide free contraceptives to all employees, against the teachings of their faith. That was met with an outcry, so the president decided to change the rules to exempt those institutions but still require the insurance companies that they pay to provide health care (mandated by "Obamacare") to offer the contraceptives for free. In other words, it is a shell game, moving from requiring the employer to provide the contraceptives to requiring the employer's insurance company to provide the contraceptives as part of the policies that the employer funds. How is that an exception? The answer is that it is not.

The political conservatives have cried out that this infringes on religious freedoms, while the political liberals have hailed the decision as a victory for women and ridiculed the conservatives as wanting to ban contraceptives in the name of religion.

What is really alarming to me is the way my friends on the political left are framing the debate as an attack on women's rights by the conservatives in the name of religious freedom. Let's look at the U.S. Constitution. The first amendment says that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". So, if the president is trying to take a law that Congress passed and interpret it to mean that a religious organization is required to pay for something that contradicts longstanding church teaching on morality, isn't that violating the Constitution's protection of the "free exercise" of religion? There is nowhere in the Constitution that makes an exception to this fundamental right when it comes to healthcare or anything else, regardless of whether it is widely accepted as a good idea. The Constitution's protection of rights is spelled out precisely for those situations when the rights would otherwise be trampled by the tyranny of the government or of the majority.

Now, I'm not Catholic, and I am in favor of accessible birth control, as long as that does not include abortion on demand, but I would gladly die to protect the right of Catholic organizations to exercise their religious convictions by not providing contraceptives of any type to their employees, even indirectly via the insurance policies they provide for their employees. Let's not confuse the issue by focusing on the wrong issue. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, so it trumps any other rule or regulation. If you don't like the results, try pushing an amendment through. That's why there is an amendment process. Just don't ignore the Constitution for convenience if it gets in your way!