Our Mirror of Justice (and my law school) colleague, Rob Vischer, posted several days ago (here) about a Minneapolis Star-Tribune editorial authored by state representative John Lesch (here) arguing that the Catholic Church should stop speaking about public policy matters and insisting that conscience was a matter only of individual rights and not belonging to institutions.
I had penned a responsive op-ed, which the Star-Tribune apparently has not seen fit to publish. So, for what limited value it may have to this venue, I post it below. Understand that it is in the style and substance of an op-ed. Nonetheless, I hope it may be of some value for those of us discussing questions of the Church's role in society and the nature of religious liberty with general audiences, including family and friends.
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In Friday’s Star-Tribune, DFL State Representative John Lesch tells us that he was rather upset to hear from his priest at worship last Sunday that the Catholic bishops support the ballot initiative this fall to confirm marriage as between one man and one woman.
A few weeks earlier, he had been annoyed to learn that the Catholic Church was opposed to the (since revised) federal regulation requiring most religious organizations—including faith-based hospitals, charities, and colleges—to fund abortion pills, sterilization, and contraceptives for their employees.
No one questions Rep. Lesch’s freedom to reject Catholic moral teaching or to dispute the church’s vision of the public good. But Rep. Lesch also wants to shut-down any religious dissent to his own preferred policies.
First, noting the power of the government to impose taxes, Rep. Lesch warns that the Catholic Church should learn to be quiet.
Sadly, this is not the first time that politicians have tried to silence the Catholic Church.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Catholic bishops in Missouri, Louisiana, and elsewhere spoke out against racial segregation, insisted on integration of parochial schools against political opposition, and even excommunicated racist politicians and citizen leaders.[See Note Below] Invoking “Separation of Church and State,” many segregationist southern politicians demanded that the church stop interfering in public policy.
More recently, Catholic bishops have called on governors and legislators to abandon the death penalty and to provide more funding for poverty programs. Once again, some politicians have protested the introduction of these religious voices into public debate.
Second, Rep. Lesch wants to use the power of government to force religious organizations to do as he wants. He dismisses out of hand any right of conscience by a faith-based hospital, charity, or university.
“Individuals have consciences,” Rep. Lesch asserts, but “institutions do not.”
So then, could a Catholic hospital be forced by the government to perform abortions? Rep. Lesch clearly thinks so. Indeed, he argues that Catholic hospitals should be required by law to give everyone “access [to] legal health care.” Since abortions remain legal, then in Rep. Lesch’s world, Catholic hospitals could be required to offer them.
Could a Mennonite college be forced to allow an ROTC program on campus, contrary to its pacifist values? Because he would see a Mennonite college as merely an “institution” without rights, Rep. Lesch presumably would turn a deaf ear to its objection to a law requiring all colleges to offer military training.
Could a homeless shelter operated by Lutheran Social Services be required to check the immigration status of those it serves, under a state law that prohibits “harboring illegal aliens”? Rep. Lesch’s narrow approach would withdraw any protection here too.
Could a Catholic law school be mandated by accreditation laws to instruct future prosecutors how to get death sentences against criminal defendants? Rep. Lesch (wrongly) claims that the First Amendment only affords “individual freedom.” So, again, his answer must be “yes.”
Now readers might question this “parade of horribles” as exaggerated and designed only to scare people. But, in fact, religious-based hospitals already have encountered political campaigns to force them to open their operating rooms to abortions. Religious-based charities, such as adoption agencies, have been forced to close because they wouldn’t follow conflicting government rules, such as offering children for adoption to gay couples.
And, although mostly on non-religious grounds, private universities and colleges have been forced to permit military recruiters on campus, even when they objected as a matter of conscience because the military then refused to permit gays to openly serve.
In a free society, people of faith must be permitted to join together and serve their neighbors, by providing health care, opening soup kitchens and homeless shelters, and offering education through religious schools and colleges. And they should be allowed to perform those missions consistent with their most fundamental values.
