Rights, Duties, and the Contraception Thing

Something is being left out of the discussion surrounding the HHS mandate, which coerces employees to fund illicit sexual behavior via their insurance programs. While it is absolutely true that this governmental coercion, based upon lies, is a violation of the rights of Catholics, we must go further. It is also a violation of the rights of everyone else.

Rights flow from duties. Contraception being against the natural law — it’s not just a Catholic hangup about sex! — everyone has a duty to avoid contraception, its use, and its funding. The issue is not even up for debate. Since everyone has a duty to follow God’s law, then everyone has a right not to be forced by the government to violate God’s law. (Just as a soldier commanded by a superior officer to shoot a non-combatant must — and therefore may — disobey, since the command is an order to commit murder.)

Therefore, in this present unlawful usurpation by the Obama administration, everyone’s rights are being violated, first God’s, then ours, whether we’re Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Jew, Muslim, Jainist, Mormon, Buddist, Druze, B’hai, Shintoist, Hindu, Sikh, agnostic, atheist, etc.

The Holy Trinity has a right to be believed in and obeyed. It is the duty of the Church to preach the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ to all the nations. It is also her duty to teach God’s moral law to all men. Let us focus on God’s rights first, then our duties before Him, which have their origin in His rights. When those things are more jealously guarded, our rights will be secured.