What Religious Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in
Education?
Toppling
Dominos
Anti-Christians
don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's
Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic
Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of
Secularism
"Don't Impose Your
Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death
Warrant?
Court Ordered
Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Men in Black
A Lot of Hot Air
The Culture War
Battles
"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for
Catholics in this Election
Christians
Losing America
Stem Cell Wars
Catholic
Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay
Marriage
Whose Side are You
on?
Vouchers Revisited
Real and Fake
Cloning Bans
Broken Compasses
No Room in the Inn
Killing Fields
Revisited
Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
The Battle for the Court
Victimless Crimes
More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion
Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way,
Baby
The Incarnational
Approach
The Many Meanings of ACLU
Things Your Media Never Told
You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them. How Else
Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be
Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of
Nullity?
Dutch Treats
Ecumenism
Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or
Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But
One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the
Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with
homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality,
and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of
Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
Why are there so many bodies?
Marijuana, Medicine or Menace?
Medical Research and Ethics
Meditation
"You Taught me well,
Mommie dearest"
Moral Fallout
Neutral on the Wrong
Side
"These are the
Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few
are Married
"...Prepare him for
additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a
Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in
the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a
Person?
The Point of a Point of
View
Politically Correct,
Morally Depraved
Population
Controllers out of Control
Practical Dreamers
Social Progress
through Immorality
Shall we Do Evil for
Goodness Sake?
Reason and Faith
Resurrection Glory
Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be
schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality
Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass
Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull
the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to
Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal
if...
Get Rid of that Worthless
Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues
Prior to Voting
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by Monsignor James C. Brunner |
Faith Points |
What Religious Liberty?
We Americans are proud of the religious freedom in our country. Does religious freedom mean to you the absolute right to practice your religion without government interference? If so, you are in for a shock. The government has many ways of limiting your religious practice and requiring you to act against your religious convictions.
Catholic Charities of California has been compelled by the State to include contraception in the medical insurance plan it provides its employees even though the Church considers it sinful. According to the courts Catholic Charities is not an organization entitled to a religious exemption. The charities thrust of the Church is not a Church activity.
Not so the Boy Scouts of America. They are a religion according to the ACLU. They have successfully sued to prevent the Scouts from using military facilities because the Boy Scouts encourage a belief in God. Their using military facilities would be a governmental establishment of religion. Maybe Catholic Charities should argue that it also encourages belief in God. It could then qualify for a religious exemption. If the Scouts cannot use federal facilities, does the prohibition apply to all federal, state, and local government property? If so, the Scouts could not meet in 40% of the United States.
There are legal attempts to compel Catholic hospitals and druggists to dispense abortion drugs. Mandating that is a declaration that the practice of Catholicism is not permitted in a hedonistic, atheist, secular society.
There have been attempts to compel Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. No hospital of any sort can be forced to provide every elective procedure. Secularists who favor “choice” do not see the hypocrisy of removing choice protected by the First Amendment.
A Christian businessman in Arlington County, Virginia who runs a video copying service was sued because he refused to reproduce a video promoting homosexuality. He was ordered to reproduce it or pay for its reproduction elsewhere. This is an imposition of secular immorality in direct opposition to the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution.
Maryland Republican Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., has fired Robert J. Smith, a Catholic and his appointee to the Washington, D.C. transit authority board because Mr. Smith, in a situation that had no connection with his job, called homosexuality “sexual deviancy” that should not receive special entitlement. The Governor says effectively, “Sexual deviancy is good; traditional morality is bad.” Espousing Christian morality in public is a firing offense. The condition for a Catholic to hold office has become never to utter Catholic morality in public. Syndicated columnist John Leo points out that liberals, not famous for consistency, assume a different attitude about firing when loony leftist professors make insane statements outside their jobs (e.g., 9-11 victims are “little Eichmanns”) or teachers have children out of wedlock.
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich signed into law a bill that would force churches to hire openly practicing homosexuals. This violates both the provisions for Free Exercise and Association.
Catholic Charities of Boston announced that it was getting out of the adoption business because it would lose its license if it did not, in opposition to its moral code, assign adoptive children to homosexual couples. The refusal of the agency to do so in no way did anyone harm because other adoption agencies could fill in the breach. This is a clear case of interference in the right of religious practice in order to make homosexuals feel good about themselves. The right of religious practice is in the Constitution; making homosexuals feel good is not.
Often Christians are asked, “What harm can homosexual marriage do to others?” Besides the examples already cited, it will affect religious institutions in at least four areas: admission, employment, housing, and regulation of clubs. A private Christian school in California expelled two girls who stated publicly that they are in a lesbian relationship. The girls sued and if the school loses religious schools are either out of business or they will be required by the State to tolerate declarations and conduct that the schools regard as sinful. There would also be ramifications in religious camps, retreat centers, homeless shelters as to who must be admitted and what accommodations to provide.
An atheist sued San Diego, California to have it remove a cross, the centerpiece of a national war-veterans memorial, from Mount Soledad. The charge was that the cross violated the “separation of church and state” and so far the courts are still litigating the matter. Do the crosses and the stars of David in Arlington National Cemetery also violate the separation of church and state? Must they be removed?
A New York state agency is threatening a skating rink owner in Accord, New York for playing Christian music during a “Christian Music Skate Party.” The agency also threatened a local newspaper which advertised the event with “aiding and abetting” unlawful discrimination. The owners were exercising basic Constitutional rights on private property without excluding anyone. This is just another example of using government to dictate religious expression.
In Atlanta FAA employee Larry Dombrowski was suspended without pay for expressing at work his religious beliefs about homosexuals. Religious employees are not second-class citizens and do not lose their free speech rights in the workplace even when it is religious speech.
These examples barely scratch the surface of the hundreds of law suits designed to drive religion from the public domain. Omitted is any mention of the Christmas wars against the display of crèches and singing of carols or the displays of the Ten Commandments on public property.
Secularists call the Constitution a “living document” and mold it to their ideology like play dough. The Constitution is not a living document any more than a contract is. The job of Judges is to interpret the intent of the signers of this contract between the people and the government, not to change the meaning of the contractual terms to implement the Judge’s ideology. Thus Judges can see a right to abortion (nowhere mentioned) and a right of the State to curtail public religious expression (expressly forbidden). A malleable Constitution affords any atheist a veto over public religious expression if he feels that he is offended (Freedom from offense is not in the Constitution). If circumstances make amending the contract desirable there is a provision for that in the document itself and it is not judicial fiat.
Secularists manipulate the courts to enact a left-wing agenda because they are incapable of passing it through the legislatures. Thus homosexual marriages are enshrined in Massachusetts by judicial fiat. Whenever the people are afforded an opportunity to vote on the matter it is everywhere defeated by overwhelming margins.
Conservatives sometimes say that the courts should apply the “rule of law.” The problem is that there is a large body of “law” that has been put in place by 50 years of judicial activism. We need Judges to restore the balance among the branches of our government.
The selection of Judges is a serious business and it has a direct bearing on your religious liberty, already under attack. Religious people should recognize the connection between candidates that they elect and the Judges who will be appointed. That will mean intelligent use of the ballot. In voting, follow Ronald Reagan’s approach to the Cold War: “We win. They lose.”
(Printed August, 2006)
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St. Mary's Church Pastor & Vicar