When politicians try to force religious hospitals, charities, schools, and colleges to act contrary to conscience—or to be squeezed out of existence altogether—then religious liberty is in danger. When a politician denies that religious groups have any freedoms, we all should be frightened.
[Note: I modified this passage in response to comments and for the reasons explained further in the comments to this post.]
Two days ago I mentioned I'd been in Albany and accordingly not yet had time to read Robby's and Sherif's tour de force, Morals and Mandates, with the care that it warranted. I'd only been able at that point to glance through the piece, which was sufficient to indicate that it was painstakingly thoughtful and thorough, but not sufficient to engage with it responsibly. Well of course things are still very busy at this end (aren't they near always for all of us), but I have at least found the time to read this important contribution with greater care. I now have several questions for Robby, Sherif, and interested others that I think might assist me, and possibly yet others, in arriving at a sound opinion about what I've been calling 'Mandate 2.0.' I'll pose only one of those questions here, saving others for separate posts, in order to maintain sufficient focus on each distinct 'issue' as to keep matters tractable. Later I hope we might draw all together.
Preliminary to proceeding I pause to note that, as Robby and Sherif observe, the White House has thus far been 'exceptionally vague' about precisely what shape the updated mandate will take. We might, then - at least if Morals and Mandates is not quite right in one of its conclusions - be in a certain sense deliberating in part in a vacuum here. The conclusion to which I refer is that to the effect that no shape that Mandate 2.0 might take will render it substantively distinct, morally speaking, from Mandate 1.0. I'll call this the 'no difference' conclusion. My first question speaks to precisely this conclusion. And if its answer turns out to be what I think - don't know, but think - that it might, then the no difference conclusion will be in doubt, and we might then indeed be deliberating in part in a vacuum. But that will itself be good news, for it will mean that our deliberations might themselves make a difference. They might ultimately afford guidance in the final formation of Mandate 2.0 itself - assuming that anyone's reading.
All right. Finally now to my first question prompted by Morals and Mandates, the subject of this narrowly framed post.
Robby and Sherif observe importantly that there is a critical, time-honored distinction to be drawn between formal and material involvement in wrongdoing. Formal involvement sounds in intention, while material involvement sounds in effect. Because neither Mandate 1.0 nor Mandate 2.0 would have involved religiously affiliated institutions in formal involvement with wrongdoing, Robby and Sherif argue, the morally relevant question with which we're presented since 10 February is whether the two mandates are apt to yield appreciably different material effects. If more or less the same people will receive the same contraceptive coverage under the two mandates, and if the religiously affiliated institutions will effectively be footing the bills in both cases, then there is no substantive difference between them. Any sound objection to Mandate 1.0 will carry over to Mandate 2.0.
(This conclusion is of course a two-edged sword, in that it might, under certain causal circumstances I'll inquire about in the form of a separate question in a subsequent post, entail that Mandate 1.0 itself was not objectionable after all. I defer that until later, though, because I think that Mandate 1.0 was indeed objectionable, for reasons that Robby and Sherif might be overlooking - reasons to the possible, but to me still uncertain, presence of which I now turn.)
So my question in respect of Robby's and Sherif's no difference argument is whether formal and material involvement in wrongdoing exhaust the relevant possibilities of such involvement. In other words, does the full class of all possible involvements in wrongdoing divide without remainder into formal and material such involvement? If it does not, then there might be a morally significant distinction between Mandate 1.0 on the one hand, and some conceivable renditions of Mandate 2.0 on the other hand, that Robby's and Sherif's important argument does not capture. That distinction, moreover, might be precisely what those who objected to Mandate 1.0, but for now withhold judgement on Mandate 2.0 pending further specification, have in mind.
