For those who follow Garry Trudeau’s cartoon Doonesbury, his recent offering is a phone number you can call, called myFACTS, which will provide you (at a small price) with any ”cover” or solution you may need to defend a fictional political position. myFACTS' claim is they are “privatizing the truth.”
No other current fictional claim is better suited to a myFACTS offering than the now promulgated fictional claim that the Obama administration is making an attack on religion. Also, that we are somehow losing our “freedom of religion.” In their own words, the current crop of Republican candidates is trying to outdo each other in charging that Obama is somehow “secularizing our government.” Be that true, I have only a two-word response: thank goodness.
Mitt Romney, in January stated: “I will not proceed down the path that I think you're seeing across this country, which is to try to secularize America.” Rick Santorum has an even more radical view. He said in addressing a group of pastors: "I have seen the interaction with faith and public life, and to me … there are not boundaries at all. I can't and I won't check my faith at the door because it motivates me to do things that I believe are best for our country.” The question then becomes: whose faith?
The Obama administration, like most others in our long history of religious freedom, has not done anything to abate or harm religious freedom. The current flap involves rules on employees' birth-control insurance coverage at hospitals, colleges and the like when the employer is a religious organization. It is so remotely related to any attack on religion, freedom of religious choice or “secularizing government” that it hardly needs a defense. But the aggressiveness of the charge and the absurdity of the claim are so out of the box that they deserve at least a response.
Freedoms more than ever
The fact is, never, in the history of our nation, have our citizens enjoyed so much freedom – and in more ways than ever before. Despite the claim that our government is somehow trying to stifle our religious choices, every citizen in our land has every right — totally unconstrained — to pray, associate, and belong to any religious organization of his or her choice. Nothing, either the government has or is doing, has changed that truth. And in fact, we likely enjoy more freedoms today than ever before.
Having been born in 1933, I have seen the breakdown of Jim Crow. Not that our race relations are perfect, by any means, but they're certainly far better than before the Civil Rights Act. Interracial dating and marriages, not many years ago, were considered an anathema; today they are considered common and normal (now one in six marriages are interracial). More freedom than ever before.
When I was young, gays were strongly derided. No more. They have been allowed to come out of the closet, and they have. They have been given rights and respect they did not enjoy before. More freedom than ever before.
Women in America, for centuries now, have continually gained the rights they always deserved. Obviously voting was the most significant, but a woman’s right to control her own body was also vital. Thus we have legal abortions, and the above mentioned right to use birth control — regardless of her religion. More freedom than ever before.
As regards "secularizing government,” that is exactly the way it was supposed to be. Though many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Christians, several (notably Jefferson, Franklin and Paine) were not practicing Christians. We were founded and remain a “secular society” — at least as it relates to government. Just the way it should be in our melting pot of race, religion and beliefs. Indeed, the Founding Fathers saw fit to write the following in the very First Amendment:
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Given this, what laws has the Obama administration made that prevents the “establishment” of any religion, or prohibits the exercise thereof? None is the correct answer. Since Obama was elected, all who believe in their own personal religion practice it as always before. No freedoms have been lost. Specifically relating to the health-care reform act, you choose not to use contraception? Fine. Do not do so. And meanwhile continue to practice Catholicism (or any other religion you so choose) as you always have.
Bringing religion into the political scene – at least in this point in our history – is a red herring. A solution in search of a problem. But then, that’s precisely what Trudeau’s myFACTS can do; for a small price they will create a solution for any problem — even one that does not exist. Now, if I can just find that phone number …
Myles Spicer of Minnetonka has spent his business career as a professional writer and owned several successful ad agencies over the past 45 years.
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Comments (8)
There is a problem
Myles is right in focusing on the secular, but he still misses the point: Secular issues have personal consequences. There is a problem.
From my PiPress column:
http://www.twincities.com/opinion/ci_19989932?source=rss
Mandating "free" contraception is less about religious freedom and all about the secular issue of government intervention in the unalienable right to voluntary contract.
Economic freedom and personal freedom cannot be separated. Economic freedom should not be treated with less scrutiny and reverence than personal freedom because a curtailment of economic freedom must necessarily manifest itself as a curtailment and loss of personal freedom. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is a classic case in point.
