The American Spectator : Obama and the Dictatorship of Relativism

Text Size

The Obama Watch

Obama and the Dictatorship of Relativism

By Samuel Gregg on 2.8.12 @ 6:08AM

There is no moral truth and Rawls is his prophet.

If there was ever any doubt about one of the Obama Administration’s key philosophical commitments, it was dispelled on Jan. 20 when the Department of Health and Human Services informed the Catholic Church that most of its agencies will be required to provide employees with insurance-coverage for contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs: i.e., products, procedures, and chemicals used to facilitate acts which the Church and plenty of others consider intrinsically evil.

Alas, it’s not a question of the administration being tragically “tone deaf,” as one American Jesuit claimed, to specifically Catholic concerns. Nor is the bedrock of President Obama’s position, in the end, a commitment to “women’s health.” Outside the ghoulish world of Planned Parenthood, pregnancy does not qualify as a disease. A fertile womb is no threat to human life.

No, this is all about the absolutization of choice for the sake of choice. It’s also about creating a society in which any discussion of the actual ends we choose is considered unacceptable in public debates about law and morality.

Modern liberalism has a long history of trying to exclude consideration of the proper ends of human action from public discourse in the name of tolerance. But neither liberalism nor secularism are as neutral about such matters as they pretend.

Self-identified modern liberals (and secularists more generally) typically insist that justice and tolerance demand that governments shouldn’t privilege any conception of morality, religious or secular, in framing its laws. Unfortunately for liberals, this position — outlined in excruciating detail by the seer of modern secular liberalism, the late John Rawls — is self-refuting. Why? Because it, ahem, privileges a legal and political commitment to relativity about moral questions. It’s the same absurdity underlying the philosophical skeptic’s claim that there’s no truth — except for the truth that there is no truth.

These little internal inconsistencies, however, don’t stop the use of such conceptions of tolerance and justice as weapons for terminating any contribution to public debate that’s informed by the propositions that moral truth exists, that we can know it through revelation and/or reason, and that it is unjust to cordon off these truths from the public square.

And here we come face-to-face with the essence of what a certain Joseph Ratzinger famously described in an April 2005 homily as “the dictatorship of relativism.” Most people think of tyrannies as involving the imposition of a defined set of ideas upon free citizens. Benedict XVI’s point was that the coercion at the heart of the dictatorship of relativism derives precisely from the fact that it “does not recognize anything as definitive.”

In this world, tolerance no longer creates the safety for us to express our views about the nature of good and evil and its implications for law and public morality. Instead, it serves to banish the truth as the reference point against which all of us must test our ideas and beliefs. The objective is to reduce everyone to modern Pontius Pilates who, whatever their private beliefs, wash their hands in the face of obvious injustices, such as what the Obama administration has just inflicted upon not only Catholics, but anyone whose convictions about the truth requires them to abstain from cooperating in acts they regard as evil per se.

Of course, modern liberals do have their preferred ends, which (despite all their endless chatter about reason) reflect their profoundly cramped vision of man’s intellect. Here they follow the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume. He argued that “reason ought to be the slave of the passions.” Reason’s role, in other words, is not to identify what is rational for people to choose. Instead, reason is reduced to merely devising the means for realizing whatever goals that people, following the profound moral reasoning of a five year-old, “just feel like” choosing.

On this basis, utilitarians such as Jeremy Bentham concluded that life was really about nothing more than the experience of sensations. Hence, the goal was to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. But having repeatedly failed to construct a coherent hedonistic calculus of utility (even Rawls concluded it was a doomed endeavor), the “ultimate goal” of modern liberalism and secularism now “consists,” as Benedict noted in 2005, “solely of one’s own ego and desires.”

That in turn reduces life and my choices to ensuring that I am among those who are (1) powerful enough to get to indulge my ego and my desires, (2) sophistical enough to produce rationalizations (otherwise known as consequentialist ethics) for doing so, and (3) strong enough to trample over anyone whose existence or beliefs might limit my ability to do whatever I just happen to “feel like” doing.

Here modern liberalism’s essentially illiberal nature reveals its true face. Because if your theological or philosophical convictions get in the way of your employee’s desire to neuter his spouse at your expense in order to avoid the “disease” of pregnancy, then tough luck. Desire plus autonomy — the calling-cards of secularist fundamentalism — trump all (except, apparently, when it comes to the distribution of wealth, climate change, and smoking).

The Catholic Church — and its teachings about good and evil — goes back 2,000 years. Since that time, it’s weathered the savage persecutions of the Roman Empire, the terrorism of the French Revolution, the systematic harassment of National Socialism, and the all-out assault of Marxism-Leninism. And, perhaps most telling of all, it’s managed to survive the many, often terrible sins and faithlessness of its own members. The Church will be around long after the not-so-New Atheists have gone to their eternal reward.

The Church’s struggle with the dictatorship of relativism may, however, prove one of its most difficult challenges. That’s partly because it’s a subtle form of oppression that trades off words like “choice” that strongly resonate in Western societies — the same societies in which many secularists all-too-quickly equate any religion’s claim to teach the truth with murderers who fly planes into buildings.

In the span of human history, the Obama Administration is just a blip, however much it considers itself, like all progressivists, to be on history’s cutting edge. But be warned: the Catholic Church’s fight — in fact, the fight of anyone, believer or non-believer, who recognizes secularist fundamentalism as a danger to freedom — against the despotism of “there-is-no-moral-truth-and-Rawls-is-his-prophet” is only just beginning.

