Are sinners allowed to adopt?

1. The Catholic Church has long decried homosexual acts as sinful, and neither acknowledges nor condones homosexual marriages. 
2. They also oppose legal marriage rights for gay couples and seem particularly vehement in their opposition to adoption. 

I just feel the need to point out that 2 by no means follows from 1.

Making claims about what is and is not sinful is standard issue; the Church has been at that for a long time, and wont be stopping any time soon.  Furthermore, it seems clear to me that it is within the rights of the Church to refuse the sacrament of marriage, or any sacrament for that matter, to anyone for failing to meet certain theologically determined criteria.  I don't find the Church's position on the sinfulness of homosexuality terribly compelling, but I'm willing to let the ongoing deliberation and prayer of the Church to sort out which of us is in the right.

However, 2 has no bearing on any of those things.  Legal rights are inherently secular, and to the extent that they are above and beyond the protections espoused by the church, seem to me to be beyond reproach.  This is especially true given the Church's theological commitment to freedom of religion: there are faiths that permit or even laud gay marriage.  If the church is committed to true religious freedom, it is imperative that other faiths be permitted to operate with the same legal capacities and protections as the Catholic Church.

All of that, however, is sideshow stuff compared to the Church's scandalous position on adoption by gays.  The Church has no massive public campaign objecting to adoption by remarried couples; to my knowledge it has no animosity at all to such adoptions.  But, from a Catholic theology perspective, such people are also publicly engaged in mortal sin.  For reasons that escape me, the Church has decided that it is more important to punish and restrict a particular class of sinners than it is to provide loving homes to orphans. I find myself disgusted by my Mother Church's insistence that it prefers keeping children in foster care and orphanages to permitting them to be loved, raised, and cared for by a sinning couple.  If any fellow Catholics have a thoughtful dissent to this sentiment, I'd love to hear it.

HHS contraceptive mandate debate: summarized

I just got asked for a summary of the HHS contraceptive mandate debate.  I've written quite a bit on the topic previously, but since the situation (and my understanding of it) evolved over time, I thought it would be worthwhile to pull together my previous posts and some final commentary.  It's worth noting that while the Obama Administration and USCCB seem committed to their final stances, the rules are open for public comment through June, and will only be finalized in August.

The mandate

As part of the Affordable Care Act, all health insurance plans are required to cover preventative care without co-pay, but the definition of such care was left to the executive branch.  On the recommendation of the National Academy of Sciences, the Obama Administration included birth control--in particular female birth control, like the pill--in preventative care.  This means that all insurers must cover contraceptives without co-pay. The full text of the most up-to-date proposal for the mandate can be found here: https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2012/03/21/2012-6689/certain-preventive-services-under-the-affordable-care-act

The objection

Catholic institutions objected on the grounds that contraception is against the teachings of the Catholic Church.  They felt it a breach of religious freedom that they were required to pay for products the primary use of which they considered to be immoral.  As the Obama Administration has responded to this objection the complaints have changed.  The most recent statements by the USCCB can be found here: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/conscience-protection/

The response

The administration, gradually, made the following adjustments/clarifications to address the conscientious objections:

1. The mandate only applies to non-Church organizations, such as Hospitals, Charities, and Schools.  Parishes and other institutions who primarily hire and serve Catholics (or people of other objecting faiths) are exempt.
2. Insurance organizations must not charge the insuring institution for additional contraceptive coverage.
3. For self-insured institutions (most large catholic organizations), the cost of the contraceptive coverage would be born in full by an external entity, rather than by the institution itself.
4. (A clarification) The cost of insurance plans with full contraceptive coverage is actually lower than the cost of insurance plans without full contraceptive coverage.

Some links to articles on the subject

The status of similar mandates already imposed by individual states.

A pretty up-to-date summary of the issues by a news source.

And another article

And some more coverage

Statement by the USCCB (Catholic Bishops)

The most up to date formal proposal (a difficult read)

My thoughts

Since no Catholic institution will have to pay for contraceptive coverage (free from insurers, and free from insurance managers for self-insured institutions), there is no violation of conscience.  Since US law recognizes rights of reproductive freedom and privacy, allowing institutions to inspect employees' sexual practices in the provisioning of healthcare (for instance to cover the pill for ovarian cyst treatment but not contraception) is arguably a violation of employee rights.  And since I conceive religious freedom as essentially individual rather than institutional and no individual is coerced by this law, I can find no valid religious-freedom argument against it.  The case is further undermined by the governments subsidy of health insurance: taking the government's subsidy means taking the strings attached too.  I do think that it might be reasonable to fine non-compliant institutions the exact amount of government subsidy as another means of exemption, but even that butts up against employee rights in an uncomfortable way.

My previous thoughts (in chronological order)

These kind of shift around as the situation and my view of it shifts, but the in series they follow all the important points of argument, and the comments often include useful insights or counter-arguments.

1. My initial take

2. Clarifications and a look at some more nuanced objections

3. Some commentary from a philosophy of government/legal perspective

4. A little summary of how things looked after the Obama administration made response 3 

Church & State

It seems like freedom of religion has been roiling about a bit more than usual in the national consciousness, so I thought I'd take a poke at what I think is important in this idea and what it means for good governance.  Basically, this is about a natural tension between the desire for people of faith to exercise their political will in accordance with their personal beliefs, and the need for government to permit, value and tolerate the beliefs of those outside the majority-faith.

