Religious institutions aren’t happy with President Obama these days because of his new Health & Human Services mandate requiring that employers cover the health care costs for contraception and birth control of their employees. The Catholic Church in particular wants their hospitals and schools to be exempt from this law because they don’t believe in contraception or birth control. Now, the Obama administration appears to be on the verge of caving in and granting them that an exemption.
While there are laws in place to make sure that employers can’t discriminate in hiring based on someone’s religious beliefs or lack thereof, churches have already fought and won the right to break this law and to discriminate in hiring. Now they want the right to break another law.
While we are on the subject of allowing religious institutions to break certain laws, why not allow them to break other laws too. In for a pinch, in for a pound, as they say. Maybe religious institutions should be allowed to commit blackmail… oh wait, never mind. Maybe some church somewhere wants to be exempt from the law prohibiting threats against the President… oh wait, never mind again.
Before you know it, some religious group will argue that because they answer to God’s law, they ought to be exempt from all of man’s laws. We’ll have church leaders stoning people to death for being gay or an atheist. Sure, man’s law calls that murder, but God say’s that is the moral thing to do and we can’t have the state “restricting” their religious freedom, right?
In America, we are all supposed to be equal under the law. Everyone should be expected to obey the law equally whether we agree with the law or not. If we don’t agree with a law, we are to be motivated to petition our government for a redress (our government currently being bought not withstanding). Religious institutions already get away with not paying their fair share in taxes, now they want to get away with not obeying the law too.
Please check out the Atheism 101 Series for frequently asked topics.
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