About the Author

Samuel Gregg is Research Director at the Acton Institute. He has authored several books including On Ordered Liberty, his prize-winning The Commercial Society, Wilhelm Röpke’s Political Economy, and, most recently, Becoming Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and America’s Future.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (62) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

oldfart| 2.8.12 @ 6:28AM

Modern progressive/liberal thought has degraded to using sophistry to promote their 'religion' of secular humanism. Yes – secular humanism is a religion with humans taking the place of a god(s). The Pretender in Chief is the current front person. Secular Humanism as a frame of reference for proper and non-proper thought/action is a very easy to abuse by those who desire absolute power. Those who subscribe to this way of thinking usually telegraph what they are going to do with self praise by publishing a book(s). Is there anyone out there who has even taken a quick glance at that BO has written? Pure sophistry – or in the more common mode of expression – pure BULL S__T.

Appleby| 2.8.12 @ 7:06AM

Well, as always in times when the Church is being persecuted, it's up to the Christians to dig in our heels and fight back, even if we are only able to dig in our heels and refuse to be moved. The one thing people like Zero never count on is No. Time to start saying it and meaning it.

Teaghan| 2.8.12 @ 7:30AM

Absolutely Appleby. NO.

carnot| 2.8.12 @ 4:47PM

poignant point!

Mimi| 2.8.12 @ 7:21AM

My, MY.....What do we have here? An ELECTION even more defining for this extroidinary FREE NATION!

Do we elect the GOD of secular humanism or ...A MAN of LIBERTY?

Timothy L. Pennell| 2.8.12 @ 9:19AM

Do we elect the King of France, or the King of England, or a President of the United States?

I believe that, when the King of France arrested all of the Knights Templar on that fateful Friday the 13th, he was, literally, in Charge of the Catholic Church at the time. The Pope was under his Protection, and for all intensive purposes, was beholden to the French King for his very life.

I also KNOW that King Henry the 8th, when he was refused an Annulment from the Catholic Pope, simply bypassed his Eminence, by starting a Church of his own.

Such are the ways of KINGS.

How many times is too many times? How many times is he allowed to VIOLATE the Constitution, before something is done to STOP him?

He has Violated the Orders of a Federal Judge, in going forth with his Drilling Moratorium. He is in CONTEMPT of a Federal Court, as we speak. He has Violated the Constitutional Separation of Powers, repeatedly, with his EPA (To implement a Cap and Trade system, that did not pass Congress) and his NLRB. (To implement a Card Check System that was never gonna pass Congress) He has declared that HE will not Enforce Laws that HE decides are Unconstitutional, even as he's signing them. He has declared that HE will determine whether Congress is in Session, and when it is not.

He makes War on Libya WITHOUT the Consent of Congress.. Gives away the Numbers of our Ally's (Britain) Nuclear Weapons, as well as their Serial Numbers. He reneges on Promised Military Co-operation with much needed Allies. (Radar Installations in Poland and the Czech Republic) He withholds Financial Aid to an Ally (Honduras) for their Constitution Driven expulsion of the would be Dictator - Manuel Zelaya. If you read the Wiki-Leak Information on this event, you will see that Obama was Strong Arming Honduras as a means of SUCKING UP to Hugo Chavez, and sending a signal to the other Leftist Regimes, that he was someone they could work with.

What should the Church do? Simple. SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN. No more Schools. No more Hospitals. No more Day Care. No more Hospice. No more Drug Treatment. NO MORE NOTHING.

Let's give Il Douchebag a taste of his own medicine. "Overwhelm the System". Throw Cloward and Piven right back in his face.

It'll be like a General Strike, and it will Cripple the Inner Cities. It will bring them to their knees.

DO IT! And do it in the name of GOD.

It will put an end of the Coming Darkness, that is OBAMA.

Mark My Words.

tj| 2.8.12 @ 2:27PM

Loved it how true....

Ted R.| 2.8.12 @ 7:44AM

Some more attention to facts would be helpful. I was not under the impression that any employer is required to give health insurance to employees.

On the other hand, if the government is going to subsidize employer-provided insurance, then I can see why it would require that beneficiaries of the subsidy be consistent in the coverage offered for the standard package of products and services. If reproductive health is - as a matter of fact - generally universally covered, then it violates 'equal protection' principles, if some organizations that get government help, still refuse the extension of such coverage.

Sure, I can see how Christians, Catholics can be outraged about their special exemption being phased out. But there IS a basic egalitarian principle behind this.

Curious, that for all Gregg's huffing and puffing moral indignation, he never once hints that maybe the thing for Catholics to do, is stand on their principle, and pay for insurance from their own pocket. Which just goes to show an ugly truth about the anti-abortion movement: it is not about the children - it is about the frisson of moral self-righteousness, and about having a convenient cudgel to wield against the Democrats at election time.

As for 'the dictatorship of relativism,' let me count myself as one of the Relativists. I think relativism is our unavoidable ontological situation. One "little inconsistency" that moral absolutists never seem to be able to think about (let alone defend) is how you can have "objective morality" if all the objective rules originate with a single personality, a Leviathan, that rules by supreme executive fiat. That's a head-scratcher if there ever was one. Maybe all you Cons can claim in your defense, is that God might really just be a bastard, but "Hey - he's OUR bastard, so it's O.K."
The God of the Semitic faith traditions, after all, has the prerogative of commanding you to kill your children. It's okay, I guess, if you were just taking orders. But actually you can make a RATIONAL anti-abortion argument, and a VERY strong one, by using Rawl's arguments.

