I joined the outrage of the Catholic Bishops when they discovered that their best bud in government, Barack Obama, is no friend to the faith. I’m Lutheran, so I don’t have a problem with preventing conception, otherwise known as birth control. However, I do have a problem with the government requiring anyone to do something contrary to his faith-based convictions. As my pastor pointed out, if someone has a faith-based conviction that he should sacrifice his child by fire, then that conviction does not really pass muster in our society. There seems to be a difference of opinion about the future Islam promises to suicide bombers, but I think that in the US, we would not call that a religious conviction we must respect. However, I have not encountered many religious convictions of similar character.
In the big picture, it is not too common for religious conviction and national interests in the US to conflict. That conflict is deliberately and deliberatively prevented by the US Constitution. The Founders were so certain that they were crafting a document that contained all the powers they wanted the federal government to exercise that they thought it unnecessary to specifically list things it might not do, but the first ten amendments address the concerns of people who felt that a central government could not be trusted to limit itself unless its boundaries were clearly specified. The first amendment declared that the government was prohibited from interfering with the free exercise of religion. The first patriots wanted to be sure that no overzealous members of any religion would be permitted to force citizens to support it or follow it against their will. They likewise wanted to be sure that no overzealous government would be permitted to force citizens to forego the expression of their faith in word and deed.
The Obama administration has set a heavy government boot on the throat of Catholic institutions, and they will now be required not only to forego the expression of their faith in refusing to provide or recommend birth control, sterilization or abortion services to their employees. They will, despite the Constitutional protection they ought to find in the first amendment, be compelled to provide health insurance to their employees that includes birth control, sterilization and abortion services, and they must pay a premium that covers such services with no copay for the insured. One might have expected such oppressive regulation in the former USSR, but not in the United States of America.
There is some hope that in some court the Catholic Bishops will be upheld. There is still some hope that the Supreme Court will overturn the legislation enacting Obamacare. There is always hope. But this state of affairs ought not to be.
The pronouncements I hear from the Obama administration feel like assaults on the autonomy of the states and assaults on individual liberty. Obama’s “We Can’t Wait” initiative speaks volumes. He has no respect for the separation of powers. In fact, he has no respect for the Constitution that lays out the separation of powers in the government of the United States of America. He deliberately sidesteps the Constitution and claims that he is simply using power that is not specifically prohibited. This attitude is exactly the opposite of the Constitution’s statement that the government only has the powers listed. The logical construct based on that statement is that each arm of government has only the powers listed. The president may not step into nebulous gaps and invent powers not granted to him.
In trying to force Catholic agencies nationwide to comply with a healthcare regulation that demands they act against conscience the president is definitely breaking new ground. Let us pray that this new ground is discovered not to support his step. We must not let our freedom of religious expression be suppressed. I am not a Catholic, but I agree with them that they have the right to live by their convictions. I pray that my own convictions will never be assaulted similarly, but you never know. Who would ever have believed this could happen in the USA?
