There’s been a move in the Connecticut state legislature to meddle in the internal affairs of the Roman Catholic Church in a way that is grossly unconstitutional. Today, the bill in question, which would have mandated a specific form of governance for a particular religious denomination, was killed as needed. But the protests from Catholics about state interference in their church has provoked a snarky response from Americans United’s Sandhya Bathija:
Today, the Roman Catholic bishops sponsored a rally at the Connecticut Capitol building in support of church-state separation. They didn’t exactly bill it that way, but that’s what it was.
Considering this is the same church hierarchy that speaks so adamantly against same-sex marriage and reproductive rights — and believes that our country’s laws should reflect the church’s doctrines on these issues — a rally to support the church-state wall seems rather ironic.
But today it’s not about the church pushing its religious doctrine on the state. It’s about the state pushing its views on the church, and now the bishops would like everyone to remember and respect church-state separation![Emphasis added.]
The absurdity of the disapproval implicit in the highlighted remark is really astounding. Consider: Americans United never–ever–complains when a mainline Protestant denomination’s leaders or national assemblies take a stance on a political issue. Now, presumably those denominations are doing two things when they opine on, say, the minimum wage, climate change, or, yes, abortion and gay marriage. First, they are saying what they believe as a denomination. Second, they are advocating that the government (at whatever level) adopt their position as its own. In so doing, those denominations are exercising their First Amendment right to seek to persuade the public and its elected officials to agree with them. Nothing wrong with that at all, from a constitutional standpoint.
But when the Catholic church, through the voice of its bishops, make a similar effort to influence the political process based on its understanding of its faith, it is said to be “pushing its religious doctrine on the state,” which is the worst sin one can commit in the AU universe. This Orwellian position, redolent of double-think, is incomprehensible, except inasmuch as its reflects a willingness to ignore one’s constitutional principles for the sake of one’s political positions. Not that it’s news when AU does that, it just isn’t usually quite so blatant about it.
Bathija, after a detour, concludes:
State officials can — and often do — prosecute misuse of non-profit funds for personal gain. If Connecticut laws preventing this kind of fraud are inadequate, perhaps the legislature should tighten them up.
But that’s quite different from a gross governmental intervention into the internal structure of a church. The Constitution simply doesn’t permit that kind of entanglement between religion and government. Moves to reform churches must come from inside them, not from elected officials.
Said [Bridgeport] Bishop [William] Lori, “It is time for us to stop this unbridled use of governmental power. It is time for us to defend our First Amendment rights.”
We say amen to that, Bishop! Now, if only Lori could remember the First Amendment rights of those of us who do not want abortion and same-sex marriage laws to be decided based on church doctrine! That’s just as much of a church-state separation concern as this unconstitutional bill.
This needs some correction. What Bathija meant to say is that she wants “abortion and same-sex marriage laws to be decided on the basis of United Church of Christ doctrine,” rather than Catholic doctrine. Because that’s in fact what she supports. The idea that support for gay marriage and unlimited abortion is somehow a religion-free position, when one of the most prominent organizations advocating the latter, for instance, is the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, is nonsensical on its face. What Bathija really means is, the only religious leaders and organizations that have a right to impose their doctrine on the rest of us are those with whose politics AU agrees.