Not that ANY of you have ever read Rawls. Obviously.

PJ| 2.8.12 @ 9:11AM

I can write essays with absolute real facts, data to back it up & you still wouldn't believe me. You would still go on believing fallacies & live accordingly. That's the problem with relativism.

You seem to be reading all the wrong books. Why don't you expand your mind & try a little of Summa Theologica?

Ted R.| 2.8.12 @ 9:59AM

And what fallacies are those? If you've got "absolute real facts" to bring to bear against them, let's hear them. The fact about a true, robust relativism, is that criticism has to be accepted from all quarters. No writing someone off, because "You'd still go one believing fallacies & live accordingly." I could use that same cheap shot against you, too.

I guarantee that I've read more Thomas than you have Rawls. Just like an Inquisitor, you inform me that I've been "reading the wrong books." What a chilling thing to say - but not surprising, coming from an Absolutist. Why don't you expand YOUR mind, and read some of Summa Contra Gentiles? It was, after all, Thomas' statement against the skeptics and unbelievers. Funny thing is, that in trying to anticipate and counter our arguments, he ends up putting forward an interpretation of God radically different from the Old Testament stereotype.

But who am I kidding? The conservative kind is not interested in truth. To care about truth is to be open to discover. Discovery is not what conservatism is about. With conservatism, it is as it ever was - you already HAVE all the answers, the only task is to beat others about the head with them, when they challenge your authority.

Timothy L. Pennell| 2.8.12 @ 10:50AM

I disagree. I believe that all of us are Discovering what a total ASS you are.

You don't challenge our Authority. You turn our stomachs.

There's a difference, Dumbass.

carnot| 2.8.12 @ 4:52PM

actually...I'm becoming more enamored of your notion of moral relativism. I can see the advantages in it when it comes to turning the tail of the whip.

Vern Crisler| 2.8.12 @ 5:22PM

You say, "The fact about a true, robust relativism, is that criticism has to be accepted from all quarters."

Let's call your statement P.

P = [The fact about a true, robust relativism, is that criticism has to be accepted from all quarters.]

Now the question to be answer is this: is P also relative? Or is it meant to be an objective statement? If it's meant to be an objective statement, then P provides a counter-instance to its own assertion. Therefore not all statements are relative. Hence P is false.

Hence, relativism is self-referentially incoherent, which is why philosophers don't take it seriously.

YoJamesBo| 2.8.12 @ 5:41PM

It has been traditionally understood that the Summa Contra Gentiles was written as an aid toward evangelizing Christian heretics, Muslims and Jews - people of the book - NOT "skeptics and unbelievers." I know it may come as a shock to you, but the high middle ages did not find Europe replete with smarmy atheists..

Ted R.| 2.9.12 @ 12:45AM

No, no shock there; though you should remember the term that Christians of that era used to refer to Muslims, and Jews: Infidel. A non-believer, in other words.

What I find quite striking, really, is the extent to which monotheists - going back a very long way, to the Old Testament - have worried about atheists, even when there appeared (?) to be none about. Certainly Anselm and Aquinas' arguments are not aimed at Jews or Muslims; instead they are put forward to try to establish the being of deity in the first place.

There's something about monotheism, something that seems to be always making worried glances over its shoulder (and muttering self-assurances about what 'the fool says in his heart'). Monotheism gets to where it is, after toppling all the Old gods... and in its heart, it knows that sooner or later the attacks it made on the Idols, will be turned on it.

YoJamesBo| 2.9.12 @ 11:59AM

Anselm's meditations on proof of the existence of God - the Monologion & the Proslogion - were by no means aimed at "unbelievers", nor were they targeting Muslims or Jews. Anselm set them out at the behest of the monks at his abbey, who had asked him if the existence of God could be proved by reason alone. His answer was in the affirmative, but there is no evidence that worries about atheists had anything to do with it.

As for Aquinas, he comes out of the tradition established by Anselm and other early scholastics, so it should come as no surprise that he was also concerned with proofs of reason. He incorporated a vast range of thought into his work - not just Lombard's Sentences + Scripture - but again, none of it was really targeting "unbelievers" as such. Aquinas's work was by and large either for use by his fellow Dominicans (an order of preachers, by the way), or for his use in lecturing at the University of Paris (not exactly home to a coven of doubters at the time). He was simply working with the material he'd inherited, a good chunk of which had to do with (contrary to what atheists today seem to think) REASON. I know, I know, religion's not supposed to be connected to reason - at least if you're a disciple of Ditchkins - but funny thing, it is! Or at least Christianity is (I do not profess to speak on behalf of anyone else).

And to answer your final point, I really, really, do not think that Aquinas or Anselm was terribly concerned about attacks on their faith of the sort Christianity advanced against the varied paganisms of Europe. Nor were most Christians at the time, although dissent from within regarding this or that doctrine - commonly called heresy - remained a problem, as did the presence of large, militaristic Islamic entities to its south and east. And it remained that way until the Reformation, where internal schism became most Christians' primary focus. Truth be told, it wasn't until the late 18th century that unbelief became much of an issue, and it really didn't become a BIG issue until the latter half of the 20th century.

