Richard W. Garnett, a law professor and associate dean at Notre Dame and senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, writes for USA Today about why he thinks President Obama's contraception mandate infringes upon religious freedom.
Garnett begins with a short explanation that Obama has passed a law requiring most religious institutions to pay health insurance that covers abortion practices and contraception. He believes that this impedes upon the religious freedoms promised in the Constitution, and that Obama's compromise - to ammend the law by having insurance companies foot the bill for said practices - will not work. Because it is so close to the 2012 elections and because even some of Obama's Catholic supporters had something to say about this law, Garnett claims this compromise is a ploy. He explains that the qualm is not that the Catholic institutions against this law are trying to deny access, merely that they are putting a stop to what they see as immoral. Addressing some supporters of the mandate, who apparently say this "is just part of the price these institutions must pay for participating in public life and engaging in 'secular' activities," Garnett defines commonly decent acts performed by religious institutions as religious in nature; they were religious before government took control of them, so they're religious and not secular now. (Forgive me, but is he implying government invented secularism?) Garnett thinks the government should, instead of forcing their beliefs on religious institutions, be thanking and monetarily reimbursing them; he thinks this law is compromising integrity, is un-American in its hostility to diversity, and is unfairly instilling conformity. And Garnett ends with a quick reminder that both Republicans and Democrats reacted negatively to the mandate.
As a woman, and particularly as a Jewish woman, living in close proximity to Loyola Hospital, that there is such anger on the Catholic side towards this new policy is scary. If something were to happen to me and I was taken to Loyola and I wasn't allowed the medical care I deserved, I would be shocked, angry, and not a little terrified. This sort of polarized religious reaction to a topic could be expanded in research that takes into account the way government respects or disrespects the religion(s) of its people - if we were living in, say, Rome, of course a law like this would not be passed. But here in America, where our people are famously of many different opinions and belief systems, the factors become whether we put religious morality before secular fairness.