Now, this is a real contradiction.  People of faith should certainly be allowed to vote for policies in keeping with their beliefs, but those who don't share those beliefs shouldn't be prevented from practicing appropriately because of those policies.  Tricky widget.

The tools that we bring to this challenge on behalf of people of faith are freedom of speech (& expression, & religion, & to assemble peaceably) and the idea of conscientious objection.  But, in a nod to diversity, we constrain these freedoms in both scope and context.  These constraints are the subject of much bickering--as they should be--so I kind of want to lay out the ones that I see and what I think of them.

1.  People of faith cannot justify impeding the safety or freedom of others by citing religious practice. 
 This principle allows limiting or outlawing animal sacrifice, curbing faith sanctioned abuse and murder, and applying the fire code to religious buildings. Creationists can't squash the teaching of evolutionary fact (though boy do they love to try).

2. Conscientious objection is legal only when it is demonstrably non-opportunistic, and only exempts the objector from direct participation in the objectionable act.
This is clearly the case in wartime, where pacifists a) still pay taxes that support the war effort and b) often end up as medics or otherwise indirectly involved participants in the conflict.

3. Public institutions, offices, and officers acting in their official capacities are severely constrained in their ability to proselytize, endorse particular religions, or adopt explicitly sectarian practices.  This seems primarily to be true of un-elected officials.
We're not always super successful at applying this rule, but it is certainly a general principal at work in our country.

Basically, I think that what's going on here is that we as a society recognize that the rights of others constrain our own rights, and observe a moral distinction between personal life and public service.

Some interesting general distinctions arise:

1. That the practice of faith can be properly limited to the personal, or limited to the community of the faithful.

2. That the right of the faithful to object is limited to the eschewing of direct action contrary to faith and the peaceful--read here as non-disruptive, as opposed to non-violent--protest of such actions (and of course the right to vote according to belief).

3. That the faith rights of individuals do not extend to the public institutions in which they serve, and the official capacities in which they act.  When acting on behalf of the public, they must respect the constitutional constraints of church and faith.

And just one more thing (still contraceptives)

The key question about whether Catholics are harmed by the contraceptive mandate is whether they are being asked to do something immoral.  I don't think they are.  The key questions about whether religious freedom is harmed by the contraceptive mandate are:
1. Is the mandate objectionable to some on the grounds of faith?
2. Is there a legitimate federal interest in overriding these objections (as in prohibitions on human sacrifice or (perhaps less legitimately) polygamy)?

It's clear that the answer to 1 is yes, but it's not clear that the answer to 2 is no.  The federal government heavily subsidizes employer provided healthcare, so one might reasonably think that if you take the subsidies you have to take the strings that come with them.  Furthermore, it seems possible that there's a legitimate federal interest in reducing healthcare costs, and perhaps even a right to reproductive freedom to be protected.  More below the fold.

Clarifications on contraception

The contraceptive arguments in the comments have been sort of muddied by terminology, and I think it's worth clearing some of it up in a new post.

Whose religious freedom is most validly conceived as being at risk?
The employer's.  If this impinged on the conscience of the employees, then Catholics would be obliged not to work for secular employers providing the objectionable coverage.  I have never heard anyone make that claim for the entirely natural reason that it is a crazy claim.  Furthermore, the mandate is upon employers, not employees.  It seems clear that that is the natural scope of the argument.

What sort of harm might be done to the employer?
Let's enumerate the ways in which the employer certainly will not be harmed (any of these harms would clearly be a severe violation of religious freedom):

1. They will not be obligated to purchase contraceptives. (They are obligated to provide employees with compensation usable for the purchase of contraceptives, which is not the same thing.)
2. They will not be obligated to provide contraceptives.
3. They will not be obligated to use contraceptives. (for completeness sake. It's hard to imagine a Catholic institution with a systematic need to use contraceptives professionally)

Here is a sort of harm that would not be introduced by the mandate, but might conceivably be an existing harm:

1. The funds of a Catholic institution might be used by a third party to purchase an objectionable service (true before and after the changes thanks to the broad utility of money and the inability of non-church Catholic institutions to to fire people for sinning)

I addressed the above in my last post and in the comments.  But since then I've had some conversations that brought up additional concerns.  Here are some conditions under which others have convinced me there might be potential for new harm:

1. The Catholic institution might be forced to enter into a contract for an objectionable service 
2. The Catholic institution might compensate a sinning employee more than his otherwise identical but non-sinning counterpart. This would be objectionable from both a direct standpoint, and also from the standpoint of systematically encouraging sinful acts.

I don't think either of these harms occur, but I do think it's worth considering the conditions that prevent these harms from occurring.

