What do these phenomena have in common?
- claims that a Danish newspaper, and subsequently other news media, should not have published rather mild cartoons (as The New York Times called them) depicting Mohammed (and making fun of the Islamist version of Islam) because many versions of Islam forbid depicting him;
- the impending request by the four Roman Catholic bishops of Massachusetts for permission from the state to exclude gay couples as adoptive parents of children placed through Church-affiliated (but publicly-supported) social service agencies because the Catholic Church believes such adoptions are "gravely immoral"; and
- demands that pharmacists morally opposed to abortion be permitted to refuse to fill prescriptions for the morning after pill and RU-486?
Answer: They all use claims of religious conscience to deny rights to others.
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In a news story subtitled Exemption bid seen from antibias laws, The Boston Globe reported yesterday that the four Roman Catholic bishops are going to seek an exemption from Massachusetts' antibias laws to permit Catholic-affiliated social service agencies to "continue to handle adoptions while excluding gay or lesbian applicants from consideration. . . . [I]f they do not win an exemption, they either have to allow gay adoptions to continue or risk having their adoption license pulled and being barred from adoption work in the state altogether."
Edward Saunders Jr. -- executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, is quoted as invoking the First Amendment:
In a prepared statement yesterday, he said that while the bishops want to maintain the ''good work" that Catholic Charities does in the area of adoption, they must also deal with ''substantial first amendment issues that arise from any government regulations which force Catholic social service agencies to provide services that conflict with church doctrine."
According to the Globe, "The issue of gay adoptions strikes a sensitive chord among Catholic leaders. Catholic Charities was founded more than 100 years ago, and one of its core missions has been to find adoptive homes for needy and abandoned children." But Catholic Charities may not discriminate:
State authorities say adoption agencies cannot discriminate, however. Any agency in Massachusetts that handles adoptions must obtain a state license, which prohibits them from turning down prospective parents based on sexual orientation, religion, and race, among other factors, said Constantia Papanikolaou, general counsel for the Department of Early Education and Care, which licenses all adoption agencies. If an agency knowingly discriminates, it could be stripped of its license to broker all adoptions.
''You can't have a discrimination policy," Papanikolaou said. ''It's a condition of their license."
The Catholic Church's efforts are not limited to Massachusetts. A quick Google search turned up a recent article from The Sunday (U.K.) Times, Catholic church rebels over gay adoption rights:
THE Catholic church in Scotland is seeking exemption from controversial adoption laws that will allow children to be placed with gay couples.
It wants Holyrood to grant a "conscience clause" giving the church and other faith-based groups the right to reject applicants to their adoption agencies on the basis of gender.
Senior bishops fear Catholic-run adoption societies will be challenged under new laws expected to come into force next year and talks have been held privately with the Scottish executive in an attempt to reach a compromise.
The proposal has angered adoption groups and gay rights campaigners, who claim that same-sex couples can provide a stable and loving environment for abused children.
As for the morning after pill, The Boston Globe reports:
The state board that oversees pharmacies in Massachusetts ruled this week that Wal-Marts there must stock the so-called "morning after pill." Illinois Wal-Marts also carry emergency contraception because state law requires it, but Wal-Marts in other states do not.
Elsewhere, the Baptist Press reports that "The American Center for Law and Justice is suing Walgreens after the company fired four pharmacists who refused to dispense the "morning-after" pill because of religious objections." The report continues:
ACLJ, one of the nation's leading public interest law firms, said that by firing the employees, Walgreens violated the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act, which makes it illegal for any employer "to discriminate against any person in any manner ... because of such person's conscientious refusal ... to participate in any way in any form of health care services contrary to his or her conscience."
"It couldn't be any clearer," Francis Manion, senior counsel for ACLJ, said in a Jan. 27 news release. "In punishing these pharmacists for asserting a right protected by the Conscience Act, Walgreens broke the law."
Many pro-lifers consider the "morning-after" pill to be an abortifacient because it not only restricts ovulation in a woman but it can act after conception. The method can block implantation of a tiny embryo in the uterine wall, thereby causing an abortion, pro-lifers point out.
The BBC quotes Judy Waxman, of the National Women's Law Centre in Washington DC. comments: "There are many incidences of pharmacists not giving back the prescription so that the women can fill it somewhere else." The BBC report continues:
At a Brooks pharmacy in Laconia, New Hampshire, Suzanne Richards, a 21-year-old single mother with a 3-year-old son, was denied the morning after pill because of the pharmacist's religious convictions.
He told Richards he would not fill her prescription because "it would end the fertilisation process of the egg in the embryo" and, based upon his religious beliefs, it was wrong.
It was Saturday night in this rural town - all other pharmacies were closed, leaving Richards without an option.
Richards says she felt "humiliated and traumatised", and was too frightened to approach another pharmacist the next day, allowing the 72-hour limit for taking the pill to pass.
As a person who values rights of conscience and religious observance myself (and who recognizes that they are not identical), I sympathize with the scruples and feelings of Muslims, Catholics, and other pained by the cartoons, gay adoption, and abortion or artificial forms of contraception. But I do not believe that these scruples and feelings should be allowed to trump:
- the right of freedom of speech, which makes all other democratic rights meaningful;
- the right of gays and lesbians to equal treatment under the law in the public sphere (adoption is not a matter of internal Church practice); or
- the right of women to have access to legally-permitted medications.
Of course, one should be sensitive to the scruples and feelings of others. For example, recognizing that caricature often is central to political cartooning, we nevertheless can expect responsible cartoonists and publications to avoid the grotesque or gratuitously offensive (as well as defamation or incitement to unlawful conduct). But where fundamental rights come into conflict with civility and sensitivity, fundamental rights should be defended.
I also want to suggest that we particularly need to hold the line in defending publication of the Danish cartoons, not only because violence is not a justified response, but because, once the basic principle of the lexical priority of rights is breached, we are headed down a slippery slope that will sweep away other rights as well.