Quote:
Originally Posted by djplong
Perhaps I can sum it up this way.
How the Church acts in *private* (the free exercise of their religion) is one thing.
How they act in *public* (operating schools, hospitals, etc), is subject to *public* laws.
There are some grey areas in there, I'll be the first one to admit that (hence the reason I was doing the "what ifs" to see where to draw the line)
To take a simple example..
A Church doesn't have to marry homosexuals if it's against their teaching.
A Church-sponsored hospital CANNOT deny service to a homosexual (not saying they WOULD, I'm just saying they CAN'T)
|
The Church does not operate public schools. So what you say does not apply. You have to choose to go to parochial school. You certainly don't have to.
The same goes with hospitals. No emergency patient is going to be turned away from a Catholic hospital, and they will fight for that person's life, there's no doubt about it. Elective procedures? That's where you don't have to go to that hospital. There are others to perform procedures that a Catholic Hospital might not administer.
So this was all an exercise with no real cause for alarm on your part, it seems. I'm still not sure what the point of all of this was.