Religious Freedom? Really?

I confess it. I have gotten exercised about the whole issue about what should be provided in women's health insurance. I have Taken The Bait.

Here's how I look at it. Try to follow along.

First, a completely imaginary case:

You're an election judge. Your job is to provide ballots to people who come to vote. But now something occurs to you, in a flash of overwhelming righteousness: Women who do not cover their heads in public are shameful beings. When women with uncovered heads come to the polls to vote, you do not acknowledge their existence. Certainly you do not give them a ballot.

News flash: I have it in for you. You have taken a job and then decided that the job is unworthy of you. You will not besmirch yourself by doing what the job requires. I demand you either find someone–an election clerk, perhaps–who can handle the work that is beneath you, or you get out of the election judge business.

Now to reality:

You are a church. But you have chosen to get into non-churchy things, such as health care. And now you have decided that a part of health care–providing women with contraceptive services–will diminish your unfathomable holiness.

My stern advice: Find a way to accommodate these women, or get out of health care.

If you have taken a job, and then decided you are too noble to do the job, but will not give up the job: To hell with you. The fist of your religious freedom is smashing my face.

No rabbi or imam or bishop gets to decide what health care women should get. (Women or anyone else, for that matter.) Not in my America.