Recently there has been a lot of talk in American politics about two issues: whether the government should require health insurance plans to cover birth control pills, and whether the United States should start a war with Iran. One of these issues has been framed in terms of "personal conscience" and the other has been described as in the "national interest." Guess which is which?
In a more sane America, we would not be talking about whether businesses have the right to deny health coverage specifically for employees who use birth control pills, because of their peculiar religious beliefs. Instead, providing reproductive health care services to all American women would be seen as in the national interest.
On the other hand, perhaps we would be discussing whether Americans have the right to opt out of paying taxes to support a war of choice that they believe, according to their own personal conscience, would be evil.
Let's be clear about something: Personal conscience -- and even religious conscience -- is not just about the preferred issues of conservatives such as abortion, birth control, and homosexuality. If conservatives want to open the personal conscience door and allow people and businesses to be exempt from following or supporting national laws or policies that conflict with their moral and religious beliefs, it stands to reason that large numbers of Americans should have the right to opt out of a very large segment of what the U.S. government is doing nowadays: the war machine.
Many Christians and people of other faiths believe war is usually -- perhaps always -- morally wrong. Quakers are pacifists by faith. Unitarian Universalists have stood in opposition to the aggressive wars of recent years and have a long, rich anti-war tradition. And there are other issues, too: Presbyterians have, as a denomination, divested from Israel because of that country's brutal treatment of the Palestinians.
Should people who follow such faith traditions be allowed a "personal conscience exemption" by the government from supporting anything the government does that conflicts with their pacifistic, humanistic, and egalitarian values?
I don't hear anyone in politics today talking about the rights of liberal religious people.
As a spiritual progressive, I'm getting awfully sick of the pervasive assumption in our national political discourse that (1) religious means conservative, and (2) the main issue that religious people care about is demanding that all sex be heterosexual, unprotected, and resulting in pregnancy.
In reality, this ultra-conservative, sexually repressed view of religion represents a boutique viewpoint that is not particularly common in the pews of America today. For example, even most Catholics believe the government should require employers to provide health insurance coverage that includes birth control. And an increasing number of mainline Christian denominations are embracing gay marriage, including the United Church of Christ, the largest Protestant denomination in the Northeast. Rick Santorum's beliefs notwithstanding, inclusive and open-minded people are part of the backbone of American Christianity and have been since the days of our country's founding.
Getting back to the Republican proposal for starting a war with Iran. I would like to hear some Democrats using Republican rhetoric about "personal conscience" and turning it around to promote the view that Americans should have the right to refuse to participate of contribute in any way toward aggressive wars of choice. Every dollar spent on a war with Iran -- if America launches one as Republicans are pushing for -- should be designated as such, and the percentage of the whole federal budget that this amount represents should be noted on all Americans' tax returns. Any American who, for reasons of personal conscience, believes that such a war is evil, should be able to check a box on their tax return to opt out of paying for it.
If such an option is not offered, then in all frankness, ultra-conservatives who want to allow businesses a special exemption to refuse to provide birth control coverage to women because of their religious beliefs, should shut the hell up and accept that there are some things the government mandates that Americans will grudgingly have to put up with and contribute to, even though it conflicts with their conscience.
We have something called a society, in which there is a government that decides what people are allowed or required to do. The government has decided that health insurance plans must cover women's reproductive health. Similarly, the government might decide to bomb Iran. Some religious conservatives might not like birth control, and many other Americans -- especially religious liberals -- might not like blowing up a country that has not attacked the United States.
If we're going to start talking in this country about which laws or policies each individual can choose not to follow because it violates their conscience, then it's about time the anti-war left started advocating that Americans of conscience can utterly and completely opt out of being required to provide any material support for a war with Iran.
Or, we could just go back to the tried-and-true idea that the democratically elected government makes the laws and everyone must follow them.
Your call, conservatives. But you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you don't want contraception for women, then I don't want bombs dropping on Iran. And if we're going to go down that road of a-la-carte government, then I have just as much a right as you have to demand an exemption from participating in or supporting something I consider to be evil.