I am increasingly losing patience with people who want to see their religious values influence public policy. I was appalled by the news yesterday that the Susan G. Komen foundation has suspended all grant funding to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening. Read that again. The grants were only paying for breast cancer screenings, not abortions.
Why did the Komen foundation suspend this funding? Because their new VP is virulently anti-abortion.
From the National Journal:
Suspicion has fallen on the group’s newish senior vice president, former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel. Handel was appointed to Komen last April, and she was quick to point out her strong Republican credentials. That's not in itself a surprise--Komen founder Nancy Brinker is a Republican.Handel had the backing of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in a failed 2010 bid to become the first female governor of Georgia, one that was spiced up by debates and negative advertising over Handel’s position on abortion rights.
Handel has complained about the attacks on her position and said she was “staunchly and unequivocally pro-life” in a blog post at the time.
“I believe in the sanctity and inherent dignity of human life, and I will be a pro-life governor who will work tirelessly to promote a culture of life in Georgia. And while I will not seek to prohibit abortions in the extremely rare cases of rape, incest, or where there is a real threat to the life of the mother, I will do everything in my power to encourage and promote alternatives to abortion in these tragic situations,” Handel wrote.
(Although she doesn't say it expressly here, Handel has written on her blog and said in interviews that her voting record is influences by her conservative religious beliefs.)
It's a failure in logic to say that you want to "promote alternatives to abortion" and "promote a culture of life" and not support Planned Parenthood, which provides birth control and counseling and STD testing and treatment.
I do not want to deny the right of politicians to hold their own, deeply-felt religious beliefs.
However, every public servant should remember that their real responsibility it to uphold the laws of the land, which all stem from the Constitution, which guarantees the separation of church and state. Any public officeholder in this country should be able to subjugate their personal religious beliefs and do they job they were elected to -- representing the people in their jurisdictions. All the people, regardless of religion.
I'm a Jew. If I were to be elected governor of Colorado, would it be morally OK for me to enact policies that prohibited the sale and consumption of pork and shellfish? Or shut down businesses on Saturdays for the Sabbath? Don't laugh -- ask yourself why you can't buy a car on Sunday in some states, or liquor in others?
Sure, shopping on the Sabbath and getting an abortion or entering onto a gay marriage all seem to carry vastly different moral weights , but that's not the real question. The real moral question is, "Is it OK to legislate the behavior of others based on the beliefs of one religion?"
You don't have to be an atheist to say "No" to that question. All you have to be is someone who cares about the 1st Amendment and the separation it guarantees.
Or, if you want to say "Yes" to the question -- you think it's OK to make law based on religious belief, ask yourself this. Is t OK for anyone to make law based on their religion? Jews? Muslims? Hindus? Scientologists? Where do you draw the line, and why shouldn't the rest of us draw our lines with your religion?
If you don't think you can keep your religious beliefs out of your life as a public servant, please, choose another career. God doesn't come before the law of the land, and our Founding Fathers knew that well.
The freedom our public officials enjoy to practice their religion also guarantees my freedom from their religion being imposed on me, and the law is the ultimate weapon of imposition.
I support the separation of church and state. Do you? Join us.
No comments:
Post a Comment