Ted R.| 2.10.12 @ 12:51AM

My broader point about the motivations for Christian natural (philosophical) theology, seems to have sailed right over your head. That's alright, since I can't offer proof for my claim about those motives; it's only an informed guess on my part.

You recount a history that is not much in dispute, and which doesn't contradict anything I've said. Though, of course, different inferences of that history can be drawn. It is well known that prior to the 12th century, Roman Catholic authorities were wary, suspicious even, of the Classical heritage. But the powerful attraction of philosophy was undeniable, and the critical habits of mind it inculcated, eventually came to the fore. That is part of the reason why the monks at Canterbury were seized with the concern to make a rational defense of God's existence; they knew, as indeed the Christian Fathers knew, that the standing challenge that doubt can pose to faith, can be defended against through resort to the instruments of philosophy.

Again, unbelief (not to say "atheism") as a leitmotif can be found again and again even in the Old Testament, which after all takes pains to deny divinity, and ultimately existence, to all other deities besides Yahweh. Once you have got in the habit of denying the existence of gods (as monotheism must), you're going to have to actually make a CASE at some point for your preferred Deity.

In fact, many Christian thinkers of the Middle Ages looked with distrust on the use of philosophy in theology; and up through Thomas' time, the study of Aristotle was occasionaly proscribed. For a long time, Aristotle's philosophy was understood (through commentaries by Muslim philosophers) to imply denial of the existence of individual souls, and denial of creation ex nihilo - which may in FACT have earned students of Aristotle the epithet 'atheist' (or its contemporary equivalent).

"Atheism" per se, which presupposes monotheism and is an explicit rejection of it, probably does not date before the time of the Enlightenment. But nonbelief in divinity has likely been around, as long as religion has. Atheism, again, as a belief system, is predicated on monotheism; and the case can be made that atheism is a logical consequence of the fall of monotheism from credibility. Following in the wake of monotheisms, you could observe that in the future, a genuinely popular atheism could come to the fore, much as in the case of Europe. It is no accident, that it is in Christianity's homelands, where Christianity's influence has waned the most.

Monikai | 2.8.12 @ 11:15PM

Thank goodness you speak up. I appreciate your educated and thoughtful response.

Timothy L. Pennell| 2.8.12 @ 10:44AM

Actually, I believe that the Mirror you're kissing, while you're writing your pompous assities, has made you make an error.

You've gotten your children and your cudgels mixed up.

For us, it is the Children that we worry about. It's about Innocent Life. It's about CHRIST saying to his Apostles: "Suffer the little children to come unto ME."

It is YOU, and your kind, that sees these babies as a means to an end. Each Dead Baby is a Vote for Your side. The more the merrier.

You think that your $5 words will make us all swoon at your magnificence. You're just one more know nothing know it all. All Hat, No Cattle.

Your idiotic ramblings expose you for the ASS that you are.

Oh, and Genius? You weren't under the impression that Employers were obligated to give health Insurance to their employees?

Maybe you should stop reading "Rawls" and start paying attention to THE REAL WORLD?

Not that YOU would know what the real world is.

carnot| 2.8.12 @ 4:54PM

he meant Lou Rawls....who did you think he was referring to? the failure who wrote A Theory of Justice?

Ted R.| 2.9.12 @ 12:50AM

Christ - if you're not gonna actually say anything, at least give us a good rant. So far you've just been phoning it in. Gotta work more on your inner curmudgeon, or they're gonna take your Con card away.

W| 2.8.12 @ 4:33PM

The Catholic institutions are paying the premium for the health insurance of the employees. The issue is whether the insurance benefits paid for by the Catholic institutions must provide coverage for abortions and other practices that are contrary to the basic principles of the Catholic beliefs: do not kill unborn children.

So what do you mean that Catholics should pay for their own health insurance?
How is government subsidizing the employer provided health insurance? Do you mean the tax deduction for employers?

You are right Ted, we are not smart enough to slog through John Rawls. We prefer to listen to Lou Rawls. Much smarter and more clear.

carnot| 2.8.12 @ 4:55PM

not only that...but that the Church MUST COVER THE COST!!!!

YoJamesBo| 2.8.12 @ 5:20PM

Mr. Ted R,

First, under Obama's massive health care "reform" Catholic (and other) institutions would indeed be required to provide health insurance to their employees or face a fine. A sizable one, at that. So, in short, your "impression" was quite wrong.

The government isn't subsidizing employer provided insurance, not sure where you're going with that one. The legislation in question subsidizes *individuals* who lack coverage, not your local Catholic school/evangelical homeless shelter/etc, nor does it subsidize Walmart's health benefit packages, for that matter. If I happen to run a business and provide health insurance to my employees, the government isn't going to lift a finger to subsidize my costs, though it'll happily fine the crap out of me if I decide that I can't afford to provide said coverage.

There is no principal of equal protection at stake here, because it's not government activity that's in question. The question is whether or not private religious entities can be coerced by the government into paying, from their own coffers, for services they find morally repugnant, things that flatly contradict their beliefs. The answer is no - the HHS mandate and its narrow exemption is a flagrant violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, to say nothing of more foundational, constitutional concerns - and you and other supporters of this are going to find that out in short order when it heads to the courts (one would think the recent Hosanna-Tabor case would have served as a cautionary tale for those who want the federal government to be allowed to interfere in religious institutions' affairs).

