Prescription for Disaster
Health Care and Civil Rights, Federalism and Declarationist Ideals
 

June 22 2005
Counterbias.com
Mel Seesholtz
  

When a judge rules based on the law and professional responsibilities rather than prescribed religious beliefs and personal prejudices, the Christian Right goes bananas. The “activist judge” mantra is followed by the usual hysterical calls to remove the offending jurist from the bench and the profession.

What about physicians whose medical decisions and professional responsibilities are governed by religious beliefs? Not the patient’s spiritual values or medical needs, but the health care provider’s personal religious beliefs.

For women in America today, that’s already the case.

A Republican representative from Florida, Dave Weldon, authored the language of an amendment attached to the end of section 509 in a funding bill President Bush signed into law. The details are from the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. The italics and links are mine:

On December 8, 2004, President Bush signed into law the FY [fiscal year] 2005 Consolidated Appropriations Act into law (HR 4818), which includes the FY 2005 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor-HHS) spending bill. The bill, which wrapped the nine remaining appropriations bills for FY 2005 into one catch-all bill (including the Labor-HHS-Education spending measure, includes modest $10 million increases for Title X of the Public Health Service Act (Title X) - the national family planning program - well as a significant $30 million boost for dubious abstinence-only-until-marriage education programs. In addition, the Labor-HHS section of the bill contains a sweeping new federal “refusal clause” which goes well beyond normal “conscience clause” protections. The new language … could have a dramatic impact on access to reproductive health care information and services.

So, if your physician or health care provider has a personal religious objection to the OB/GYN procedure you want or need, you’re not going to get it. And if your physician gives you a script for birth control or the “morning after” pill, the pharmacist can refuse to fill the prescription.

To how many professions and professional responsibilities shall we apply this model?

To a policeman or a teacher or a social worker or an IRS auditor whose personal religious beliefs agree with those of Pat Robertson, who argued Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Methodists are “the spirit of the Antichrist” (The 700 Club, January 14, 1991), or Jerry Falwell, who told a pastors’ conference in Kingsport, Tennessee in January 1999 that the Antichrist is alive today and “of course he’ll be Jewish”?

To a policeman or a teacher or a social worker or an IRS auditor whose personal religious beliefs condemn gay people as evil purveyors of sin and corruption?

Theocratic thinking has no place in the professions, and professionalism has no place in a theocracy.

Nevertheless, the Constitutional Restoration Act would establish the legal basis for an American theocracy:

Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Supreme Court shall not have jurisdiction to review, by appeal, writ of certiorari, or otherwise, any matter to the extent that relief is sought against an element of Federal, State, or local government, or against an officer of Federal, State, or local government (whether or not acting in official personal capacity), by reason of that element's or officer's acknowledgement of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government. (italics mine)

In this theocracy, all litigants (professional and otherwise) would have to do is claim their cause stems from “God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government,” and the Supreme Court could not touch the case.

Ah, but what about Congress and federal courts intervening to protect individual and civil rights? Those potential “threats” are being addressed by faith-based Republican legislators (and appointed-for-life federal judges like William Pryor) as they push toward “federalism.” The intent is clearly stated at the beginning of the Constitutional Restoration Act: “A Bill To limit the jurisdiction of Federal courts in certain cases and promote federalism.”

The “federalism” movement seeks to limit the authority of Congress to enact laws protecting individual and other civil rights, and to limit the authority of federal courts to protect individual and other civil rights.

Put simply, if the Constitutional Restoration Act passes and a jurisdiction decides homosexuality is a “crime against God” and begins denying homosexuals basic rights, there would be virtually nothing Congress or the Supreme Court could do. As for lower federal courts, they are already under attack by devious theocrats:

During consideration of an appropriations bill for the Departments of State, Justice and Commerce, Representative John Hostettler, Republican of Indiana, introduced an amendment to prohibit any funds from being used to enforce Russelburg v. Gibson County. In that case, a federal court ruled that a courthouse Ten Commandments display violated the First Amendment and had to be removed. Mr. Hostettler declared that the ruling was unconstitutional, and inconsistent with "the Christian heritage of the United States."

The American theocracy. The “that could never really happen here” mentality is outdated. It’s already happening here.

On June 19, 2005, the New York Times ran an extensive story about why those former average citizens, now political activists heavily involved in the fight against equal civil rights for gay Americans are doing what they’re doing. Without exception, their reasons were theocratic. And they have the backing of the “Arlington Group” and its members, as well as the faith-based politicians they control.

What’s the Arlington Group? It’s the star chamber of the theocratic Christian Right. Here’s a charter member’s somewhat lengthy description. It proudly and significantly appeared on the “Renew America” web site.

What’s Renew America?

“RenewAmerica is a grassroots organization that supports the ‘Declarationist’ ideals of Alan Keyes.” The first three principles of Keyes’ “Declarationist ideals” encapsulate the others:

All men are CREATED equal. Hence they have equal natural rights as a gift of the CREATOR.

 

Our duty to seek and follow the will of the Creator is prior to all government. Accordingly, so is the liberty of religious conscience.

 

The authority of the Creator as prior to all civil society and human authority must be respected for liberty to endure.

Note the not so subtle “All men are created equal.” Whatever their sexual orientation, women are not “equal.” But they have company. Mr. Keyes’ “all men” also excludes gay men who, in his declarationist view, are definitely not “equal” citizens either.

In his 1996 presidential campaign Mr. Keyes said, “If we accept the homosexual agenda, which seeks recognition for homosexual marriages, we will be destroying the integrity of the marriage-based family.” In his 2000 run, Keyes said that granting gay Americans the right to a civil union meant “you’ve legitimized pedophilia.” And in his disastrous campaign for the senate in 2004, Keyes said that homosexuality is “selfish hedonism.” When asked if he considered Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, a “selfish hedonist” Keyes replied, “Of course she is. That goes by definition. Of course she is.”

Mr. Keyes’ daughter, Maya Marcel-Keyes, is an “out” lesbian.

Mr. Keyes’ views on abortion are typically theocratic: “I will do everything in my power to overthrow Roe vs. Wade and get us back where we belong in the acknowledgment of God.”

But his views on birth control are theocratic “thinking” at its most dangerous. They also package women’s rights and gay rights into “a thing” to be fought against ad majorem gloriam Dei.

The title of a May 14, 2005 article written by “RenewAmerica staff” and posted on their web site made the point: “Keyes: abortion and same-sex marriage are logical outgrowths of 'contraception mentality. At issue is the divinely-appointed role of sexual relations.” The italics are all theirs.

What’s really at issue is whether Americans want to become like those formerly ruled by the Taliban.
 

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