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Phillip Muñoz on Catholic Bishops, Religious Liberty, and Health Care Mandates

tonygill — Mon, 07 May 2012 08:00:11 +0000

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently released a document on religious liberty that criticized a new regulatory provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a., Obamacare) requiring employers to provide insurance coverage for contraceptions, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. Prof. Phillip Muñoz, the Tocqueville Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and an associate professor in the Notre Dame Law School, helps us wade through this controversy by explaining the bishops’ argument and how it relates to religious liberty. After briefly outlining the controversy, we take up the initial issue of religious liberty with Phillip discussing what it means to have a right to religious liberty and then outlining the Catholic position on religious freedom. We use the realm of educational policy to help frame the general theoretical and political issue, specifically pointing to the Wisconsin v Yoder Supreme Court case that challenged whether Amish citizens could exempt their children from mandatory schooling laws based on religious grounds. Cases of parents refusing to have their children vaccinated for theological reasons is also discussed, and we note the tension between trying to balance the public interest with the right to individual conscience. Following this general discussion, we return to the recent health care mandate, discussing the politics behind the new regulations and the Catholic bishops’ reaction. Prof. Muñoz notes how the Catholic Church’s response was not to ask for particular exemptions from these regulations for their institutions (including dioceses, hospitals, and universities), but rather to oppose the mandate on a more general ground. It is noted that it is not just Church-owned institutions that are affected, but these regulations can have an impact on secular business owners who may be Catholic and/or simply opposed to paying for the contraception and abortions of their employees. The reaction of the Obama administration, including the testimony of HHS Director Kathleen Sebelius, is considered. Phillip notes how the issue of religious freedom, or the desire to opt out of these policies on grounds of moral conscience, never really occured to the people drafting and implementing the regulations. Tony then asks Phillip about a tension he has noticed within Catholic social thought, between a tendency among bishops and other Church leaders to prefer a larger government-run welfare system and the Catholic principle of subsidiarity. That latter principle states that social problems should be handled at the lowest level possible, a philosophy akin to notions of federalism and a more laissez-faire political philosophy. We speculate about how this issue may affect the upcoming presidential election, and Tony asks Phillip how much sway the opinion and pronouncement of bishops has over Catholic voters. We finish our discussion by noting that the letter drafted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also contained concerns over violations of religious freedom in other areas of public policy, including the immigration issue. Here, the bishops appear to stand with the Obama administration in opposing recent laws in Alabama and elsewhere that make it difficult for the Catholic Church to minister to undocumented immigrants. We end the podcast with Phillip reading the prayer that the bishops used to close their pastoral letter, a salient reminder of how the secular and the sacred cross paths in the public square and the importance that freedom represents to a religious society. Recorded: May 2, 2012.

RELATED LINKS

Prof. Phillip Muñoz’s biography and website at Notre Dame.

God and the Founders: Madison, Washington, and Jefferson, by Vincent Phillip Muñoz.

“Catholic Bishops Take on Obama,” by Vincent Phillip Muñoz in The Weekly Standard.

“Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: A Statement on Religious Liberty,” by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty.

Wisconsin v Yoder Supreme Court Case (mentioned in podcast).

HHS Director Kathleen Sebelius testimony on contraception mandate and religious liberty, mentioned in the podcast (from GetReligion).

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Joe Fuiten on Clergy and Politics.

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Allen Hertzke on Religious Liberty.

Ken Wald on the Puzzling Politics of American Jews

tonygill — Mon, 23 May 2011 08:00:19 +0000

Ken Wald, professor of political science at the University of Florida, presents us with three puzzles about Jewish political behavior in the United States: 1) Why are American Jews significantly more liberal than non-Jews who have the same socio-economic characteristics?; 2) Why are American Jews more liberal than their Jewish counterparts in other nations such as Australia, Great Britain, and Israel?; and 3) What accounts for the rightward ideological drift among American Jews during the 1970s and early 1980s, only to show a return towards more liberal political preferences in the late 1980s to present? We examine some common explanations for the first question, but Prof. Wald notes that these answers are not satisfying for explaining the latter two questions. He then suggests a historically-rooted explanation focusing on the minority status of Jews combined with the unique church-state relationship that developed during America’s founding (something not present in other nations). Ken then discusses how changes in the Democratic Party during the early 1970s affected Jewish political opinion. The rise of the Christian Right during the 1980s stopped the rightward drift of Jews as they became concerned with alterations to the historical church-state relations that they had favored. We conclude with comparisons to other minority religious groups in the US such as Mormons and Catholics, and finish with a bit of speculation as to where Jewish political opinion may be heading in the coming decade. Recorded: May 4, 2011.

