An American piece on the recent official tendency to substitute "freedom of worship" for "freedom of religion" - i.e. religious believers are to have the right to believe and to worship, but not to express/implement their views where these clash with state policy. This is not a million miles removed from Eamonn Gilmour's recent pronouncement of separation of church and state, which defined this as meaning not only that churches as institutions should not interfere in politics, but that religious believers as individuals must not allow their religious beliefs to influence their actions as citizens.
www.irishcatholic.ie/content/tanaiste%E2%80%99s-confused-thinking-church-and-stateEXTRACT
...Two weekends ago, our Tanaiste delivered a major speech at the Tom Johnson Summer School. What was flagged by the media, and by the Tanaiste himself, was his short-sighted support for same-sex marriage.
What was overlooked was what he had to say about the public role of religion more generally.
He was anxious to distance himself from the notion that Labour is aggressively secular and certainly his language was far removed from the hyper-aggressive anti-religious language used by the likes of a Richard Dawkins.
Nonetheless, our Tanaiste believes in a very pared-down role for religion in society, one that essentially reduces freedom of religion to freedom of worship.
He appears to think that so long as you can go to your church or temple or mosque to pray and can do the same at home, then you have freedom of religion.
But once religious people seek to influence public policy and the law with their beliefs and values, then it is deemed an unacceptable breach of the principle of Church/State separation.
Thus, Mr Gilmore said in his speech that we must “reassess the interconnectedness of the views of one Church, with the laws of the country”.
He gave several examples of this supposed interconnectedness, including the constitutional definition of marriage, children’s rights (and the alleged lack thereof) and stem cell research.
He also mentioned the role of the Church in education.
With respect to our schools, it is clear he wants the Catholic Church to be involved in fewer schools. (So does everyone, including the bishops)
But what happens to the remaining schools? The education forum he mentions so approvingly has set out unacceptable conditions on how religion must be taught in denominational schools, conditions that would severely curb genuine religious freedom. Mr Gilmore did not address himself to this aspect of the topic at all.
But what is apparent from his other remarks is that he believes Church/State separation is violated if a trace of religious influence can be found in any of our laws.
Therefore, he thinks we will only truly have Church/State separation if we change the definition of marriage, pass a children’s rights referendum, and permit embryonic stem cells research.
But he profoundly misunderstands the concept of Church/State separation. The first country ever to separate the two in the modern sense was the United States of America and it did so for the protection of religion first and foremost.
Many of those who fled to America had left behind countries where they had to belong to one or another religion or face sanction from the State. The US ended that. You were now free to join any religion.
But it certainly didn’t stop American politicians including the founders of the United States itself, or Abraham Lincoln, or leading public figures such as Martin Luther King from being very explicit about the theological underpinnings of their political beliefs.
In a free society everyone must be allowed to bring their beliefs to bear on public policy and everyone must have an equal right to persuade their fellow citizens of the rightness and wisdom of their beliefs.
Therefore, if a religious person can persuade a non-religious citizen (or vice versa) of the good sense of their view of marriage and this view then becomes enshrined in law, so be it. That is democracy.
It is fundamentally undemocratic and an attack on religious freedom to tell religious citizens only that they are not allowed to bring their particular values and beliefs into the public arena with them.
So long as religious people can rationally defend their beliefs they must enjoy the same rights as anyone else.
The present definition of marriage, the proper relationship between children, parents and the State (in the context of the debate on children’s rights), the right of religious parents to send their children to religious schools, and the unethical nature of embryonic stem cell research can all be defended without any explicit mention of religion at all if need be. But if religion is brought into it, what of it?
What Mr Gilmore is seeking to do is short-circuit the debate about all those issues by telling religious believers they can’t even take part in the debates simply because they are religious believers, or because opposition to same-sex marriage can be grounded in religious reasons as well as non-religious ones.
Interestingly, however, when Fr Sean Healy bases his arguments for this or that socio-economic policy on both religious and non-religious grounds, Mr Gilmore never accuses him of violating Church/State separation. Is that because he tends to agree with him?
In other words, the Tanaiste is being highly selective in his use of his arguments. He uses tendentious arguments about ‘Church/State separation’ when it suits but not when it doesn’t.
At the end of the day, Mr Gilmore can’t even mean what he says. There is no way he wishes to separate morality from politics because he frames all his own politics in moral terms...