What might the hypothetical such 'remainder' here be? For now let us call it a 'dignitary,' or 'integrity' interest that Mandate 1.0 violated while some specifications of Mandate 2.0 might not violate. My guess is that a moral intuition - or, in one currently hip idiom, a 'heuristic' - that sounds in some such interest might be at work among many of those who recoiled at Mandate 1.0 but for now reserve judgment about 2.0 pending further specification. Moreover, I suspect that this intuition, assuming it's there, might belong to the same 'cognitive family,' so to speak, as the 'proximity heuristic' evoked by many 'proximate causation' hypotheticals in tort and many 'trolly problems' in ethics.
Is there such an intuition, and if so, is it morally rational to honor it? Does some such intuition, in other words, tap into or serve as a window into some important moral truth? Here's a way at least to begin to address that pair of questions:
First, let x be a commodity the consumption of which many find deeply morally objectionable, others find morally indifferent, and still others find morally necessary. D is a person who might, and might not, consume x. C is a person who sells x. B is a person who finds the consumption of x deeply morally objectionable. Finally, A is a person who considers at least the availability of x to all persons like D to be morally necessary, and who also is able through various coercive powers both to make certain commodities available and to make other persons make such commodities available - even to the point of requiring persons like B to procure goods like x and then hand them to persons like D.
It is of course possible to open some or all of the 'black boxes' that are A, B, C, D, and x here, in that at least some of them - certainly A, B, C, and x per the 'intended interpretations' that I have in mind - are composite. (A, for example, might be a democratic repbulican state; B and C firms comprising multiple participants of various kinds, and x a portfolio of many services all but one or two of which are morally unobjectionable to all or nearly all concerned parties.) It is also possible to add additional parties or entities. And it might ultimately be necessary to engage in some such disaggregating and/or entity-adding in order to get to the moral heart of the matter before us. But for now I'll assume it legitimate to keep things sufficiently simple as to embrace only A, B, C, D, and x as indivisible wholes.
Well, you see now where this is going. There seem to be several distinct scenarios under which A might execute its intentions to make x available to D here. Per one of them, call it 'Scenario 1,' A procures x from C and provides it to D. Per another, Scenario 2, A requires C to make x available to D free of charge. Finally, per another scenario, Scenario 3, A requires B - the party that considers x to be repugnant - either to commence providing x directly to D, or to procure x from C and then provide it to D.
Now it seems to me that our moral intuitions are engaged by Scenario 3 in a manner qualitatively distinct from any manner in which Scenarios 1 and 2 might engage them, and that the distinction is grounded in something that is not merely irrational, illusory, or morally epiphenomenal. That something is what I labeled above the 'dignitary' or 'integrity' interest. Something in us seems to balk at the idea that one (one A) might not only give to person D something which person B finds repugnant, but might go a step further and say to person B him/herself, 'here, you give it to D.' It strikes us a particularly insidious, diabolical, even gratuitously cruel - as if an intruder in one of our homes, not satisfied with simply handing a pornographic magazine to one of our children, ordered a parent at gunpoint to hand the magazine to her/his own child instead.
Am I wrong here? Do we, in other words, not view it as more chilling for the intruder to force the parent to hand the item to the child than for that intruder to do so him/herself? And if we do, is this just morally epiphenomenal, so to speak, a matter of mere superstition? Or is there more to it?
It seems to me, at least pending further argument, that there might be something substantive here. Somehow your (A's) forcing one party (B) to commit the very act that that party considers repugnant - in this case, handing a repugnant commodity (x) to, or procuring that repugnant commodity for, another party (D) - is worse both than committing that act oneself, and even than, say, appropriating money from that party (B) or some other party (C) so as to finance your own (A's) provision of that commodity. For it does a sort of violence to the objecting party's very integrity or dignity as a moral agent that the mere taking of funds from that party or some other party, let alone the taking of funds from another party in such wise as leads to that other party's exacting funds of you, does not.
(Note that I am assuming a causal nexus in that last scenario - A appropriates money from C who then in consequence exacts money of B - which might itself be questioned, at least in insurance markets (for reasons I'll treat of later), but which I do not question for present purposes. Much also rides on what counts and does not count as 'handing' a repugnant commodity to someone here, which we might ultimately have to discuss, but I'll assume for the moment that having money appriated from one so as to finance someone else's handing over of the commodity does not count as one's own handing the commodity itself.)
