Let them eat bacon

Let’s imagine, a world in which the unimaginable has happened:

Scientists and doctors prove (beyond a shadow of a doubt) that bacon – real pork bacon, not turkey or tofu “bacon” – real bacon is healthy for us.  They reveal that not only is bacon healthy, but it actually prevents diseases, like cancer and heart disease and MS and MD and all manner of debilitating, fatal diseases that still plague our world despite the best efforts of medical technology.  So scientists and doctors go to great lengths to show us that eating a piece of bacon every day will prevent these diseases.  They create lively, dynamic commercials promoting bacon and its wonderful medicinal properties.  Independent researchers produce reams and reams of studies proving the medicinal effects of pork bacon.  Thus as demand for bacon rises, so too does the price.  Regular people struggle to afford their daily ration of bacon, prescribed by doctors.  So the government proposes a solution.  Instead of putting the burden of paying for pork bacon, with all its medicinal properties, on the people, place it on the organizations and companies for whom the people work.  A law is signed requiring all employers to provide employees with a daily ration of pork bacon.

Anyone see a problem with this “solution”?  What about the Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists for whom eating bacon violates their religious beliefs?  Can the government really force them to purchase a product which violates their right to the free exercise of religion?  So they petition the president, and point out the obvious flaw in his plan.  The president responds (essentially) by saying that no one is forcing individual Jews, Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists to actually consume pork bacon, they just have to purchase it if they do not primarily employee and serve people of the same faith.

Anyone see a problem with this response?  I think (hope) everyone would agree, even the most ardent bacon-lovers, that it is unreasonable to require an individual or organization to purchase a product which violates their religious beliefs.  No one walks into a kosher deli expecting to get a ham and cheese sandwich.  Nor does anyone feel that the kosher deli is in anyway violating their rights by not providing the full range of sandwich meats.  Why?  Because in the United States we believe in the free exercise of religion – that the state does not have the right to either promote or to regulate a particular religion.

And yet, that is exactly what President Obama is doing today.  Re-read by blog post, replacing “pork bacon” with “artificial contraceptives;” “Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists,” with “Catholics and other Christians who believe that life begins at conception”; and “diseases” with “pregnancy.”  Do you see the problem?

Whether you are a good Catholic or staunchly anti-Catholic, whether agree or disagree with the Catholic Church’s teaching on artificial contraception, you must be able to see that forcing an individual or a religious organization to purchase a product which violates their religious beliefs is inherently wrong and a violation of our constitutional rights.

So if you do agree that forcing people to buy products which violate their religious beliefs is unconstitutional then sign this petition: http://wh.gov/kl3

You didn’t really think this was a post about bacon did you?