www.roanoke.com

John Long

Recent columns

• Advice for this year's graduates
• Thank you, Taubmans
• In defense of America's ideal
• If you go to college, go the smart way

From the RoundTable blog

There is a new and chilling threat to religious liberty, and we all should pay attention to it. Much is at stake beyond the issue on the surface.

New regulations from the Department of Health and Human Services will soon require employers to provide coverage for contraception through their insurance plans, as many already do. You may agree or disagree with such a policy; you may oppose the use of birth control or have no problem with it. But there is no question where the Catholic Church stands on contraception.

Nevertheless, Catholic organizations (and other religiously affiliated groups) will soon be forced to choose between obedience to God, as they define it, or to the state. It is not a choice they should be forced to make in America, where First Amendment guarantees on religious freedom have generally been respected.

The new regulation, part of the sweeping health care reforms passed in 2010, gives little leeway in whether insurance plans can cover contraceptive measures. Since most insurance plans are provided through the workplace, this means that, in essence, employers will be providing birth control to employees. Many - probably most - will have no objection to doing so. But what if an employer has moral objections to the very idea?

This is the dilemma of the Catholic church at the moment. While many Catholics supported the health care bill, the church has lobbied for months for a broad religious exemption to the contraception requirement, to no avail. Churches, and other houses of worship with the function of instilling religion, are indeed exempt from the requirement. But other service organizations operated by them are not. Thus, Catholic hospitals, schools and universities will be forced to provide products and services antithetical to the teachings of their parent organization. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sought a compromise. The administration offered only this: a delay of one year in implementing the rule for religiously affiliated employers.

In denying the broad exemption requested by Catholics, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said this one-year compromise effectively "strikes a balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services." Sorry, I don't see a balance. Catholic officials have been told they will comply with the federal rules, and they have 12months to get used to violating their consciences. Or get over their antediluvian scruples. Some balance.

In a circular letter recently issued to local congregations, the Conference of Bishops stated starkly that the church "cannot - we will not - comply with this unjust law."

I am certain that court challenges are in the near future on this. One other option for Catholic organizations would be to drop insurance coverage for employees altogether, but this course would have repercussions. Heavy fines would be imposed. My guess is the church will pay them ad infinitum rather than submit. Meanwhile, employees would find their insurance plans gone because of an uncompromising government edict.

You may say it is the church that is uncompromising. But purveyors of absolute truth, as any serious church defines itself, are designed to be uncompromising. It's their job. Government's job is to protect our rights, a role I, for one, see as more important than providing insurance.

There must always be a balance between rights and responsibilities, absolute freedom and the functioning of an orderly society. While there is general agreement that some actions cannot be permitted under the guise of religion - drug use, child marriage, human sacrifice - this is hardly such a case. A major religious organization in the U.S. is being told it can believe anything it wants as long as it does not interfere with the mandates of the state. Critics will quickly counter that many, maybe most, American Catholics do not agree with their church's teachings on birth control. That is an internal matter for the church, not one relevant to this issue of church vs. state. In fact, doesn't the whole concept of "separation of church and state" (a phrase found nowhere in the Constitution) have at least as much to do with protecting church from state than the inverse?

I am not a Catholic, and I don't agree with every Catholic teaching on birth control. Doesn't matter. This is an assault on religious freedom that concerns all people of faith. Even those of no religious faith should find this ruling ominous. If it stands, the day will come when you and I will be told that our beliefs do not matter: Obedience to the state is paramount.

Long, director of the Salem Museum, is a Roanoke Times columnist.