Bad Law

The State of Washington has passed and the purported Catholic governor signed a law which would force priests to break the seal of Confession. Briefly put, Catholic priests cannot under any circumstances make public any person's confession. It is a basic right of the free practice of religion and religious conscience. The Federal Department of Justice is investigating it as a violation of the First Amendment.

Good. If ever there was an example of tyranny, this is it. You fear Trump? I fear the left in general, and government power in particular. The left wants what it wants, and reason let alone the Constitution be damned. 

Yet before we wag our fingers too harshly at our left wing friends we should remember that, in this case anyway, it isn't only they who wish to swing the cudgel of government power against religious rights. Delaware and Vermont (unsurprisingly to me) have had recent bills die in committee which would do the same thing, while the very Republican states of Montana and North Dakota have considered similar measures. Thankfully none of them passed. But it does show that liberals aren't necessarily alone. In North Dakota anyway, two of the sponsors of the proposed bill were in the GOP.

Any way you slice it, the Washington law is bad law no matter how good the intention; we seem too ready and able to forget about the road to perdition. We have a Constitution precisely that the citizenry may be protected from such disregard for individual rights. We must teach our friends to respect it.

The Courts and the Confessional

The Louisiana Supreme Court has ordered a Catholic priest to testify in a court trial as to what he heard in confession. The cleric, Fr. Jeff Bayhi, may face jail time if he does not comply.

That this is a clear case of religious freedom should not need to be said. That any court in a nation with freedom of religion should do such a thing is reprehensible. Yet such is the state of religion today.

Perhaps the worst sign that respect for religion is in decline is in the relatively little response to the situation. There's really been no hue and cry about it, none of the outrage which one should expect of a predominantly Christian nation. Maybe that's because the situation involves child abuse and thus is seen as more important than religious rights. Maybe people just want to give the Church a comeuppance. Maybe they just don't care.

They should. This is about more than just the Catholics: this could affect all religions and from there, all freedoms, because all freedoms begin in the conscience and this is an issue of conscience. The Diocese of Baton Rouge has vowed to fight the decision, and we should feel confident that it will be overturned in the federal courts. It's simply a shame that it's going to have to go that far.

Pope Francis lectures Muslims

Incredible. Just who does this guy think he is? The leader of the largest Christian Church on earth and here he goes around lecturing those of other faiths? And on issues of religion no less.

Pope Francis has told the Muslims that religious freedom is paramount among the freedoms. People have the right to follow the religion which they judge to be true. No coercion. No belief by the sword. People must be free to find God themselves.

This is coming from the head of the Catholic Church. You know, the one which is so very intolerant of everyone else. The one which calls on the individual to regulate himself, to remember that by himself he is nothing but ego. The Church which teaches that abortion and gay marriage are moral affronts despite what the individuals involved want. The one which, horror of horrors, asks simply that we question ourselves and our motives objectively and accept and live the answers, as any seriously minded soul should want. The one which is so concerned with our individuality that it demands we examine our affections in order that we become the full and complete individuals we should be. The person we should, in truth, want to be.

The leader of the most intolerant institution in human history supports religious freedom. It would be nice to hear such assertions come from our libertarian brethren but, of course, they don't believe in the individual so much as they say they do. They believe the individual should be able to do whatever he wants short of harming other folks or employing any type of 'coercion'. This conveniently avoids any kind of honest introspection, exactly as Islam does.

Tyranny comes from all corners. It's fascinating that it comes from libertarians and Islam more than Rome.

Religion and the Voting Booth

The left does not understand religion. It cries for the separation of Church and State on the one hand yet demands that religion do its job on the other. Well, you can't have it both ways.

When it comes to feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and providing medical care, liberals very easily remind Christians of their Christian duty. It's almost droll: when these issues are raised, you know you're supposed to be doing this and that, aren't you, Christians? Yet mention the right to life or the sanctity of marriage, and Christians are scaling that false wall of separation.

It simply cannot be both ways. If you're going to insist that the Church live up to Its call then you cannot also tell Her that She cannot preach the entire call. If feeding the hungry is a moral good despite, perhaps, being a duty in which religious practice is steeped, then so too is defending the unborn. If housing the homeless is a moral good based to a great degree on religious sentiment, then so to is the recognition of marriage as between one man and one woman.

