Andrew Sullivan, a writer and strong
supporter of President Obama, has reportedly denounced the “general liberal
contempt” for the sincere objections religious organizations have against the
contraceptive mandate and gay marriage. Sullivan,
a proponent of same-sex marriage, uses “a rather aggressive column” by Linda
Greenhouse in The New York Times as a
recent example of how liberals dismiss the genuine worries of religious groups,
such as the Colorado based Little Sisters
of the Poor. “All the government is
asking the order (the Little Sisters)
to do is sign the standard one-page form that sets the exemption machinery in
motion,” wrote Greenhouse, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer on law. “That's it. There is no government investigation of the
merits of the religious claim – or of the unfounded belief that some of the
contraceptives to which the nuns object can actually terminate what the medical
profession regards as an existing pregnancy.”
Still, the justices gave the Little Sisters what they wanted, Greenhouse
added, referring to the Supreme Court’s temporary exemption of the Catholic
nuns from Obama's Affordable Care Act.
She said, “The Obama Administration has
offered the churches an ever more generous set of accommodations, but each has
only led to a demand for more.”
A senior editor for National Review magazine, Ramesh
Ponnuru, helped Sullivan (a Roman Catholic) to understand religious groups’ objections
to the mandate that employers provide coverage for contraception … including
abortifacients … in their employees’ healthcare plans. The exemption form, wrote Ponnuru, is the “instrument”
that triggers the requirement that a third-party administrator provide
contraceptive coverage. “The nuns don't
want to take any action that (they believe) involves them in facilitating
immoral acts, which includes causing other people to perform immoral acts. Signing the form would (in their view) do
that,” he pointed out. “… Houses of
worship, which are truly exempt from the administration's contraceptive
mandate, do not have to sign any such form to get that exemption,” he explained. “That fact makes a hash both of Greenhouse's
claim that the Little Sisters of the Poor
are ‘exempt from the mandate’ and her claim (and the Administration's) that
certification is the only way to prevent the exemption process from sliding into
‘chaos.’”
Sullivan, who was born and grew up in
Britain, confesses in his blog post on The
Dish, “I hadn't seen it that way before.”
Delegating the authority to approve of contraceptive coverage to a third
party is itself “an act of complicity” in something the nuns oppose for religious
reasons.
In its ruling last month, the Court
said the Little Sisters simply need
to inform the Secretary of Health and
Human Services in writing about its objection to the contraceptive
coverage, without having to fill out the form.
“If the key is signing a form that
requires active complicity in a system the Little
Sisters object to, and if a letter merely stating their objection to the
contraceptive coverage can suffice, then this seems like more than a temporary
solution. This may be splitting hairs –
but allowing for religious freedom in a secular society can often come down to
splitting hairs,” Sullivan wrote. “And
what concerns me is less the details of this particular case than the general
liberal contempt for the genuine moral quandaries religious organizations may
face.”
Sullivan then deals with “the brusque
and smug liberal assumption” that religious objections to marriage equality are
somehow as illegitimate as defenses of slavery, referring to an article, “Secularism
Is Good for America-Especially Christians,” in the New Republic. The “anathematization”
of homosexuality in Christianity, Judaism and Islam is rooted in “a deep theological
narrative and argument” that cannot be reduced to bigotry, Sullivan argued. “I think it's mistaken, but I sure don't
think it's mere prejudice.” Sullivan
said while he doesn't agree with the Catholic tradition Humanae Vitae [Latin: of
human life], it is a “coherent view of the role of sex and procreation in
human life,” and not bigotry. “And many
of us have grounded our own defense of civil gay equality without the need to
disqualify large swathes of conscientious religious folks from polite company.” What actually borders on bigotry “is the kind
of casual dismissal of sincerely held religious beliefs,” he concluded. “You can [be] pro-gay and for religious freedom;
and it is vital that the gay rights movement is not co-opted once again by the
illiberal left's contempt for people of faith.”
Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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