chikenwing
Guest
- Feb 18, 2010
- 7,387
- 837
- 190
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:
"In this country the government doesn't get to tell you or your organization what your religious views are and they could well be minority views but the Bill of Rights is designed to protect the minority from the will of the majority," McConnell said on CBS's "Face the Nation."Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the majority decision in Employment Division v. Smith:
We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate. On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition.Furthermore,
When followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes which are binding on others in that activity.In other words, if they want to be members of American society, the Catholic bishops have to live by the rules of American society.
You misinterpret Scalia's words.
When followers of a particular sect [let us say for example, members of the Roman Catholic Religion] enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, [let us say opening a hospital] the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith [for example, the decision NOT to permit abortions to be performed in their hospitals] are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes which are binding on others in that activity [i.e., they may not demand that other hospitals should also refuse to provide abortions].
That makes no sense at all. Catholic Bishops can demand all day long, and the clinic or hospital performing abortions can tell them, in the now famous words of Dick Cheney, to go fuck themselves. Abortion is settled law, simply read the transcript of Chief Justice Roberts confirmation hearing.
Of course as most of us know bishops are never straightforward, they always play the angles.
Sure it does,clear as water,The church can't be told what to do in their church,or hospital,but they in turn can't tell someone else in their church or hospital to do as they do,both side are protected,its very clear.