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Presswatch
(Page 2 of 2)
The debates about pelvic politics over the last week sometimes had a patronizing tone.
Physician, heal thyself. But the most revealing Kristof assertion was this one: “The basic principle of American life is that we try to respect religious beliefs, and accommodate them where we can.”
That prompted an incandescently furious response from Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:
Nicholas Kristof’s statement is light years beyond the President in disrespect for religious liberty.…The language of accommodation is almost as old as the Constitution itself, but it was never framed as Kristof frames it—certainly not by the founders who spoke of “inalienable rights” granted to human beings by the Creator’s endowment.…
With this one simplistic and condescending sentence he throws religious liberty under the bus and reveals what makes sense to so many in the secular elite.
They will try their best, they promise, to respect our religious beliefs, and to “accommodate them where we can.”
That’s it. Don’t dare ask for anything more.
Religious liberty—no scare quotes here—is one of America’s basic principles, the first freedom in the Bill of Rights. The separation of church and state protects religious minorities, and nonreligious ones, from the coercive imposition of religious law. It is also a bulwark against a secular government’s impositions on private conscience. To the Times editorialists, it is at best an inconvenience.
And the paper’s reporters aren’t much better. Here’s what passed for balance in a story by Laurie Goodstein:
The uproar threatens to embroil the Catholic church in a bitter election-year political battle while deepening internal rifts within the church. On the one side are traditionalists who believe in upholding Catholic doctrine to the letter, and on the other, modernists who believe the church must respond to changing times and a pluralistic society.
Albert Mohler is a Baptist. This columnist is an agnostic. But I’m with Mike Huckabee, another Baptist, who said: “We’re all Catholics now.”
Letter to the Editor View all comments (6) | Leave a comment
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Occam's Tool| 4.8.12 @ 9:07PM
I'm immensely in favor of birth control for ACLU attorneys.
Bob| 4.8.12 @ 9:40PM
It's not deepening any rift within the Church, it's exposing those who are not real Catholics. They have so many protestant denominations. Martin Luther protested and separated from the Church. They should do the same.
That quote is absolutely misleading. On the one hand are Catholics who follow their Pope in Rome, and on the other hand are insurrectionists who seek to deligitimize the Pope and the Church and eliminate the single largest religious entity in the world.
Occam's Tool| 4.9.12 @ 2:54AM
Georgetown deserves our support on this one.
However, as it has been said, "lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas." They admitted the asshole to their school.
Philip Grey| 4.9.12 @ 8:20PM
Sure glad the President "stood his ground on an essential principle—free access to birth control for any woman.…" As opposed to upholding a stupid principle like religious liberty as enshrined in the actual law of the land, if not in the arbitrary whims of our "rulers" that now pass as substitutes for law.
spike59| 4.10.12 @ 7:31AM
Churches are given complete freedom by the Constitution to preach that birth control is immoral, but they have not been given the right to laws that would deprive their followers or employees of the right to disagree with that teaching.
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the employees and followers of the Catholic Chrurch CERTAINLY have the First Amendment right to disagree; but they DON'T have the right to prohibit the Catholic Church from following its doctrines and tenets, or to force the Catholic Church to participate in actions counter to those doctrines-again, the NYT just 'doesn't get it'...and they wonder why they have become, over the years, less and less relevant
Rockerbabe| 4.16.12 @ 7:14PM
The government of the USA is under no obligation to honor discrimination against women in the commerce areas that the church choose to engage in or when the church actively seeks government money for various programs [tuition at their universities, reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaide at their hospitals, etc].
The Constitution demands that its citizens be treated fairly and equitably under the law, especially when it comes to salary and benefit packages that it offers in its satellite operations that are not directly related to church or school.
The church's ongoing war on women and their needs is just a hateful sign of disrespect and the low regard that they hold for women in general. I doubt Christ would think their attitude toward women is "christian".
As for insurance pools, they operate like this:
You help pay for my contraception and I will help pay for your prostate exams and treatments.
You help pay for my mammogram and I will help pay for your smoking cessation treatment or treatments for lung cancer.
You help pay for my maternity care, and I will help pay for your diabetes care and meds.
I have a moral objection to paying for lung cancer treatment for smokers and hospitalization for diabetics who ignore their doctor's advice. They are engaging in self-destructive behavior and I think that is immoral. But, I do not get to inflict my moral outrage on them, by denying them the care they want and needs. Women take contraception for a variety of reasons, none of which is anyone's business, so it should be covered just like those little blue pills the guys get.
Religious liberty. . .my a$$!. Just another excuse to discriminte against women and that is unconstitutional.