The Jean & Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies (at the University of Michigan).

Religion and Politics in the United States (6th edition), by Kenneth D. Wald and Allison Calhoun-Brown.

The Politics of Cultural Differnces: Social Change & Voter Mobilization Strategies in the Post-New Deal Period, by David C. Leege, Kenneth D. Wald, Brian S. Krueger, and Paul D. Mueller.

The Politics of Gay Rights, edited by Craig A. Rimmerman, Kenneth D. Wald, and Clyde Wilcox.

Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion, and Politics.

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Paul Froese on America’s Four Gods

tonygill — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 09:00:38 +0000

Prof. Paul Froese — associate professor of sociology at Baylor University and research fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion — discusses his critically-acclaimed book America’s Four Gods (co-authored with Chris Bader). Unlike many surveys of religion that simply ask if a person believes in God, these authors examine how different people conceptualize God and find four relatively distinct images that Americans have of God based upon two important dimensions — the level of engagment that people think God has with this world, and the extent they think God is judgmental of humanity. We cover the four principal images of God, including: Authoritative God (engaged and judgmental); Benevolent God (engaged, but less judgmental); Critical God (not engaged, but judgmental); and Distant God (not engaged and not judgmental). Paul details the socio-demographic and denominational characteristics associated with each of the four conceptualizations of God and discusses how different regions of the United States tend to favor different visions of God. We further talk about how these foundational images affect our beliefs in different areas of life including cultural issues such as abortion and adultery, the relationship between science and faith, support for social welfare policies, and how people view natural disasters and war. Your host took the authors’ online survey and reveals what those questions said about his image of God. Recorded: December 15, 2010.

RELATED LINKS

Prof. Paul Froese’s website at Baylor University.

The America’s Four Gods website (including the God test and Images of God).

America’s Four Gods: What We Say about God & What that Says about Us by Paul Froese and Chris Bader.

The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization by Paul Froese.

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David Brody on the 2010 Midterm Elections and Religious Journalism

tonygill — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 09:00:42 +0000

What role did religion play in the 2010 midterm US elections? While scholarly assessments of this question may take awhile to be published, we turn to David Brody, chief political correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), to get his perspective from inside the beltway. Mr. Brody — an Emmy Award-winning journalist and frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News — has interviewed a number of prominent politicians who played a role in the recent elections, including Barack Obama, John McCain, Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle. He shares his unique perspective on being a journalist for a religiously-affiliated news outlet regarding how the the 2008 and 2010 elections played out and what changes occured in the religious and political landscape over the past two years. We talk about the role that evangelicals played in the Tea Party movement, a story that Mr. Brody considers to be one of the most under-reported stories of the election. Our discussion also covers what happened to pro-life Democrats following their vote for major changes in health care insurance, the consequence for three Iowa judges following their decision to overturn a voter iniative on gay marriage, and what role religion played in the candidacies of Christine O’Donnell (Delaware) and Sharron Angle (Nevada). We explore the various tensions between evangelical Christians, secular libertarians and Mormons within the Tea Party phenomenon and David tells us about where “teavangelicals” came from. David also offers up some thoughts on the upcoming 2012 presidential election. We finish with an interesting discussion on what life is like for a Christian journalist in Washington, DC and a secular media world. Recorded: November 9, 2010.

NOTE: Shortly after posting this podcast, David Brody was promoted from wnior White House correspondent to chief political correspondent at CBN. Us folks at Research on Religion can only assume that we played a vital role in this promotion. After all, once you are on RoR, you’ve reached the pinnacle of your profession.

The Brody File blog on CBN.

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Corwin Smidt on Religion, Elecctions and the God Gap.