We have seen, this week, a glimmer of hope amid the vast culture war—a sense of a victory, about to be snatched from the jaws of a prior defeat. For at long last, the Left has overreached. Just as Obamacare (oh, sorry, “Affordable Care Act”) galvanized the nation — giving the Tea Party the boost it needed to send the “shellacking” it did in 2010 — so, I feel, this event could well give the needed boost to make Election Day, 2012 a night to remember.
I’m referring, of course, to the battle being waged over the Obama Administration’s overt dismissal of the “conscience clause” tradition, in its push to require Catholic hospitals to provide for contraception-related medication for women. For those of you who haven’t realized it from the Left’s trashing of Rick Santorum regarding birth control…the Catholic Church considers contraception to be against the faith.
So, now people are reading the health care bill, being unable to do so until long after the fact — thank you, Nancy Pelosi. “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it,” she said — swearing up and down that, were we to read it without all the squabbling, we’d love it.
Well…we read it. And the authority it provided for the Secretary of Health & Human Services is now in clear violation of the “conscience clause” tradition.
In case you’re wondering, that tradition exists as an extension of the First Amendment’s provision that prohibits any federal law “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Forcing a religious institution to provide a service that flies in the face of one of its teachings is a slap in the face of the spirit of that freedom of religion. Thus, laws which might otherwise have that effect tend to provide exemptions for faith-based institutions — a “conscience clause”.
The justification for the Administration’s policy is along the lines of, “Oh, we need to make sure that women being treated with plans from those hospitals will be able to have the care they need!”
There are two problems with this. First of all, birth control is used to prevent impregnation when the women in question engage in intercourse. When one understands that, one sees why it’s…not exactly much of a “health” thing. Birth control is used to prevent something from happening, regarding something you choose to engage in. It’s not “health” — it’s a matter of whether you choose to have sex or not!
The second problem is, even with that point aside — no one is preventing the women in question from getting birth control. They could get the prescription from a non-Catholic institution. They could get a health plan from a non-Catholic institution. For goodness sake — you knew what you were getting when you got the plan. You have no one to blame but yourself!
Now, the reason I feel hope is this: the Catholics do not stand alone. I am not a Catholic — I would be considered an “Evangelical”. However, Evangelicals are standing up for the rights of Catholics, here — as are Protestants of many a denomination. Many Jewish groups are also joining the fight. People of faith are coming together, to fight back against this attack. The problems this president has faced with people of faith have deepened.
Interestingly enough…Hispanics are Catholic by a vast majority. Considering how Hispanics are held to be an all-important voting block…that poses a greater problem.
Now, Barack Obama has “agreed” to back down on this issue — and strive to find a “compromise”. Somehow…he’s not satisfying people — and for good reason: why on Earth did his own Heath Department do this in the first place? Didn’t they think this was going to happen? What could have possessed them to step on a faith so soundly? Is it idiocy? Is it incompetence? Is it a desperate desire to secure the Leftist base — so heartily obsessed with abortion and other issues they smugly euphemize as “women’s health”? An effort to bait people of faith, marginalizing those he has problems with by painting them as “extremists”?
If the latter, it doesn’t seem to be working. Their beliefs are not nearly as “mainstream” as they seem to think. Our side in the culture war is coming together. And when it does…we win.