Likewise, you cannot demand that Christians leave their duty to their creed at the voting booth curtain. If you expect them to vote for government solutions when the question of worldly poverty arises, then you must expect them to vote their religious duty towards ending abortion. We simply aren't talking about wholly religious issues on things such as poverty and life. We're talking about basic moral questions the answers to which define ourselves as a society. And as moral persons.

Yes, and define ourselves as Christians. If we are expected to be whole Christians then we must live up to that. And society must allow it if it is to be just, civil, and moral.

What those do when they demand we not vote our creed in practical application is nothing short of effrontery. It is insulting and immoral in itself. The left doesn't get that. That's why it's so critical that, come any election, we vote our creed.

Hobby Lobby and Religious Freedom

Hobby Lobby, a national chain of arts and crafts stores, has vowed not to cover health insurance for its employees so long as it must include coverage for the 'morning after' pill which induces abortions. The Obama Administration has said that the company will face fines of $1.3 million dollars per day so long as it does not fulfill all obligations of Obamacare. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama appointee, refused an injunction for Hobby Lobby or its sister chain, Mardel Inc, until legal actions on the question are settled.

So there you have it. The first salvo in the war for religious freedom, one of the freedoms which the Constitution is supposed to guarantee, the Constitution which the current President takes very lightly if he considers it at all, has been fired. It will be a long and costly war in terms of human cost.

The Catholic Church has already issued stern warnings that the battles may well include open defiance of the Obama Administration and the federal government, up to and including civil disobedience. We may have to go to jail in standing up for our beliefs.

The lesson here is that the left does not respect the rights of anyone not in its camp. You have the moral right to the morning after pill, so much so that someone else must pay for it if, as the direct result of your own indifference over your own actions, you find yourself in a position which you don't like. This is the worst kind of hubris: that someone else must cover your irresponsibility.

To you Catholics who voted for the man behind this atrocity against human rights: are you happy now? Or is your conscience clear on the point that its perfectly all right to force views on others when they are at odds with your President? Have you forgotten that you're not a Democrat first, nor a Republican first; not even an American first? You're a Catholic first, and must act accordingly. Will you now go to jail for your faith, seeing as you support a leader who spits at your faith?

Be that as it may, we see very clearly this morning that of the five freedoms, religious freedom means the least. Our nation, founded upon that principle almost more than any of the other freedoms, turns its back on its primary founding ideal. Woe to you, especially those of you who should have known better, that put the United States on the road to the tyranny of the majority. The blood of future Americans is on your hands.

A Victory for Religion

A 7-foot tall cross, made of metal pipe and in an isolated spot in the Mojave Desert, has been saved by a narrow vote of the Supreme Court. On a thin 5-4 ruling with no less than six Justices penning their own opinions, it was decided that the cross could stay uncovered. It has been in place since 1934 as a memorial to World War I troops killed in battle.

This is a good and fine ruling. As Justice Anthony Kennedy said, "The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion's role in society,". There is nothing wrong with a simple cross, especially in this case, where it is far from public view and on land turned over to private interests.

Other religious groups claim they feel excluded over such a thing. Well, okay, then, petition to put up a symbol of your religion somewhere to honor your fallen. It isn't likely that mainstream Christianity would be offended. Because the main point here is that it is not wrong of government to recognize what religion means in our society and our history. To be particularly blunt, it is safe to assume that the overwhelming majority of Americans killed in WWI were Christian. We do no disservice to that onerous 'ideal', separation of church and state, in a simple acknowledgment of that. Especially as freedom of religion was one of the things those doughboys and sailors and Marines fought to protect. Can we not honor them in a manner they would see as fitting?

Hopefully the ruling will lead to a greater acceptance of religious symbols mixed with government action. Yet that will almost certainly hinge on future Court rulings, rulings which will be decided by, perhaps, future justices. Which means we need to make sure that someone gets elected in 2012 who is most likely to appoint folks who would support such cases appropriately.

That movement must start in the 2010 elections. Otherwise, we shall have little left of our common religious bonds save dusty old directives noted only in our history books.