In addition to religious organizations and their respective
affiliates being excluded from having to include contraceptives in employee
health-insurance, non-religious groups with a salient moral stance against the
use of the devices are also exempt—this according to a federal judge in the
United State. The moral stance need not be associated with any religion. By
implication, moral principles are distinct from religious doctrines. Even
though religions incorporate moral principles, the latter are based in another
domain. I contend that the interlarding of the non-native fauna can dilute and
even compromise a given religion, thus undercutting its viability.
On August 31, 2015, Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District
Court for the District of Columbia ruled that employers do not have to provide
medical-insurance coverage for contraceptives even though their objection is
moral rather than religious. More subtle than the expanded accommodation is the
decision’s demarcation of religion. By implication, religion may be
overstepping when it claims the moral domain.
In the case, March for Life, “a nonprofit, nonreligious
pro-life organization,” sued the government, “arguing that the government had
violated equal protection principles by treating [March for Life] differently
from ‘similarly situated employers.”[1]
At the time, the Affordable Care Act required most employers to provide free
contraception coverage—with exceptions for religious groups. March for Life
would not qualify as a non-religious organization; hence the suit.
In the ruling, Leon writes, “The characteristic that
warrants protection—an employment relationship based in part on a shared objection
to abortifacants—is altogether separate from theism. Stated differently, what
[the government] claims to be protecting is religious beliefs, when it actually
is protecting a moral philosophy about the sanctity of life.”[2]
In other words, an employer-organization need not be religious (e.g., theist)
to have a legitimate basis to object to contraceptives. Furthermore, the basis in moral philosophy is
really what the government was actually protecting
by the accommodation. By implication, religious organizations had gone too far
in claiming that their basis in opposing contraception is religious in nature;
the opposition to the use of contraceptives is a moral claim, which some theists
had adopted. To claim the issue as religious in nature—foundationally—involves
a failure to circumscribe religious issues to those that are based on a
religious basis.
To be sure, the Roman Catholic doctrine of humanae vita has a theistic component in
that preventing a human life means obstructing a soul made in God’s image.
Hence the doctrine is referred to as the sanctity of life. Yet to say human
life is sacred risks self-idolatry. In other words, if our lives are sacred,
then by implication we should worship them—our own and those of other people.
With such reasoning, moreover, religion as a domain could expand to take over
practically all others. To be anti-war, for example, can be reckoned as being
based on the sanctity of life. Such a trajectory leaves religion itself
vulnerable to transgressing on the “sovereignty” of other domains.
A controversial issue that is really moral in nature is easy
prey particularly for religions that have a salient moral component. Jainism,
for instance, emphasizes the moral principle of non-violence. Jain monks go as
far as sweeping in front of them so as not to step on gnats. The principle
involved is moral in nature—the religion having incorporated it. Put another
way, a person need not be a Jain (or even religious) to value non-violence.
Just because the principle is associated with several religions does not mean
that it is religious in nature. Treating such a principle as religious
increases the difficulty in discerning what aspects of a religion are
fundamentally and distinctively religious. By analogy, a person who spends more
time at neighbors telling them how they should care for their gardens and lawns
risks neglecting his or her own. Such a person might even have difficulty
mentally distinguishing his or her own property from those of nearby neighbors.
A religion too may have such entitlement to that which is not innately
religious.
As another example, the Abrahamic religions (Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam) incorporate moral principles in the Ten Commandments,
which Moses delivers to the Hebrews before they entered their land promised by
their god. In this case, moral principles are woven into the very fabric of the
religions, yet this does not mean that the principles are religious in nature.
Making explicit the civic function of the Ten Commandments, here they are on the grounds of the Texas capitol.
The moral principles against lying, adultery, and murder do
not depend on being ensconced in a religion. The Ten Commandments served not
only a religious purpose for the Hebrews, but also a civic one as well. In a
theocracy, even laws oriented to maintaining order in a society are presumed to
come from a divine source. This doesn’t mean that civic laws are in themselves religious in nature.
Rather, such a religion extends to incorporate another domain—like the presumptuous
homeowner who feels free to treat his or her neighbor’s land as if it were his
or her own.
Incorporating moral or civic “land” into a religion has a
serious downside in religious terms in that religionists may be tempted to
devote more attention to those areas (presumed to be intrinsically religious)
than to religious experience (e.g., worship) itself. Moreover, the phenomenon
of religion becomes diluted. Not only can religious people have trouble
identifying what is distinctly religious—that is, on religion’s native turf—the
religion itself can become bloated and even compromised as it expands beyond
its own domain.
Grabbing for everything—as if a religion were not valid unless
it is universal—can undermine the integrity, not to mention cohesiveness, of
the religion itself. Spending a lot of time telling neighbors how to clean up their property can result in overgrown grass and parched gardens at home. Religion would be much purer, with more
attention devoted to discerning its core religiousity and being “in” it, were religious
leaders and clergy motivated to stick to religion’s native fauna rather than engage
in empire-building. The desire to assume other domains may be from confusion
about the phenomenon of religion or simply a lack of interest in it. Indeed, the
habit of obfuscating the core of religiosity and other stuff—exogenous appurtenances
(try these words at dinner with friends!)—can dilute a person’s interest in a
religion because its native strength is being sapped or diluted.
[1]
Adam Liptak, “Judge Grants Moral Basis to Exempt Birth Control,” The New York Times, September 1, 2015.
[2]
Ibid.
