The Falsehood of "Religious Freedom"

Item from The New York Times Metro Section of May 3rd: The Catholic Church strongly resisted and will challenge in court a Connecticut bill, passed overwhelmingly by the state legislature (and voted for by many Catholics), that would require hospitals to provide rape victims with emergency contraception (“Plan B”), even though the legislature compromised by crafting the bill so as to allow “independent third-party health care providers” to administer the drug at hospitals.

Why? Well, the requirement would conflict with Catholic beliefs, “which state that life begins at conception and prohibit abortion.” A lawyer for the Church (Barry Feldman, oy) said that “this is a blow to religious freedom that sets a terrible precedent.”

Actually, it sets a wonderful precedent, though not quite, since several other states have already passed similar legislation. The exemption of institutions claiming “religious beliefs” from the reasonable requirements of civil society, not to mention taxes, is one of the scandals of American political life. We’re not talking about conscientious objection here, since an exemption for believers is provided (see above); just as, e.g., Quakers were allowed to do alternative service rather than be drafted into the military. (And those who refused to compromise with civil society at all, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, cheerfully went to jail instead.) And we’re not talking about that principle of “religious freedom,” since no one is being forbidden to go to their own church, pray to their own god, attend their own indoctrination sessions, and so forth. No, what is at stake–what is often at stake when “religious freedom” is falsely invoked--is the demand by churches and their spokesmen that society organize itself around their principles of behavior and none other. Not only that they be allowed to evade doing what they don’t want to do, but that no one else be allowed to do it either!

Should Sikhs be granted an exemption from legislation requiring motorcycle riders to wear helmets? That’s a tough one–since when is riding motorcycles an important social practice requiring special recognition?–but a case can certainly be made; they’re harming no one but themselves, and not asking anyone else to do or not do anything. If they argued instead that such laws should be revoked because they are an affront to god (which they have never done), the rest of us would pay no attention. Part of religious freedom, after all, is freedom for non-believers; you have a right to pray to your god, and I have an equal right to say that your god–whoever you are–is mean-spirited and sadistic.

You don’t like abortion? Don’t have one. You think contraception kills? Don’t use it–but if you prevent a woman from using it, you’re abusing her, depriving her of her own human rights in the name of your doctrinaire “belief.” I put “belief” in scare quotes, because on the historical record it’s not at all clear whether men subordinate women’s rights because their “beliefs” require it, or whether they choose beliefs that will justify their desire to subordinate women.

In a larger sense, the whole problem with the contemporary doctrine of “multiculturalism” comes down to this: much of the time what’s being asked is not equal respect for other “cultures,” but equal respect for the religious practices that supposedly define the so-called culture. And I have never read a coherent explanation of why one of the “smelly little orthodoxies” and bigotries that after much reflection I despise and reject as hostile to human dignity, should suddenly be respected when cloaked in the mantle of “religious belief;” when justified not by giving reasons but by telling me what some book says, or what a bunch of oppressive priests say; or when expressed not only by some would-be tyrant here at home but as well (or worse) by some virulent homophobe or misogynist in Asia or Africa. But that’s a topic for another essay.