Freedom and Regulation     

 

 

 

 

 

By Harry T. Cook 

4/26/13

 

Harry T. Cook
Harry T. Cook

Along my walking routes, I encounter on two or three properties lawn signs that read: SUPPORT RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. As a long-time civil libertarian and member of the American Civil Liberties Union, I am a natural supporter of religious freedom.

 

I understand the First Amendment to include an out-and-out prohibition of any constitutional or statutory establishment of any religious institution or movement. The flip side is that government cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion. Law flowing from the First Amendment makes clear that "free exercise" may not include trespass upon public safety concerns or personal freedom. In my view, the unwanted presence at the front door by Jehovah's Witness canvassers comes close to trespass.

 

Though the principle is not explicitly stated, I have long thought that the First Amendment was meant to guarantee freedom from religion as well as of religion -- meaning that residents and citizens of the United States are free to take religion or leave it.

 

Upon examining those lawn signs more closely, I found that their call for the support of religious freedom means opposing the Affordable Care Act's mandate that health care givers provide women with contraceptives upon request and certainly such contraceptives prescribed for them by physicians. The Roman Catholic hierarchy pushed back because it wants the "religious freedom" to deny women contraceptives on the grounds that contraception is, according to its teaching, a grave evil.

 

Likewise, the legislature in my state (Michigan) is on the cusp of enacting a statute that would make it permissible -- and maybe even heroic by some lights -- for a physician to refuse treatment or a pharmacist to fill a prescription, both on religious grounds. This is the same legislature that just two years ago abolished the regulation requiring motorcyclists to wear to protective helmets, thus ushering in a new crop of closed-head injuries and the heavy costs associated with their treatment, which eventually trickle down to the debit column of the public checkbook.

 

This is where freedom and regulation meet. Industry, for example, tends to resist government regulation -- even as certain health and safety regulations, had they been put in place and enforced, might have spared the people of West, Texas, from the near annihilation of their city.

 

Cloaking its pusillanimous inaction in a twisted interpretation of the Second Amendment, the U.S. Senate last week could not muster sufficient votes to put in place laws that would require background checks on those seeking to purchase firearms. That is one regulation 90% of Americans would welcome. Someone will eventually ask how the Tsarnaev brothers were able to amass their arsenal.

 

Both resistance to regulation and demands for it, both often enough urged by religious leaders, are seen in our time to be almost patriotic. It was not so long ago that young men who resisted the draft on religious grounds were derided as traitors, while those who oppose the tightening of regulations on reproductive rights are called baby killers. What's changed?

 

Are "We the People" at the edge of turning our country into a religious republic, � la Iran, where Koran-based mandates and prohibitions abound in ways not so dissimilar to prohibitions many American legislatures and some religious leaders wish to place upon the reproductive rights of women at the same time as regulations limiting the owning and carrying of guns are scorned as un-American?

 

"Religion" is a much used and abused term. Religare is the Latin term. And it means restraint or, well, regulation, and implies that the restraint is self-imposed. Outside the Quaker community, I don't know of any organized religion that has ever been known for its restraint, with the possible exception of some Mennonite and Amish groups.

 

Religion is often associated with overt piety. A religious person goes to church or synagogue or mosque, follows the rules, believes what is required and doesn't rock any boats in the process. As we have seen, though, "religion" has fundamentally to do with restraint. A careful parsing of the First Amendment suggests that our Founding Parents seemed to have understood the concept.

 

Thomas Jefferson in 1802 composed a letter to the Baptist synod of Danbury, Conn., which had inquired of him if freedom of religion had been granted by the Constitution or simply recognized as an a priori principle in its text. Jefferson replied: "Religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God" -- continuing in the course of the letter to coin the phrase "separation of church and state." Jefferson concluded by saying that one "has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."

 

In that statement, I think, is the ground on which religious freedom and necessary regulation meet. In a nation founded on Enlightenment understandings and values, it is important to regulate those things that can be used to do unwarranted harm to people, e.g. guns. Likewise, it is important not so much to grant but to recognize certain natural rights of people, e.g. to control their own bodies as in women's reproductive freedom.

 

Above all, in such a nation, it is important to hold religion at bay in such constitutional determinations, especially if a given religion fails to understand what religare means.

 


� Copyright 2013, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit. 


Readers Write 

re essay of 4/19/13 Boston in a Larger Context                  

 

 

 

 

Pat Wilhelm, Boca Raton, FL:  
Your essay this morning ranks right up there with President Obama's moving words at the Boston service yesterday. You and he have the gift of verbal inspiration that Winston Churchill had. When things were bleakest, Churchill made them endurable by what he said. Thank you for your essay today. I read it as I was watching the news conference announcing that one of the bombing suspects had been killed. God have mercy.
 
Billie Ragland, Ferndale, MI:
I
'm glad you wrote this but I'm afraid most people really don't understand the gravity of our interconnectedness. I work with families living in poverty whose children are at risk of abuse or neglect. My job is to help the families become functional so their children have a greater chance of being successful. My work is void of altruism. For me, it isn't about peace and love and we're all one human family. It's about me living in a safe, healthy community. I want those children to be successful because it behooves me. Every child who falls through the cracks is one less problem solver. We can't afford that. We've got big problems. We don't need to take care of each other because it's kind and good and the right thing to do. We need each other.

Nicholas S. Molinari, Brick, NJ:

Wayne La Pierre of the NRA has destroyed any hope for rational gun reform. He has successfully intimidated enough pusillanimous Senators who, out of fear and greed, are beholden to gun enthusiasts; although many gun enthusiasts support reasonable reforms. We are now into our next "fad" -- killing Americans with bombs. The NRA should open a subsidiary called "The National Bombers Association." La Pierre will win for the bombers of America the same unfettered access to homegrown weapons of mass destruction. He'll call it a natural corollary to the Second Amendment. No doubt, the Senate will go along with that too!

 
Randolph Harris, Ojai, CA:
Many moons ago I was a runner, though not of marathons. A friend sent me your essay today, and I took heart in knowing that someone like you apparently are could put those pieces together. Boston, Texas, homelessness and hunger. Yes, you are right. We're all in it together. We know it when we hear the bell.

David Templeton, Savannah, GA:  
If not the best essay you have written, today's comes right up there at the top! I can feel your pain because it is the same as mine. When will this madness end? Keep us focused on the pain of others that we may join them in their suffering.

Lisa Withrow, Delaware, OH:

Thank you [for "Boston In A Larger Context."] So helpful.


Tracey Martin, Southfield, MI:

Thanks [for today's essay]. A very timely reminder of our common vulnerabilities. Too often, relief rather than compassion ensues.
 
Suzanne Felcher, Boulder, CO:
What you wrote today should be etched in marble. It should be taught to children. John Donne's words were the exact ones to apply to the tragedy in Boston. We are all touched by it, and that fact should make us want to come together. Thank you for reminding me and the rest of your readers (may they number in the hundreds of thousands!) of those touching lines from John Donne.

Cameron Lacy, Bellaire, MI:  
Your essay brought a tear to my eye. Your own emotion was felt through your written word, which is a true talent. It was a most moving essay.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

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