Your nasty swipe at Catholics in particular, and the pro-life movement writ large, does not speak well of you, by the way. Catholics are *trying* to pay for their own health insurance, oh wise, secular one, the problem is that now HHS is demanding that they include services they object to in it. So your suggestion is a nonstarter, next time you might try acquainting yourself with your subject matter before you go about launching personal attacks against your erstwhile opponents.

I'm happy that you find relativism an adequate moral system, but many of us do not, unequipped, as it is, to condemn even the most obvious and uncontroversial incidents of moral evil in human history. Either way, your philosophical leanings, which you seem to share with many in the present administration, are entirely besides the point, except insofar as you seem to think that you have the right to impose them on those who do not share them. Matthew Cantirino put it well over on the First Things blog, "this fight can be phrased in entirely secular terms and still be urgent: do you object to a government forcing a religious organization to commit what it considers a serious sin? If not, please elaborate your political philosophy, because it seems to have more in common with, shall we say, regimes with a tendency to eschew constitutions and human rights than it does with the American social contract."

YoJamesBo| 2.8.12 @ 5:26PM

Because I'm a fan of facts, this is from a post by Ed Whelan regarding the fines that religious institutions will face if they opt to drop their health coverage rather than act contrary to their beliefs:

"Employers who violate the HHS mandate, and who thereby fail to provide the coverage HHS deems necessary under Obamacare, incur an annual penalty of roughly $2000 per employee. More precisely, as I understand it, the base penalty is $2000 x (number of full-time employees minus 30), and the base is increased each year by the rate of growth in insurance premiums. So, for example, Belmont Abbey College (one of the two plaintiffs already challenging the HHS mandate), which has 200 full-time employees, is facing an annual base penalty of $340,000. Colorado Christian University (the other plaintiff) has 280 full-time employees and is facing an annual base penalty of $500,000."

In short, we are not talking about insignificant amounts of money here, the cost for noncompliance is high.

Monikai | 2.8.12 @ 11:26PM

Our new healthcare is called "The Affordable Care Act" not Obamacare. Anyone using the term Obamacare is not likely to be factual. Check this site instead. http://www.healthcare.gov/

spike59| 2.9.12 @ 6:29AM

Q: if you call a dog's tail a 'leg', how many legs does it have? 5?

A: 4-calling a tail 'a leg' doesn't make it one

"Affordable,", my arse...the costs, in terms of dollars and otherwise, are only beginning to be tallied...Obamacare it IS

YoJamesBo| 2.9.12 @ 12:03PM

Oh yes, because the website put up by the people running the thing isn't going to be biased.

"Obamacare" is just a derisive term used by those of us who don't like the thing. Nothing more, nothing less; it marks us as dissenters, but dissent need not necessarily be dishonest nor ignorant, something Democrats and the Left in America seemed to understand when Bush was in the White House, but now seem to have forgotten.

Ted R.| 2.9.12 @ 12:32AM

Doesn't the new law still allow religious-institution employers to omit coverage for reproductive services, if a majority (however that is defined) of employees belong to the faith community of those institutions?

Technically, of course, health insurance is not paid for by employers - it is an in-kind form of compensation to individual employees. When a significant number (however that is defined) of those employees are not of the same faith as the institution (or for the matter of that, if they represent a dissenting point of view in the SAME faith community - i.e. many ordinary Catholics think that use of contraceptives is morally unproblematic), then why should those individuals be disqualified from insurance coverage that their fellow citizens, working for other employers, have access to? I don't know how this shakes out in a technical legal sense, but there does seem to be an 'equal proctection' principle at issue, here.

You might prefer to look at in contractual terms: these employees chose to work for a Catholic employer, they have to abide by the "moral culture" of their employer. But employers and employees are rarely in an equal bargaining position - job-hunters are often price-takers when it comes to the contract terms of employment. But no employment contract can deprive a person of their basic civil liberties. Unimpeded access to health insurance, the new law has specified, counts as one of these liberties - it is a welfare right. No employer should be able to block my exercise of that right, to obtain the kind of insurance that I think is best. Remember, health benefits are part of an individual's compensation. The exception to this, as I mentioned above, could be the in the case where only a minority of employees came from outside the faith community of the institution.

Of course I know that you reject the law, and probably even think it's illegitimate; but as long as it is not deemed unconstitutional, you'll have to abide by its provisions. Which include seeing to it that all employers provide "comprehensive" health care plans to their employees. I think it is just common sense, that contraceptives be understood to be part of any such comprehensive plan.

Just what is the price of an ardent anti-choice Catholic's convictions? Apparently, the difference between what THEY, with their employer as INTERMEDIARY, is paying, and what THEY, as purchasers of INDIVIDUAL policies, would be paying. It's not a little money, sure: but a small price to pay (one would THINK) given the purity of their anti-abortion stance (*ahem,* you would THINK).

