Opinion | The role of faith in health-care delivery | Seattle Times Newspaper

Opinion | The role of faith in health-care delivery | Seattle Times Newspaper:

As the Catholic Church has been widening its influence and reach in American health care, it also has been flexing its muscles in health-care policy. Recently, it asserted that it should not have to provide contraception coverage to employees at church-run hospitals or universities around the country even when those employees are not Catholic, and when a large share of their salaries are paid for by tax dollars that flow through broad-based medical programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Moving beyond health care, the Catholic Church is also asserting its influence in ways that seek to expand religious-freedom protections to include the freedom to take broad-based taxpayer money and then spend that money in a manner that discriminates against Americans who don't accept Catholic theology.

In Illinois, for example, the church recently asserted that its First Amendment right to freedom of religion is being compromised when its own discriminatory policies against gays make it ineligible for government contracts to find adoptive homes for children in need among well-qualified families, gay or straight.

In making these claims, the Catholic Church is seeking to transform a right that is vitally important — the freedom of people to decide for themselves which religion to follow without government interference or sponsorship — into a right for government support and funding for theology-based program implementation.

It's one thing to say that because you're using private funds, you don't have to provide services that violate religious conscience. It's another to accept public money in a market situation where "customers" don't have free choice, and make that same assertion.

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