James P. Gough has responded to my article on women’s freedom of choice which appeared on Jan. 15.
He accuses me of “name-calling and attempted putdowns.”
Since I went out of my way to present my case in a rational fashion, I was surprised to hear his complaint. I looked long and hard to discover what the whining was about.
All I could come up with was the statement that he (Gough) “had a penchant for misunderstanding and illogicality.”
I stand by this allegation.
But let me now be free of all constraints. The sad truth is that Mr. Gough has no understanding of the First amendment, the separation of church and state, or the philosophical underpinnings of the abortion controversy.
He doesn’t address my charge that he wishes to impose the beliefs of his church upon all of us. If we lived in a religiously homogeneous country, this would not be a problem.
But we don’t!
He ignores the fact that the colonists fled religious persecution in Europe and came to the New World in the hope of finding religious freedom on these shores. At the risk of stating the obvious, Americans worship different Gods and some don’t worship at all. We have grappled with this issue since the Founding Fathers drafted our Constitution. Thomas Jefferson cites the First amendment which states that the legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Later, in a letter to Baptist ministers in Danbury, Jefferson elaborates that there is “a wall of separation between Church and State.”
This metaphor has been quoted repeatedly by the U.S. Supreme Court in myriad decisions. For one religion or many to have the government insert itself into the private relationship between a woman and her physician violates this separation.
In 1960, when John F. Kennedy was running to become the first Catholic president of the United States, he said: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute — where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners how to vote.”
Finally, Kennedy concluded that his vision of America is one “where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace.” What could be more clear than that?
One final statement on the subject of religious freedom comes from. Barry W. Lynn, a minister and executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
“There is no war against the legitimate exercise of your rights as a religious person to express yourself.”
The problem arises “when you decide you want the government to bless it, fund it, or in some way support your particular ideas.”
Anti-abortion advocates may continue in their efforts to convince a majority of their fellow citizens that abortion is evil, but they cross the line when they urge the government to coerce all of us to follow their religious teachings.
Dr. Hal Sobel
Great Neck