YoJamesBo| 2.9.12 @ 12:17PM

I do reject the law, and I reject what you have to say about it as well. The provisions for exceptions that the HHS has promulgated, and which you seem to accept as fair, betray a terribly cramped vision of the place of religious activity in the public square. If the HHS qualifications are to be accepted as somehow legitimate - that a majority of employees of an institution must be members of the denomination in question, that a majority of those receiving services must also share that faith, and that inculcation of the religious tenets of the institution in question must be its the primary purpose - then Catholic schools, myriad homeless shelters (including the evangelical one down the block from me), Catholic hospitals, relief agencies, adoption services, all variety of universities, and even the outreach efforts of religious orders such as Mother Theresa's Sisters of Charity, *fail to qualify as religious institutions*. Am I to take it that the only institutions you regard as "religious" in nature are houses of worship? That's nuts. If you can't see how nuts that is, I don't think there's much more I can say to help you.

The federal government has essentially said, "Y'know what? If you want to continue your religious mission in the public square, ministering to people of all faiths in a spirit of goodwill, we're going to make you violate your conscience to do so. Don't like that? Then pay a fine." THAT is what I reject. It's patently ridiculous on its face, unconstitutional as well I might add, and I'd even add that it betrays an utter lack of respect for, and intolerance of, people of faith. And it raises the specter of what comes next, and what other behaviors the federal government will be allowed to force religious institutions to engage in against their will. You seem to think that all well and good; I'm willing to bet that if they mandated abortion coverage outright, you'd support it as well (with your logic, you'd have to). In any case, give it time, get ready for a big show of defiance by the churches (and not just Catholics), and here's an "I told ya so" for when this gets knocked down in the courts. /Out.

Ted R.| 2.10.12 @ 12:01AM

Here, I don't know what you're complaining about. I was aware only that the government is proposing that employees (of organizations whose founding rationale was to serve a religious mission) could be exempt from the requirement that they receive (and hence, pay for) reproductive health coverage, if 'the majority' of them (in some relevant sense of the term) profess to object to such coverage on the grounds of the organization's founding religious mission (if they belong to that same faith-community, in other words).

But you mention these other stipulations - that the majority of those receiving services also belong to the same faith community, etc. I haven't heard anything of the sort; I scarcely see how those other stipulations could be relevant, anyway. What do the patrons of such services have to do, with whether or not the the government holds that the employees who provide said services, have a certain kind of health coverage or not?

It sounds like a strawman. As for the definition of a 'religious institution,' I'll be open-minded about that for now. I don't know what the tax liabilities of Christian hospitals are, for example - if they are tax-exempt like churches. If they are, I have nowhere heard about the Affordable Care Act having the implication that this status be revoked.

Maybe this was your concern, when you brought up slippery slope considerations.

I do think that it is worth discussing, if religious institutions deserve to be totally tax-exempt. As the political culture has become more and more polarized since the '60's, church authorities (both Protestant and Catholic) have blurred the line about not being involved in politics. When these authorities come closer and closer to endorsing candidates - or whole parties - what sense does it make for them to continue to benefit from a tax-exempt status? Representation without taxation, after all, doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Finally, it is regular sophistry, to claim that the government is saying to employees of Catholic institutions, "We're going to make you violate your conscience." If these employees are truly so outrgaged at having to purchase insurance that covers contraceptive/abortfacient drugs, then they can go find a carrier that doesn't include coverage for such a thing. After all, Obamacare has left the private insurance companies in being (and there is no public option); if the conscience of Catholics is TRULY outraged here, and they are NOT merely engaging (*ahem*) in moral posturing and conservative identity politics, then the premium that they would pay in paying for an individual policy, would seem a modest price to pay, for their principles.

As for whether this requirement of the new law is unconstitutional, to me it is clear that it is a matter that reasonable people can disagree on. I wouldn't be surprised to see conflicting rulings on the question result on it going to the Supreme Court. If it gets that far, you might be right that this new rule will get struck - NOT necessarily on the merits, but simply because the Court is pretty conservative at this time.

Clint| 2.8.12 @ 7:56AM

Dr.Ron Paul,
“I am deeply troubled by the flippancy with which President Obama recently discussed regulations that are alarming and troublesome for many Americans,”
“Not all Americans are comfortable with the Obama administration’s decision to mandate coverage of birth control and morning-after pills, and the considerations of these people, many of them Christian conservatives, are worthy of careful consideration — not mockery.”

“Many, like me, view this rigid regulatory overstep from which there is inadequate opportunity to self-exempt as payback to Planned Parenthood and big pharmaceutical companies for their support of Obamacare,” Paul said. “Many others oppose it out of strict moral conviction, and their voices should be heard at least to the extent that an authentic opportunity to exempt be provided.”

The Tea Party Rebellion Heads To Maine.

carnot| 2.8.12 @ 4:57PM

I'm not Catholic...or a Paul supporter...but he's spot on.

Brian Mc| 2.8.12 @ 8:00AM

It would be quite ironic if a woman leaving an abortion clinic after practicing her 'right' to choose is suddenly T-boned at the next intersection because the other driver didn't 'feel' like stopping.

It's as simple as the law of gravity. It is there to protect us. You can't change it no matter how much you feel differently about it.

POST American| 2.8.12 @ 8:29AM

---From 'Relativism'
---to 'Going to hell-a-tivism'

WHY has NO ONE taken up the
matter of christian-evangelical Arminian
fraud and 33rd degree 'Free MAY-SIN'
Pat Robertson's spit in the face of
Christ uttered doctine ---'One man,
one woman, one life' ----for the sake of
EUGENICS 'X--speediancy'.

We're speaking of his recent greenlight
to deserting your spouse, the love of your
youth, should they happen to join
the ever swelling ranks of Alzheimer's
sufferers.