The first important clarification that needs to be made is the nature of the relationship between the employer, the health insurance, and the employee.  The employer provides the employee with a compensation package.  This compensation package includes direct monetary compensation, but also includes a variety of other things like access to a company car or other equipment, travel budgets, journal subscriptions, and health insurance.  Health insurance is a contract between an insurance company and the insured, in which the insured purchase access to a wide variety of services at the amortized cost of the likelihood of all service use over time over all people insured by the company.  The employer serves two important roles in this kind of compensation: as a negotiator, and as a source of funds.  The employer is in a much better negotiation position than an individual is, so it can get better prices, and it can make sure that the policy stays up to date by paying the cost of the service directly to the insurer instead of giving it to the employee as money and hoping that the employee remembers to pay the insurer.  

The point of all this is that the insurance company doesn't provide the employer with any services at all. The contract is between the insurer and the insured (quite explicitly, you have to sign a form and everything, it's your name on the policy &c).  This means that potential harm 1, about the Catholic institution being required to enter into a contract for objectionable services, is avoided. 

Potential harm 2 is a little trickier in this context, because it rests on some subtle distinctions.  The important one is the distinction between an item's value and cost.  The cost of the employer providing health insurance is the same for two equivalently risky people (and maybe for all people if the employer is a good enough negotiator).  That is the compensation provided by the employer.  The value of that compensation is subjective with respect to the employee.  A perfectly healthy employee might receive literally zero value from the employer health-insurance compensation, but that employee was none-the-less identically compensated.  A diabetic, a habitual drunk, a cancer patient, a recreational boxer or part-time thug might derive greater value from their health insurance compensation than the perfectly healthy employee, but they are likewise identically compensated.  If the value of compensation is the moral issue then Catholic employers already systematically over-compensated the habitually violent over the peaceful and healthy.  But it seems wrongheaded to claim that that's the case, so I think that we can safely put potential harm 2 aside.  The compensation of all employees remains the same, regardless of sinning status, but the value of the compensation varies systematically with respect to the sinfulness of the employee.  This is already the case (consider sexually transmitted diseases for instance) and so no new harm is done.  The already existing harm of the institution providing more value to more sinful employees seems to me to be of the same kind as the other pre-existing harm, and could only be remedied by the same mechanism (allowing Catholic institutions to fire people for sinning).

Incidentally, as I've mentioned before in comments, I think this whole issue is moot because the purchase of contraceptives is not in and of itself sinful.  The only sinful thing about contraceptives is using them to prevent pregnancy, an act for which culpability cannot be transferred.  More fundamentally, I don't think that it's possible to sin without doing something sinful.  Religious institutions are obligated to avoid doing sinful things, and to condemn sinful actions, and so long as they are allowed to do so no freedom is violated.

Injecting principled Reasoning into the Contraceptive Mandate Shouting Match

Recently, there has been a bunch of noise about Catholic Institutions being required to provide deductible-free access to contraceptives in the health insurance plans they provide their employees.  Angry diatribes and weirdly neutral negative opinion pieces have been written on the subject.  They are angry (or bizarrely bland), so it's understandable that they don't clearly understand what they're talking about.  Let me clear things up for everyone involved (that means you Catholic Bishops).

See the difference? Me neither.

The objections in this debate are essentially of the form "We object to you forcing us to recognize that the people we employ use the money we give them to buy contraceptives."  That is dumb.


Kinds of thing that would infringe on religious freedom:

1. Requiring Catholic hospitals to provide abortions
2. Requiring Catholic doctors to prescribe the pill
3. Requiring Catholic pharmacies (do these exist?) to sell the pill or condoms or what-have-you.

Kinds of thing that would NOT infringe on religious freedom:

1. Requiring that health insurance benefits provided by Catholic institutions include deductible-free access to contraceptives
2. Requiring that Catholic institutions pay their full-time employees (Note: 2 is equivalent to 1)

Reasoning in word form below the fold:

Why does the religious right hate the social safety net?

Okay, so here are the arguments I hear most often:

1. Wealth redistribution is "unjust"
2. Welfare, unemployment insurance, medicaid and other programs that help the needy introduce "moral hazard"
3. Charity shouldn't be "forced"

Right, now, I'm a Catholic and I don't have a whole lot of access to protestant theology but I hear they use a Bible that, while not exactly the same, bears a marked resemblance to mine.  Let's look at these arguments by the numbers.

Why we (Catholics) cant have nice things...

As a practicing Catholic I feel like it's my duty to point out when someone in the church says stuff that seems crazy and stupid.  Here's the latest example.

Basically, head exorcist says yoga is satanic and harry potter is the path to evil. I get that this guy basically worries about Satan's encroachments on a professional basis, so he's likely to be a little paranoid, but this is deadly crazy. 

First of all, if yoga were to lead to any religion at all (doubtful) it would lead to Hinduism, which is decidedly different from Satanism (as the Church clearly recognizes).

Secondly, and not to put too fine a point on it, the Harry Potter thing is totally crazy, and the argument about it is self contradictory. Exorcist man says that Harry Potter is bad because it might encourage people to seek out Satan to get magical powers, but he also says that Satan is all about keeping people from acknowledging his existence. Somehow HP does both, but that seems tricky since how you gonna ask daddy-devil for the accio when you ain't not believe he's there.

I'm sure this guys faith is sincere and all, but he really shouldn't be allowed to give interviews.