And you can’t claim that an organization which set up a facility under one set of criteria must continue to run it when the criteria are changed from the outside. They might decide to do so, they might not. It’s up to them. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or can ‘prove’ about children raised by gay adoptive or foster parents, or unmarried couples living together or providing abortion – each group can and should make its own decisions and live by them – barring actual physical assault, of course, which shouldn’t need to be said.

If you change the conditions under which an organization must operation, that organization can stop operating. It doesn’t even have to be a religious or voluntary organisation; any group in which the basis of their operation is changed underneath them can and will fight back or move on to something else. Any contract, written, or merely assumed on the grounds that they’ve been doing X for years, so they’ve got to keep on doing it, won’t hold when the basic conditions are changed, especially changed by force.

Using the law as a club to try to force the issue simply adds to the injustice of trying to force a group to change their moral code. Writing laws designed to support Group A’s view on sex or whatever and the expense of Group B doesn’t make anything morally right; it merely brings down the weight of the law on one side of the debate. Bully tactics, really, resorted to by people who can’t accept that not everyone agrees with them.

People who don’t like the services offered by the Roman Catholics have an option other than trying to bully the RCs into compliance with acts that are morally repugnant to them, or abandoning that part of their religion. They can organize and raise money and provide an alternative. They don’t need to change the laws to try to twist the RC facilities to their purpose; they can do what the RCs did all those years ago – they can raise the money and build their own facilities that provide the services that they consider morally essential. That would be far more appropriate than what’s happening now, but of course it would require the ability to recognise that even people they disagree with profoundly have the right to freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of speech – the real, basic rights. And it would take a LOT of work and money-raising. It did for the RCs and all the other religious groups who do and did such works of charity.

As for a Christian Christmas; well, there’s nothing but family and social pressures to prevent anyone from doing just what they want (Ha! Yes, I know, ‘just’!) But seriously, I’ve re-done my Christmas practices over the years to make them simpler and far more pleasant for me, without family hassles. Some of my friends and relatives probably think I’m an asocial Scrooge, but I can’t help that and it doesn’t worry me much.

I don’t know how many people do something similar. It used to quite common for people from large families to agree among themselves to limit the excessive gift-giving, but I don’t know how that’s playing out in the next generation, from smaller families.

The “public-private partnerships” so lauded in recent years are an impossible tangle here. Someone’s morality must prevail, and either taxpayer money is spent in accordance with someone’s religious principles or the religious impulse is undermined by government decrees. (Mind you, for these purposes I’d count modern American liberalism and Gaea-worship as religions.)

And now for the really bad news: the more you want government to “make a difference in people’s lives” the more of these conflicts you’re going to have. So it’s going to get a LOT worse before it gets any better at all.

If the people receiving it have other options–they can choose to go to another hospital (for a non-emergency abortion, say)–then the balance should tilt in favor of those providing the service (in this case, hospital care). As long as the provider is honest and up-front about what services they do and do not provide, and will refer patients elsewhere if necessary, it should be their choice about what they will do.

If there is no other choice–if this is an emergency, or the client is a child unable to choose for him/herself, or if there is no other shelter anywhere within reach–then the balance should tilt towards the patient/client’s best interests. An adult can usually determine what those interests are himself, assuming he are in possession of his mental faculties. For a child, the agency should rely on any concrete evidence available which will demonstrate what those best interests are–for example, studies of children in families with gay or lesbian parents. It seems to me that any provider who acts against the best interests of a patient/client who has no choice but to use that provider is abrogating their responsibilities.

And they do have responsibilities. They own the hospitals, the adoption agencies, the homeless shelters, & so on. They presumably started them on their own, provided the financial & human support necessary, and dealt with all the problems. So they have an important stake in what happens there. But the mere fact of their existence has probably affected the decisions of other groups–government, religious, whatever–when deciding where to put a *new* hospital, adoption agency, homeless shelter…Once you take on a responsibility, you can’t just throw it up again just like that. At the least, you have to arrange for someone else to take over that responsibility, as the church did in hiring a secular agency to handle the emergency rooms.

Now, if they are willing to do that, then it’s entirely their business.

1) There is a God

2) God has made rules for human behavior.

3) We have a duty to obey those rules.

What are such people to do if their society adopts laws which they consider violate the laws of God? Does keeping religion out of public life mean they shut up and ignore their own basic beliefs?

That is why the Bishop of St. Louis is threatening to close hospitals.

I’m sick to death of Christians ranting about the secularization of Christmas . . . while they string up miles of lights and engage in all the secular joys of Christmas. By all means, enjoy the festivities, but quitcherbitchin about something you do yourself. If we Christians had the courage of our convictions, we’d eschew trees, lights, gifts, cards, etc., and simply celebrate with the like-minded in our houses of worship. If Christmas is secular, we certainly contributed to it!

But you’re right about the insidious assault on the charitable institutions of our land which are associated with churches. The RC Bishop of St. Louis has made it plain that if abortions are required of all hospitals, the Catholic church will close all its hospitals in St. Louis. That’s courage of conviction. That’s what the secular world doesn’t understand. They would describe it as “unloving.”

The Bible does not constrain us to open soup kitchens, run hospitals, and fill homeless shelters. It certainly equates love of others close to love of God, but there is no moral obligation to do these things. As for the Great Commission, that is a vastly misunderstood Scriptural reference which has nothing to do with Christians running about spreading the Gospel. Rightly read in the original Greek, the main verbs are “teach” and “baptize”, both functions of ordained bishops. The so-called Great Commission was nothing more than the first ordination of bishops for the preaching of the Gospel.

We Christians are under no moral obligation to do anything. We do so out of love and gratitude for what our Lord has done for us. Nothing we do matters; “all our righteousness is as filthy rags.” It has all been done for us; there is nothing left for us to do.

Yet, out of a grateful heart, out of love for God, out of charity of spirit, we reach out to others. This the world doesn’t understand, if it’s not politically correct, if it doesn’t follow rules. And it remains to be seen if the religious community, in its assortment of denominations, will hold firmly to its core beliefs. From what I’ve been able to observe, I doubt it. It’s easier to whine about holiday trees and prayer in public schools and the Ten Commandments in courthouses than it is to stand on one’s moral and religious convictions in the face of opposition.

I’m thankful that I probably won’t live long enough to see this through; it won’t be pretty!

And to anyone reading this, my apologies. I’m not an intellectual person. So, if I tend to ramble, just consider the source.

Oh, well, as a form of persecution, it sure beats torture and execution.