Big Dogs Weblog

Catholics Need Not Apply

by Big Dog on Jan 15, 2010 at 16:08 Political

Martha Coakley either does not want the job for which she is running or she is incredibly stupid and does not deserve it. I am betting on the latter rather than the former.

Coakley has had an ad out bashing Scott Brown and saying he voted to deny care to rape victims. This is not true. Brown included a conscience clause that says if a provider is opposed to certain treatment (morning after pill, abortion, etc) then that person does not have to provide that care. The person has to already have the status on file and the victim has to be offered the care from someone not opposed to giving it and at no additional cost.

Coakley was interviewed recently and she was caught by surprise with a question regarding the conscience clause.

Under the conscience clause, workers in health-care environments ranging from doctors to maintenance men can refuse to offer services, information, or advice to patients on issues like contraception, blood transfusions, etc..if the workers are morally against it.

This is how Martha Coakley handled a question about the conscience clause:

Ken Pittman: Right, if you are a Catholic, and believe what the Pope teaches that any form of birth control is a sin. ah you don’t want to do that.

Martha Coakley: No we have a separation of church and state Ken, lets be clear.

Ken Pittman: In the emergency room you still have your religious freedom.

Martha Coakley: (……uh, eh…um..) The law says that people are allowed to have that. You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room. [emphasis in original]

First of all there is no such thing as separation of church and state. The Constitution says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Secondly, a hospital or other health care facility is NOT the state (maybe it will be under Obamacare) so this is an inane point for her to make.

I wonder if Coakley is aware of the number of Catholic hospitals across this country or that Catholics established some of the earliest ones. Many nuns become nurses to take care of people. Are we to believe that they should not be allowed to work in an ER because of their beliefs?

I wonder if Muslims had an objection to seeing a woman who is not a wife naked would Coakley say they should not work in health care?

It is amazing that the Constitution states that no religious test shall ever be required for any office but Coakley believes that perhaps we should exclude those whose religion forbids certain practices from working in certain venues.

A commenter at the source made a good point. The person wrote something like did Coakley then go to what naturally follows? A Catholic should never vote for a Democrat…

If a religious conviction should keep people from doing certain jobs that have aspects which conflict with their religious views then certainly they should never vote for people whose views do that.

The Democrats are already looking at this as a defeat and are working on ways to shield Obama.

I read that nearly 40% of the people in Massachusetts are Catholic. I do not know what is going to happen but ticking off this large a segment of the population does not seem very smart.

Source:
Washington Times

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Tags: catholics, coakley, conscience clause, election, Massachusetts, scott brown