Mark Davis: Obama’s heavy-handed edicts

Mark Davis

Now that everyone has expended ample amounts of energy condemning or defending the Obama administration’s excursion into decision-making for Catholic employers, I am left with an abiding notion that many of the critics aimed their observations poorly.

I side with the critics, of course. The notion that government would dictate to any employer the manner in which it offers health insurance is an abrogation of basic liberty.

But the White House’s scolders have expressed a wish to create some special dispensation for religious employers, an umbrella of protection so that Catholic employers would be exempt from Obamacare’s heavy-handed edicts on the flavor of health care that must be offered.

This cannot work. While the Catholic objection to offering contraception in health care plans stems from steadfast principle, so might some other employer’s objection to blood transfusions, X-rays or antibiotics. We cannot create a patchwork of employers who can assert immunity from various laws based on faith-based special exceptions.

But what of religious freedom? Such freedoms are routinely subjugated to the minimal necessary order of law. Certain religious dress is banned in the military. Full face covering is disallowed for driver’s license and passport pictures. The police may not adorn their uniforms with religious symbols.

Fixing this requires not a scalpel but a sledgehammer. The harsh fact is that when government runs health care, it gets to tell all employers what to include in it.

The solution is not to seek an escape clause for this church or that, creating a nightmare of precedents and jockeying for exceptions. The solution is to realize that it is an abomination for government to involve itself in these matters in the first place. Those wanting freedom for Catholic decision-making should have thought better about supporting a president for whom religious liberties are obstacles to be obliterated on the way to the authoritarian Utopia of his dreams.

I had to wrinkle a brow at the Catholic bishops who seemed so stung and surprised that this White House would do this. What precisely did they expect? Maybe their years of defining Christian kindness through the lens of government largesse has blurred their clarity on what you get when the left grabs the reins.

That wall of separation between church and state — the one liberals will pantingly point to if it means chasing religious imagery from public view — is forgotten if a church hinders government’s ability to replace free markets with state-defined benevolence.

Defending against this requires more than a piecemeal of little force fields to protect us on a case-by-case basis. It requires devotion to the core value of liberty, with strong lines defining what is and is not government’s business.

But such boldness requires clarity. Catholic military chaplains were restrained from reading a letter from bishops opposing the contraception cram-down. Again, the suggestion was made that they needed some specific protection from such an order.

Just one problem: The order was wholly lawful. Of course a commander-in-chief can edit military clergy. They are soldiers first. What would we think of a military pastor who suddenly felt the call to instruct his flock to lay down their arms? We cannot pick some sermons for immunity from the chain of command.

What we need protection from is a president who tramples the beliefs of an entire church on a whim. When the White House agenda respects the faith and free choice of employers and individuals, we will no longer have to worry about muzzling military clergy, because we will no longer be worried about government forcing its choices against the proper will of citizens.

Mark Davis is heard weekdays from 8:30 to 11 a.m. on WBAP News/Talk (820 AM and 96.7 FM). His email address is mdavis@wbap.com.