This on top of the fact that we can't
recall this venal creep EVER taking on
the onslaught of GMO foods ---brain
damaging injections , CADMIUM oxide
CHEM-trailing and ---most insidious,
televison watching.

AGAIN folks ----DO clean out your
churches -----no matter the cost or
inconvenience.

REALLY

IF you can't ---LEAVE IT and tell
them in no uncertain terms ---WHY.

A genuine church of one is VASTLY
preferable to these enmeshment ops
and empathy whorehouses.

-----It's EVER the way of things
in this world, that those interested
in truth are fleeing Egypt, Babylon, Tyre
------Arminian snake oil salesmen.

REJOICE

Timothy L. Pennell| 2.8.12 @ 10:07AM

play nice| 2.8.12 @ 2:57PM

Dear POST - I give up . You're just too freakin' smart for me.

WL| 2.8.12 @ 5:26PM

Hmmmm......
Uhhhhh......

I don't believe I know what to say to this....

Bill| 2.8.12 @ 10:51AM

Meet Chicago Furor
Name: Barack Hussein Obama
Birthplace: Indonesia
Religion: Muslim
Mentor: Jeremiah Wright
Book: Rules for Radicals
Author: Salinisky
Ideology: Marxism
Full-time job: President
Part-time job: Fundraiser for DNC
Food: Whatever
Drinks: Oops........
Sports: Golf
TV-Channel: Golf channel
Pop-singer: Lady Gaga
Pop-singer: Jay-Z
Love: Liberals
Hate: Republicans
Favorite moment: When I beat McCain in 2008
Terrible moment: The 2010 mid-term election
Wish: win the second term

dcm| 2.8.12 @ 11:20AM

The problem, once again, is the tax code that encourages employers to pay people with insurance rather than individuals making their own arrangements. Chage the code and the problem disappears.

Purp| 2.8.12 @ 1:49PM

This is such a fuss about so little.
"If there was ever any doubt about one of the Obama Administration's key philosophical commitments, it was dispelled on Jan. 20 when the Department of Health and Human Services informed the Catholic Church that most of its agencies will be required to provide employees with insurance-coverage for contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs: i.e., products, procedures, and chemicals used to facilitate acts which the Church and plenty of others consider intrinsically evil." - 98% of Catholics in the United States use contraception, opposing the long held Papal objections against it. This is a modern realization that health and human services trump the philosophy of tired, old men that live in a world where pedophilia is to be hidden, not prosecuted. The Church will be fine, altho I question some of their morality.
In any case, anyone who chooses not to use the services provided by the healthcare rule for religious reasons, does not need to avail themselves of it.
The Catholic Church serves many people, Catholic and non-Catholic alike and should be lauded for their very good work. But not all they serve or employ are Catholic, nor hold the same religious objections the Church espouses. They should not be denied essential health services over religious objections from some other quarter.
Perhaps the tax-exempt status of the Church should be revoked and then we can discuss who follows what rules.
Much ado about little.

DaveD| 2.8.12 @ 2:36PM

If you elect to purchase something for the benefit of your employees - in this case health insurance - should you (the purchaser) have the right chose what it is that you purchase. This is of course moderated to some extent by the give and take of employer/employer negotiations, but in the end it is the same, the employer should be able to determine the exact nature of the product the employer purchases on behalf of the employees.

I have that right when I go to the local mall. I can chose to buy fancy, cheap or some place in the middle on just about anything I buy. Why is this different?

If you don't like the insurance coverage provided by your employer, find another job or purchase supplemental coverage on your own. How am I, the employee, harmed in any way when what I get for nothing isn't quite up to my expectations?

And, from what font of wisdom does the government drink that enables them to *know* that contraceptive services are an integral part of health care?

I am not a Catholic, but I am with the Catholic Church 100% on this one. They don't want to pay for contraceptives and abortions, they shouldn't have to - for that matter neither should IBM, GE, AT&T, 3-M, General Mills, Pillsbury, and so on and so forth.

W| 2.8.12 @ 4:24PM

Purp
Do you think condoms and abortions are essential health services? Skip the argument about the health and safety of the mother.

carnot| 2.8.12 @ 5:00PM

that's not the point.....purp is all for government forcing outcomes. people like purp are fundamentally fascists wrapped in lambskins. (with extra sensitivity!!!)

Purp| 2.8.12 @ 6:27PM

Maybe if the bad old wicked evil government had been involved with the treatment of pre-pubescent boys working in the Church, the spectacle of abuse of children by dirty old men called priests could have been avoided. They have no special place of perfection in my mind. The Church pays for drivers licenses, traffic violations and must abide by federal, state and local laws and regulations. This is no different.
It's a trumped up argument by those against Obama, using arguments whereever or whatever they can find. It has nothing to do with Religious freedom whatsoever.
And pray tell - what is telling a woman she cannot have an abortion mean - if Roe v. Wade were overturned? It's different when it's something you WANT the government to do, isn't it?

Curtis Rasmussen| 2.8.12 @ 6:56PM

Did you ever notice that if a decision gives the government more control over our lives, the flaming purp is all for it? Why post here at all we could practically write your posts for you.

The negative rights within the Bill of Rights prevents the government from intruding into my personal life. By claiming that citizens have positive rights that I am forced to support is appalling.

