The Devil's In The Details

Recently there has been quite the dust up in the national media regarding religious liberty and the separation of church and state. This most recent uproar started when religious employers, headed by the Catholic Church, balked at the Obama administration's policies requiring them to provide contraceptives to employees. They argued that their religious liberties were being infringed upon because the requirement was directly opposed to dogma of the Catholic Church regarding contraceptives. Despite the fact that 98% of Catholic women had admitted to using contraceptives and that many, if not most, of their employees do not practice Catholicism. The Obama administration then offered a compromise that religious employers would not have to offer free contraceptive to their employees, like every other employer in the nation that offers insurance plans to their employees. This should have been the end of the discussion, the Church had been accommodated and the rest of the world kept on ticking as usual, right? Unfortunately once Pandora's Box, especially on a wedge issue, has been opened in an election year it is extremely difficult to close.

Enter conservative talking heads and presidential candidates using the "controversy" as a platform form to attack the Obama administration and appeal to the base of their party. Mitt Romney at the most recent debate in Arizona quipped, "I don't think we've seen in the history of this country the kind of attack on religious conscience, religious freedom, religious tolerance that we've seen under Barack Obama". Newt Gingrich decried, “The Obama administration has declared war on religion". Not to be out done by his counter parts, Rick Santorum the pied piper of the party on the issue, used the moment to appeal to the evangelicals of the GOP and tout his views on the issue. One he had been outspoken on since spoke to students at Ava Marie University in 2008 where he commented, "This is not a political war at all. This is not a cultural war. This is a spiritual war,” Santorum warned the campus. “And the Father of Lies [Satan] has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country—the United States of America.” Recently in Ohio he stated, that Obama and other Democrats follow, "some phony theology, not a theology based on the Bible," However these pail in comparison to his most recent comments. Santorum when asked by ABC news about how his views contradicted with the last Catholic to hold the office of President, John F. Kennedy’s, stated "“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.", he continued, "The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country, this is the First Amendment. The First Amendment says the free exercise of religion.” These remarks were offered in response to the views expressed by then candidate Kennedy who stated in a speech in 1960, after the public had questioned whether his loyalties would be to America or the Pope, said "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote. Where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him." Rick Santorum said that he had read those comments before and that he, "almost threw up" upon reading them.

Here we see the problem with Santorum's and the evangelical’s logic in their own words. They argue that there is a war on religion, they argue that their rights are being infringed upon by the “evil secular left”; they argue that the founders based this nation on Christian principles. However if one looks closely, you can see that their issue is not that at all, but rather in reality their upset because their religion is not given precedent and a special place in policy matters over the rest. How can those who claim to be a victim of a war on religion, on one hand say on the other, “I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute."? Unfortunately for them the devil is in the details, our founders understood that a free society is one where no religious institution holds a higher place in the pantheon of government than any other. They ensured through the establishment clause that anyone in this country is free to practice whatever religion they would like, that they were also free to not practice any religion at all. That is religious freedom, and the founders understood that. Rick Santorum and those in the GOP that share his view would have us follow their religion and have our national decisions be made based on the paradigm of that religion. That is not religious freedom in the least, it is theocracy veiled in doublespeak and talking points. I prefer to live in a society, like the one envisioned by the brave men and women who forged this country, where anyone is free to practice whatever they wish and where the government is free to do its business without a specific dogma. If Santorum and his supporters truly don't believe in an America "where the separation of church and state is absolute.”, I hear Iran is very nice this time of year.

*Originally posted on Inconvenient Reason