It's always amazing to observe how people so easily attribute their particular wants and needs to an imaginary skygod.The Christian right is up in arms over a recent ruling by the California Supreme Court that "barred doctors from invoking their religious beliefs as a reason to deny treatment to gays and lesbians." Christian News Wire, for example, claims that physicians' constitutional right of "religious liberty" of physicians has been abrogated.
This is the case about which we wrote several weeks ago, which involved one Guadalupe Benitez, a lesbian, who was denied insemination by Christian doctors because of her sexual orientation.
To put it in perspective: Physicians, who claim to be of the Christian faith, on the basis of some ancient, obscure writings -- time, place and authorship unknown -- determined that their god in heaven would be angry at them if they artificially inseminated a lesbian woman.
But now the State of California has told the docctors, "You can't do that because we have laws against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."
The Christian right disagrees - vehemently - citing the guarantee of religious freedom in the Constitution.
Let's turn it around: A Christian woman, unable to conceive, goes to a fertility clinic for consultation, evaluation and artificial insemination. The doctors find that there are no mitigating factors but refuse to inseminate her because of their religion. They are members of the New Earth cult which is hostile to Christians because, written on a tree in a forest many years ago (the tree is now lost), was a message proclaiming Christians to be an abomination to the New Earth goddess.
What would be the reaction of the Christian right in that instance? Would the wingnuts argue that the New Earth doctors should be allowed to discriminate against Christians?
1 comment:
How far can they carry their belief that they should be able to deny services? Could a policeman refuse to help someone until he determines if he shares the same belief? How about a fireman, an ambulance driver, the pharmacist, the soldier, etc.? If it involved a mortgage, it would be called red lining and a crime. How about land use. I live in a huge development filled with a very large number of religious clubs but only a handful of Jews. The developer and management are Jewish. Should we have to pass some kind of test before he allows us to live here? What if the all businesses had the right to refuse services to any that they disagreed with? Where does it end? If we want a few examples, we could look at Iraq. In 1950 it forced its Jewish population to leave. Since the recent invasion of Iraq, the Christian minority has been killed in large numbers, particularly the males. Soon there will be only Muslims left and they can kill each other as they do not agree on a few basics of Islam. The same thing happened in Bethlehem on the west bank. It used to be a Christian city, with a Christian mayor and administration. It has lost over 60% of its Christians and is run by Muslims determined to get rid of their Christian neighbors. As I asked before, where does it end?
Bob Poris
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