Don Roach: Religious Freedom isn’t Important to Obama

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Don Roach, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™

 

When the topic of abortion comes up, how do you respond? Are you the type of person who wishes the issue would just go away? Roe v. Wade is the law of the land and let’s leave it as is. Are you, instead, the type of person who believes that a woman’s reproductive rights are still under constant attack and must be preserved through legislation? Roe v Wade, while protecting a woman’s right to choose, is not the alpha and omega of women’s reproductive issues. Or are you a person that believes life begins at conception and that the right of the unborn child need be protected? Roe v Wade is the bane of your existence and you’re doing everything you can to fight it.

However you fall on the abortion battle, President Obama’s recent ‘compromise’ should trouble you.

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Last week the President exempted religious organizations from having to pay for contraceptive products and instead is requiring insurance companies to pay for the service. The thing that should be troubling to every citizen, not just those involved in this battle, is the undermining of religious freedom. By undermining religious freedoms it leaves open the door to undermine any and every other freedom protected by our constitution in favor of whatever moral ethos sways in any particular moment. Think about the days following 9/11 and how ‘private’ became redefined at the airport. We began a ‘war on terror’ in 2001 but didn’t find Osama bin Laden until last year. In the meantime, the boundaries between our individual freedoms and the government’s right to search our private space grew increasingly blurry.

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It’s as if we forgot that we are a people who don’t agree all the time and what unites us is our collective defense of the liberties and freedoms we enjoy. Our individual rights and freedoms should not ebb and flow based upon whichever party is in power. Obama’s ‘compromise’ on contraception demonstrates how precarious our rights can become. And Obama doesn’t even seem to get why the issue is so important. He recently said, “I understand some folks in Washington may want to treat this as another political wedge issue, but it shouldn’t be. I certainly never saw it that way.” Part and parcel to American liberty is religious expression and this bill encroaches upon that and there’s no two ways about it. But, Obama didn’t get that memo it appears.

His compromise – forcing insurers to pay for the contraception versus organizations morally opposed to contraception – is no compromise at all. Health insurers are in business to make money. I doubt they will take on this cost and not pass any of those costs to these organizations. Thus, the organizations will pay for contraception if only through increased premium costs. So Obama’s compromise is semantic at best.

Again, the disappointment for me is that religious groups will now be forced to do something they may be morally opposed to do. Their right to express their beliefs however they so choose is no longer an option if they do not side with Obama. That’s scary. Obama is sending a clear message - disagree with government and be forced to assimilate.

I’ll leave you with this - think about something in your own personal life where the government forced you to do something that you morally objected to and it was also something protected by the constitution. How would you respond, what would you do?

Today it’s religious freedom, tomorrow what’s next? This wasn’t the hope or change I believed in back in 2008.

Don Roach is a member of the RI Young Republicans. He can be reached at [email protected]
 

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