END
www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/07/freedom-of-worshiprsquos-assault-on-freedom-of-religionEXTRACT
...
Freedom of religion means the right to live according to one’s own faith, that is, to “manifest” our religion or belief in practice, both “in public or private,” without interference from the state.
These days, that and $2 will buy you a small cup of Starbucks’ coffee. Strident secularism is on the march and freedom of religion is the target, with secularist warriors attempting to drive religious practice behind closed doors by redefining religious liberty down to a hyper-restricted, “freedom of worship.”
What’s the difference? Under freedom of worship, the Catholic and Orthodox churches both remain perfectly free to teach that the Eucharistic bread and wine transform into the body and blood of Christ. Muslims can continue to require women to be segregated from men at the mosque. But outside worship contexts, the state may compel the faithful to violate their faith by acting in accord with secular morality rather than consistently with their dogmatic precepts.
These assaults on religious practice are becoming increasingly commonplace. For example, a German trial judge recently outlawed the circumcision of children on the basis that the “fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the fundamental rights of the parents”, to carry out their religious beliefs.
Circumcision is controversial today, but redefining the rite into “mutilation” or “child abuse” is blatant secular imperialism. For millennia, faith adherents have believed that circumcision is done for boys (rather than to them). Indeed, prohibiting the rite deprives male children of these faiths a religious benefit to which they are entitled while dispossessing them of a core aspect of their personal identity.
Jewish and Muslim religious practice is also under assault in the Netherlands, where a new law may outlaw methods of animal slaughter that comply with the obligations of kosher and halal. Religious liberty? What’s that? The atheist bioethicist Peter Singer sniffed that Jews and Muslims who don’t like the ban should just become vegetarians, writing that since the ban would not prohibit worship practices, no freedoms are being infringed.
We see the same freedom of worship assault against freedom of religion in President Obama’s “Free Birth Control Rule.” The Affordable Care Act now requires that most employers provide their workers with free contraception, sterilization, and other reproductive services. True, the rule exempted religious employers that oppose contraception, but the shield was drafted so narrowly that—surprise, surprise—it only protects freedom of worship. Specifically, to qualify for a religious exemption:
1. The “inculcation of religious values” must be the employer’s “purpose” for existing;
2. The employer must “primarily” employ “persons who share its religious tenets.”
3. The employer must “primarily” serve “persons who share its religious tenets.”
Lest there be any doubt, the rule further states, “Specifically, the Departments seek to provide for a religious accommodation that respects the unique relationship between a house of worship and its employees in ministerial positions.” Thus, the group health insurance covering nuns in a Catholic religious order would probably not have to cover contraception. But insurance provided by the order’s elementary school employees, probably would.
Religious liberty is also under assault from efforts to eviscerate the right of medical conscience. Victoria, Australia, for example, legally compels every doctor to participate in abortion—even if morally or religiously opposed—either by doing the deed when asked, or referring the pregnant patient to a doctor they know supports abortion. The Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) recently promulgated a similar ethical rule requiring all Dutch doctors to kill, or if opposed on religious or moral grounds, refer when legally qualified patients ask to be euthanized. In other words, the affected doctors are free to believe that participating in abortion and euthanasia are egregious sins; they just can’t legally or ethically escape so sinning and remain in practice.
At this point in the discussion, opponents of freedom of religion may bring up the Aztecs, arguing that a robust view of religious liberty would require allowing children to be sacrificed to pagan gods. Not so. Even fundamental liberties are not absolute. The law properly prohibits religious practice when there is a compelling government interest. For example, the state can force a Jehovah’s Witness child to be given life-saving blood transfusions even though doing so violates Witness dogma.
Here's the bottom line. If the freedom of worship assault against freedom of religion succeeds, creed-motivated philanthropic and service organizations such as the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, and religiously sponsored schools, hospitals, nursing homes, pregnancy counseling centers, etc., will be forced to choose between acting contrary to their faith and closing their doors. That would not only make our society far less free, but would materially harm the millions of men, women, and children whose lives are immeasurably benefited by faithful people practicing their religion in the public square.
END
Note the atheist bigots who pop up in the combox to this article to argue - or rather assert - that French-style laicite is indeed the ideal which all societies should adopt