{"id":17,"date":"2008-08-19T12:54:06","date_gmt":"2008-08-19T12:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/08\/conscience-clause-for-what.html"},"modified":"2008-08-19T12:54:06","modified_gmt":"2008-08-19T12:54:06","slug":"conscience-clause-for-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/08\/conscience-clause-for-what.html","title":{"rendered":"Conscience Clause: For What?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am not opposed to a very narrowly crafted conscience clause where the issue is the sincerely held belief by a person that he or she is being asked to take a &#8220;life&#8221;. \u00a0This means that conscientious objectors to war can refuse to carry a gun (or participate directly in the institution of war which they oppose). \u00a0It could mean that a doctor could not be compelled to perform a &#8220;lethal injection&#8221;. \u00a0And I would include a provision for a doctor who shares the McCainian belief that fully legally protectable life begins at the moment of conception not to do an abortion. \u00a0But, Jay, I know you would not be satisfied with this. \u00a0You want a claim of &#8220;conscience&#8221; to negate any requirement that an individual doesn&#8217;t want to perform: the police officer who won&#8217;t stand guard at a womens&#8217; clinic to protect the doctors who may enter to perform abortions; the cab driver who won&#8217;t drive somebody carrying home a sealed bottle from the liquor store; the teacher who won&#8217;t teach evolution because he doesn&#8217;t &#8220;believe in it&#8221;, and on and on. \u00a0To you, religious beliefs nearly uniformly trump the beliefs of third parties affected by that religious belief. \u00a0We can&#8217;t run a pluralistic nation that way and the Constitution doesn&#8217;t mandate that we even try.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Some of you think: the women in cases like this can just &#8220;go elsewhere&#8221;. \u00a0In the woefully inadequate healthcare system we have today, that is not a real answer. \u00a0Many people are tied to a health plan at a job which requires them to use the services of a select group of providers. \u00a0And those providers, frankly, ought to provide what the patient wants.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am not opposed to a very narrowly crafted conscience clause where the issue is the sincerely held belief by a person that he or she is being asked to take a &#8220;life&#8221;. \u00a0This means that conscientious objectors to war can refuse to carry a gun (or participate directly in the institution of war which&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church-politicking"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Conscience Clause: For What? - Lynn v. Sekulow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/08\/conscience-clause-for-what.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Conscience Clause: For What? - Lynn v. 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Sekulow","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/08\/conscience-clause-for-what.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Conscience Clause: For What? - Lynn v. Sekulow","og_description":"I am not opposed to a very narrowly crafted conscience clause where the issue is the sincerely held belief by a person that he or she is being asked to take a &#8220;life&#8221;. \u00a0This means that conscientious objectors to war can refuse to carry a gun (or participate directly in the institution of war which&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/08\/conscience-clause-for-what.html","og_site_name":"Lynn v. Sekulow","article_published_time":"2008-08-19T12:54:06+00:00","author":"Rev. Barry W. 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Lynn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","caption":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn"},"description":"Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution's religious liberty provisions (www.au.org). In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues. An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}