The ACA is an economic document. It is a response to unsustainable healthcare costs. Obamacare proposes to reduce costs by restricting economic choices. It strips the economic freedom of medical providers to determine what services they will provide at what prices. It mandates to insurance companies what coverage they will provide to whom at what prices. It requires that an individual purchase health insurance or pay a fine for not doing so.
What the ACA undisputedly tramples upon is the unalienable right to voluntarily contract. Government, through Obamacare, labor laws and the hooks of redistributed federal dollars, curtails the economic freedom of private business owners to negotiate voluntary labor contracts with private individuals in accord with the subjective values of each. Consequently, government necessarily and inevitably limits the personal freedom of each to follow the dictates of his or her conscience.
While you may argue the "the
While you may argue the "the economic freedom of private business owners to negotiate voluntary labor contracts with private individuals in accord with the subjective values of each" in theory, the actual end result is that there is a very large public interest in the outcome of that negotiation.
The shortfall within the ultimate agreement between the worker and employer with respect to wages and benefit will be made up by the public through their taxes.
Uninsured worker? The family shows up a publicly funded clinics and hospitals and over-utilizes the most expensive forms of health care. The worse long-term outcomes ultimately mean more medical expenditure a few years down the road. Workers who cannot afford housing require subsidy. Workers and their families without adequate income need food shelves, food stamps, subsidized lunches. Workers with inadequate income do not contribute to the costs of government, and add to the costs of a civilized society. Poor nutrition leads to worse lives. Workers need to be able to afford the commute to work. On and on.
So the "private contract" represents a not so subtle shift of cost from the employer to the public. And the more costs that can be shifted, the more profitable the business.
Neal,What you're forgetting
Neal,
What you're forgetting is that, in the Westover program, there are no publicly funded clinics for that uninsured worker or his family to show up at.
The voice of reason
Once again, Myles is the voice of reason. Whether reason will prevail in November of 2012 is anyone's guess. For a humorous view of the same issue, see Maureen Dowd in today's NY Times.
Like a junkie looking for a
Like a junkie looking for a hit, the issues that the 1% need to engage the 99% to rally to their cause needs to become more and more outrageous in order to disguise the bleak future that is the natural outcome of the economic trends of the the day.
The fact is that the fortunes of the ordinary American have not rally improved in the past 3 decades and it is clear that the future holds only a widening gap between the income and cost of living. Can't talk about how the Republicans admire the characteristics of the employer/worker relationship in China and are moving in that direction, but let's talk about God!! Can't talk about falling income and rising costs of limited resources in the world, but let's talk about abortion!! Can't talk about the increasing concentration of wealth, but lets talk about contraception!! Can't talk about the ultimately unsustainable nature of healthcare funding in the US, but lets talk about "death panels"!!
Distraction, that's the name of the game.
In the end, they get people to raise their hands for God so they don't feel their economic futures picked from their pockets.
Can I get an Amen!?!
Amen and RIP.
Amen
Amen!
Response to Craig
Craig, like others, parses and objects to details of the Affordable Care Act. That's fine (I do not agree with him however); but the Republican candidates -- lacking really important and salient issues facing our country (as Neal points out), into a much much broader issue, what they call "attacks on religion" and "freedom to worship". I just won't let them get away with that. It is a bizarre leap that cannot and should not be accepted.
Argue about the ACA if you wish, but do not attempt to broaden it into a generalized claim that has no basis in fact.
More
Incidentally, regarding comments on ACA, it very much depends on "whose ox is being gored".
While there are those who complain about the mandatory contraception rules (now being revised), an even more egregious dispute is the one in which conservatives complain about government offering free pre-natal care. Meanwhile in Virginai and other states, these same coonservatives want to REQUIRE GOVERNMENT TO MAKE VAGINAL ULTRASOUND mandatory prior to abortions.
What could be a more invasive (and frankly a clearly religious-based procedure) than sticking a probe up a woman's vagina against her will? Indeed, NOW, which ibjecting to the proposed law, is now investigating the possiblity that such an action meets the definition of rape (penetraton without consent).
When you peel away all the subterfuge of complaints about ACA, and require vaginal intrusion...it is RELIGION (and its attendant anti-abortion zealots) that are causing the mischief.