It was bad enough that Jim Bunning, Senator from Kentucky, held up the whole Senate in an effort to deny emergency unemployment money from millions of people, in order to make a few deals. Now Bart Stupak, Congressman from Michigan, is threatening to block the entire health care reform bill in order to satisfy his religious views about abortion. Mr. Stupak is one of the religious zealots (who call themselves The Family) who lives in an apartment building on C Street in Washington, D.C., which calls itself a church in order to keep its taxes low. (Most members of the Family do not live there.)
Of course people have a right to religious points of view. And maybe they even have a right to try to write their religion into law, although the Bill of Rights makes it clear that Congress will neither endorse a specific religion, nor hinder the free practice of religion. That is to say, as a nation under law, we are not a religious nation, but people can be religious if they want to. Even if everybody in the entire nation lived with Mr. Stupak and his "Family" in his "church", at reduced rent, the nation, constitutionally, would still not endorse his religion; not without rewriting the Constitution, and not without disenfranchising everybody with a different religion, or with no religion at all.
People like Mr. Stupak are pushing the free exercise of their religion to the very bounds of constitutionality. They come as close as one can get to writing their religious views into law, and imposing it on everybody else. Enough!
Not everyone shares Mr. Stupak's religious beliefs, or his beliefs about abortion. Good people wrestle with God all night at the river Jabbok about that. We ought not to subordinate everything else to a matter that we are never going to agree on.
We ought to agree that the C Street house is not a church, and that they ought to pay their fair share of taxes.
Once upon a miserable time ago, Protestants worried that Catholics might take over the nation, and try to make all of us Catholic. Now the Protestants are getting their turn to try to take over the nation. It is fair enough that they line up behind their priests, or their preachers, and sing songs about that; perhaps even put leaflets behind the screen door. They ought not to try to use the government to impose their beliefs on us.
Look who the government activists are!
Of course people have a right to religious points of view. And maybe they even have a right to try to write their religion into law, although the Bill of Rights makes it clear that Congress will neither endorse a specific religion, nor hinder the free practice of religion. That is to say, as a nation under law, we are not a religious nation, but people can be religious if they want to. Even if everybody in the entire nation lived with Mr. Stupak and his "Family" in his "church", at reduced rent, the nation, constitutionally, would still not endorse his religion; not without rewriting the Constitution, and not without disenfranchising everybody with a different religion, or with no religion at all.
People like Mr. Stupak are pushing the free exercise of their religion to the very bounds of constitutionality. They come as close as one can get to writing their religious views into law, and imposing it on everybody else. Enough!
Not everyone shares Mr. Stupak's religious beliefs, or his beliefs about abortion. Good people wrestle with God all night at the river Jabbok about that. We ought not to subordinate everything else to a matter that we are never going to agree on.
We ought to agree that the C Street house is not a church, and that they ought to pay their fair share of taxes.
Once upon a miserable time ago, Protestants worried that Catholics might take over the nation, and try to make all of us Catholic. Now the Protestants are getting their turn to try to take over the nation. It is fair enough that they line up behind their priests, or their preachers, and sing songs about that; perhaps even put leaflets behind the screen door. They ought not to try to use the government to impose their beliefs on us.
Look who the government activists are!
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