Thursday, February 9, 2012

UNTO CAESAR

Wasn't that what Jesus said? Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God what is God's?

And doesn't The Constitution guarantee freedom of religion not churches get to make their own rules in their relationship with the law and the government, a democratic government elected by the people based on The Constitution not on any religion's interpretation of it?

So why is the right suddenly going crazy over some religious organizations that control health institutions and plans that impact all of us having to abide by the law?

Could it be because our president is doing better than their boys did in terms of foreign policy, getting Bin Laden and ending the Iraq War and lowering our dependence on foreign oil and lowering the trade deficit and etc. etc. and the economy's improving and is in fact better, much better in many areas, than it was when he took over from their boys?

The right needs an issue to beat the president up with, so they've gone back to their usual tactics of trying to set the president and Democrats up as anti-religious or in this particular case as anti-Catholic. We'll see if it works, if they can twist reality enough and repeat big lies enough to get enough un- or ill-informed people to think these claims are actually true.

Hope the Dems and the prez are hip enough to their tactics to counterattack. If the right fears Sharia Law because they think it would impose religious standards on others and claim their religion supersedes The Constitution, then how come when it comes to the Christian religion it's okay to do that?

Unh unh unh.

7 comments:

JIm said...

The first amendment should supercede government. The government does not have the right to order us do something that interfers with religious principles.

Miles said...

The awful irony is that a HUGE majority of Catholic women use birth control, so if this challenge to Obama's plan is successful, then a tiny minority of powerful men will have succeeded in limiting women's access to health care when those men haven't succeeded in convincing their own congregants of the importance of the issue! Oh, and Catholic Charities has been paying for the full range of women's health (albeit with a slight deductible) coverage since 2000. Hypocrisy at its zenith.

Lally said...

Great point Miles. And another attempt at misdirection from the deleted one. But on its face ridiculous, because by that reasoning, any religion with any tenets that went against any government policy would be able to avoid that policy. Thus if a religion believed in honor killings, no one could be held accountable et-dumbly-cetera.

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

Or establish a Mosque near Ground Zero.

JIm said...

Conservatives never said that Mulims did not have the right to build a Mosque. They and I objected to it as to properness, since historically Islam has put mosques on Christian holy ground after a Muslim victory. Jeruselem and Constantinople come to mind.

If the tenent was to kill women who dishonor the family, obviously that should be stopped. For the government to compel a religion to support a practice which violates a tenent of the church is an infringement on a lawful religion and in the view of many, is unconstitutional.

Lally said...

The gobbledeegook in the comment above is so circuitously illogical it almost hurts one's head to contemplate. If historically Muslims build "mosques on Christian holy ground after a Muslim victory" then where are they? Almost every mosque in the world, and every one in this country, is located where it is convenient for the followers of that faith to gather, just as with other kinds of places of worship. And what ground exactly is it that's "Christian holy ground"—Jeruselam? Nope, that's Jewish holy ground, although part of it is also holy to Muslims, Oh yeah, and then Crusaders spilled the blood of many Muslims there too so I guess it's even holier to Muslims. As for "Constantinople" who do you think the Chrsitians took that from before the muslims took it from the Christians? Duh. This kind of dumb argument would be dismissively silly if it wasn't for all the uninformed and easily swayed minions of the corporate and Christian right who forego any factual historical evidence and logic for appeals to prejudice.

Unless you want to fight the battles of a thousand years ago or seven hundred or etc. even the few "facts" the right gets correct don't concern us now. Oh and then the rightwinger gets to choose which tenets of which religion we have to hold higher than The Constitution. So let's see, tenets of Mormonism? Scientology? Wiccanism? blah blah blah.
The argument is prima facie ridiculous.

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

Many Muslims died in the World Trade Center tragedy. As did many Jews, Christians, Human Beings, Animals and Insects. The government is not tryhing to compel people to violate tenets of their religion. It is trying to ensure health, life, choice for all.