Obama is a criminal. If you have doubts, review the following, by no means comprehensive list.

Obamacare.
Illegal non-recess appointments.
Illegal confiscation of property from bondholders to appease major backers, such as union concessions from Chrysler and GM.
Fast and Furious.
Racialist refusal to prosecute thugs at a polling place.
Questionable and extraordinarily costly DOE loans to green companies that have and will go bankrupt.

And on and on.

W| 2.8.12 @ 7:56PM

Telling a woman she cannot kill the unborn child is the same as telling you that you cannot kill your next door neighbor.

So if the govenrment was involved in running the Church then there would have been no pedophilia? Should the government run just the Catholic Church, or all the churches,and Boy Scouts, that have abuse of children.

How about the public schools that are run by the government and you have the teachers abusing students?
You are equating driving a car at the speed limit and having a driver license with paying for an abortion?
Your logic leave much to be desired.

Tony in Central PA| 2.8.12 @ 8:42PM

According to your own logic, why shouldn't the Church pay for abortions, then ?

Bob Grant | 2.8.12 @ 9:04PM

It has everything to do with freedom of conscious you twit.

Tony in Central PA| 2.9.12 @ 9:18PM

Its " conscience ".
So forcing the Church to fund something directly against its 2000 years or moral instruction isn't an obstruction of freedom of conscience ?

Al Adab| 2.8.12 @ 2:28PM

The Left abandoned Moral Absolutes years ago. It is so much easier not having to examine ones beliefs and stand on principle accordingly. Relativism and hedonism make no such demands.

cicero| 2.8.12 @ 3:34PM

Under Obamacare, as written, eveeryone will have to have health insurance. Either your employer will pay for it, or he will have to pay 8% of his payroll in TAXES to the federal government so they can provide the coverage. Seemss to me there is a law that no tax money will be used to pay for abortions. If the insurance policies your employer has to provide, or that the government provides with the 8% must provide for abortions, sterilizations, etc., that law means nothing.
What they can't get the citizens to vote for, they impose through the courts, or by way of regulation. Soon we will be ruled by the aristocracy of the beaurocracy, and the elective process will merely be for show, and to give the poor saps (citizens) the illusion that they live in a free country.

G. Pedigrew| 2.8.12 @ 4:18PM

The Unitarian-Universalists provide a good example of what Gregg is talking about. They have only one dogma, which is that there is no absolute truth. You can believe in the tooth fairy or the man in the moon or Tinkerbell. Whatever.

When I was looking into religions a number of years back, I found this striking and pathetic. I even went to one of their "services," which was like little kids playing church, singing goofy, childish music. It was all about stroking themselves. Really kind of creepy.

They helped push me back into Christianity.

Al Adab| 2.8.12 @ 4:31PM

Many years ago a good friend and political ally was married in a Unitarian church. Another friend, a devout Catholic, remarked to me (quite tongue in cheek) "The nice thing about these Unitarians is that they don't let religion interfer with anything."

W| 2.8.12 @ 4:42PM

If you insist that there is no absolute truth then you are insisting that this is an abosolute truth.

Al Adab| 2.8.12 @ 5:49PM

Rather like the atheist chaplains in the US Military. Does that not make atheism a religion?

Juan Jose Morales-Castillo | 2.8.12 @ 5:30PM

I have known for decades that the modern Demicat Party does not deserve the loyalty of one of its most ancient constituencies. Let's see if my mother and all fellow Catholics, particularly our Puerto Rican compatriots, finally realize what has been obvious to me for such a long stretch of time.

Tony in Central PA| 2.8.12 @ 8:43PM

" Truth ? What is truth ? " .
Pontius Pilate.

POST American| 2.8.12 @ 11:11PM

-------------------TRUTH OPENED---------------------

"Be still from ALLLL your imagings, idolatries
and worrying concerns. -----BEHOLD truth."
-Jakob Boehme

Given the legacy of Rome ---and whence
the Roman Empire ---Pilate himself should
have taken heed.

---NOW get rid your mind control TVs and PCs,
get out of the franchise slum and open some
TRUTH for yourself.

Or rather let the TRUTH open you. . .

Dorian Gordon| 2.10.12 @ 3:03PM

The Church doesn't have to do it IF, they don't want any federal funding. If you are really serious about your "conservative" values. Shed the GOVERNMENT HANDOUT for Catholic Social Services funding(oxymoron?) You can't have it both ways.

Latest Headlines

Not Ready for Primetime Players

Daniel J. Flynn|84 comments

Assessing a Week of Scandal

Matt Purple|113 comments

Oops, Maybe Government is Tyrannical

Marta H. Mossburg|49 comments

Soros Funds Anti-‘Torture’ Report

Mark Tooley|92 comments

Treasure State Treasury

Bill Croke|3 comments

My Generation’s Disease

Benjamin Brophy|49 comments

The View From the Other Side

George H. Wittman|14 comments

USPS: Radical Surgery Needed

Peter Hannaford|19 comments

The Spectacle Blog

If Only the Tsar Knew!

F.H. Buckley | 11:14AM

Low-Level IRS Staffer: No, We Didn’t Mastermind This Entire Thing

Matt Purple | 5.17.13

UPDATED: IRS Acting Chief Apologizes, But Defends His Actions

Kaylin Bugos | 5.17.13

Voter Fraud Affected Election Results in Missouri