Cali Court Gets One Right Regarding Religion

Shawn McEvoy

The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog carried this story Tuesday: California Doctors Can’t Refuse Care to Gays on Religious Grounds. Jacob Goldstein writes:

The state Supreme Court ruled yesterday that doctors can't refuse to treat gays and lesbians, even when doing so goes against their religious beliefs.

Guadalupe Benitez said she was denied fertility treatment because she was gay. The rulings in the case went back and forth as it moved through the courts, but the state’s supremes decided yesterday that a California law that bars businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation trumps the doctors’ right to freedom of religion.

"Thank God," I said to myself. Goodness, a lesbian is still a woman, and still has reproductive capabilities, does she not? If I refuse to treat her, am I doing more damage to the body of Christ and the gospel message, and completely missing a chance to treat her with love and kindness, vs. refusing on the grounds that society apparently will crumble if one more child is raised in a non-traditional family? If I'm going to choose a pro-life stance partly on the grounds that none can say with certainty what quality of life a child will have, that no one can know what decisions he or she will make or how the Lord might use them, then I must also allow that the same things can happen in the life of a child raised by a homosexual.

When I read Goldstein's posting, I instantly remembered fellow Crosswalk blogger Michael Craven's August 2007 posting about whether we as The Church should focus more on being evangelical, or missional. His piece began with an example - also from California:

I came across a small but disturbing story that grabbed my attention. A California pediatrician reportedly refused to treat a baby girl because her mother had tattoos. The doctor, whose name I won’t mention, says “his Christian faith has inspired him to enforce certain standards in his medical practice, and that means no tattoos, no body piercings, and no gum chewing.” The article goes on, “After taking one look at Tasha Childress, who has both tattoos and piercings, [the doctor] asked her and her daughter to leave.” The shunned mother, speaking about her daughter, said, “She had to go that entire night with her ear infection with no medicine because he has his policy; it isn’t right.”

This action deeply troubled me and I hope troubles you as well. However, it doesn’t completely surprise me either...

If the ruling of this week was partly brought about because of this calloused doctor's decision, which couldn't have been an isolated issue, then at least I can feel satisfied that the little girl and her mother did not suffer needlessly.

It's disheartening that we need to get this straight, or have courts decide it for us. Christian doctors, one would like to think, would be some of the most compassionate, most educated, most opportunistic among us. Their personalized chances to reveal their faith literally walk through their doors every day. In fairness, Goldstein's posting makes no mention to which religious faith any offending doctors might adhere. For all we know, Jewish, Hindu, and Islamic doctors might be just as unwilling to treat patients who are gay or have other "moral failings" (although... don't we all fail? Haven't we all sinned? Can you imagine if your youthful indiscretions, God forbid, ever came back to haunt you in the form of an STD or other issue, only to be refused treatment?). We're not talking about doctors who might have issue with performing an abortion or assisted suicide or lethal injection. In those cases, lives are being defended. Here, lives are being discarded.

Withholding medical healing in moral judgment is unconscionable when you consider how flawed the idea of withholding spiritual healing / salvation / the gospel is from Joe Sinner... particularly if he walks in your door and asks for it.

Find this article at: http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/mcevoy/11580720/

FACTBOX: Role of religion in U.S. election

(Reuters) - The race for the White House often comes down to so-called battleground or swing states, where the outcome may hinge on a few crucial votes.

Religion often plays a role in U.S. elections and might again in these states this November in the contest between Republican candidate John McCain and his Democratic rival Barack Obama.

Following are some facts, figures and possible scenarios about the main religious groups and their possible political impact.

EVANGELICALS

One in four U.S. adults count themselves as evangelical Protestant, a tradition with a strong focus on the conversion experience and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

The movement has become a key conservative base for the Republican Party, energized in part by a shared opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage.

It has become more fractured as some leaders stress a wider biblical agenda that includes tackling global poverty and climate change but polls show most white evangelical Protestants remain firmly in the Republican camp.

The latest poll by the Pew Research Center suggests 68 percent of registered voters among this group support McCain while only around a quarter back Obama.

But Obama's camp will work hard to win the support of younger and more centrist evangelicals in battleground states such as Florida and Colorado.

Evangelicals are heavily though not exclusively concentrated in the South and according to Pew surveys account for over 50 percent of the population in a handful of states such as Oklahoma which is solid Republican territory anyway.

But a wider definition of evangelical that includes blacks and Hispanics shows that closer to 50 percent of the adults of this faith line up with the Republicans and third with the Democrats, according to Pew.

This makes Hispanic evangelicals in swing states such as New Mexico and Colorado a key group that could tilt the balance in their states.

CATHOLICS

Almost one-quarter of U.S. adults are Catholic but their electoral clout is somewhat diluted by their distribution.

According to a June report by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington, nearly four in 10 U.S. Catholics reside in New York, California and Texas, none of which are closely contested. The first two are solidly Democratic and Texas is Republican.

The report said states "where the Catholic vote could make a real difference are Florida, Ohio and Louisiana."

Catholics had strongly supported Hillary Clinton in her failed bid for the Democratic nomination and a number of polls have shown a fairly close race among Catholics with Obama leading among them nationally by a small margin.

Conservative Catholics tend to line up with evangelicals on issues like abortion but there are also many liberal Catholics in America who like the Democratic Party on economic issues.

MAINLINE PROTESTANT

The "mainline Protestant" traditions including the Episcopal, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. About one in five U.S. adults say they belong to one of these faiths.

White Protestants affiliated with mainline churches are lining up behind McCain, with 50 percent supporting him in the latest Pew poll versus 39 percent for Obama.

Wider surveys which have included black and Hispanic members of these traditions suggest a sharper partisan divide with both parties garnering the support or affection of around 42 percent of the members of these faiths.

JEWS

Surveys and polls consistently show most Jews lean heavily toward the Democratic Party.

But in battleground states such as Florida, where they account for close to 5 percent of the population by some estimates, the McCain camp may well try and woo some with his strong line on the battle with radical Islam.

The Obama camp may try to appeal to the liberal views held by many American Jews.