My conjecture is that some such intuition as this accounts not only for the reactions that many 'liberal' Catholics experienced in respect of Mandate 1.0, but also for the reaction that, say, Justice O'Connor experienced in respect of the federal government's 'commandeering' of a state in the set of circumstances that resulted in New York v. United States. It might also account, in whole or in part, for the constitutional 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. In all such cases, the objection seems to have something to do with the impression that some actions in effect commandeer the moral agency of a person of some kind, as if to convert that person from an end to an instrument. And it isn't yet clear to me that this impression is merely illusory.
(Even though, I must admit, while a JD student I thought O'Connor's 'commandeering' objection in NY v. US muddled and absurd, the product of a mere category error in taking states to be the sort of thing capable of holding dignitary interests. But maybe I was wrong?)
So, Robby, Sherif, others, what make you of this? Is there anything to it? And if there is, then might there be some conceivable further specification of Mandate 2.0 that would prevent its offending a religiously affiliated institution's dignitary or integrity interest? I honestly haven't decided yet. And that is partly because I am not yet quite certain what to make of the intuition or 'heuristic' to which I refer.
One final point. It might be that the 'integrity' intuition of which I am tempted to make something here can be understood in intentional terms, such as might render it not quite correct that Mandate 1.0 managed to avoid formal involvement of religiously affiliated institutions in wrongdoing in a manner that placed it on all fours with any conceivable further specification of Mandate 2.0. And I say this as one who, like Robby and Sherif doubtless do, subscribes to an Anscombian - hence ultimately a Thomist and Aristotelian - understanding of intention. But I'll save this, too, for later, so as not to complicate the present post any more than necessary. (It might also be the case that all I have said above is vitiated by my not yet considering in greater detail whether the 'dignity' or 'integrity' objection can be couched in intentional terms. At present I just do not know, so I'll leave it at present at that.)
The Mirror of Justice and many other forums discussing the important issues of the day have been addressing freedom. A great deal of the recent focus has been on the claim made by many devout religious believers, including Catholics, that the HHS mandates for health insurance coverage of morally and legally problematic “services”. Of course there are some libertarians who view their perspective as the only one or the best one or the accurate one who disagree with this thought.
Virtually all speakers, sooner or later, rely on some form of the freedom argument. I think they are correct in this pursuit, especially when notions about the rule of law come into play. But what is freedom? Is it as the plurality in Planned Parenthood v. Casey argued: “the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” If so, the collision course which I and others have predicted before is happening once again. In the context of the HHS mandate, we have the folks relying on “religious freedom” in direct conflict with those arguing “reproductive rights freedoms.”
But, one distinction between these two positions quickly emerges: the first group comprising advocates for religious freedom is not asking the second group to pay for their freedom; however, the second group is asking the first to pay for their freedom claim for “reproductive health services.” Should this distinction matter? Indeed, it should. But that is not why I write today. Rather, there is another, far more basic reason which rides on the meaning of freedom. What is it?
In previous postings I have drawn the distinction between the freedom “from” something and the freedom “for” something. Oftentimes the “something” is an authority. But that is not the only something. After a lot of pondering, I think the “something” is fundamentally that which permeates all human existence. The elemental reason for the distinction between the “from” and the “for” is this: there are things that are right, good, and proper for the human person to pursue because they affect many and sometimes all other members of the human family. There are also some things which the human person wants to do because they fulfill or satiate the individual will, i.e., the desires of this person, but these personal objectives do not take stock of the important interests of others. Another explanation for the distinction involves the reality of the Casey dicta: the desirable is what the individual person wants, and that’s it; there is no need to consider anybody else. This approach is a problem.
So is there some way of satisfactorily addressing this predicament?
A thought of Lord Acton offers relevant help. He once explained that authentic freedom is not that which the person wants or desires; rather, it is that which the person must do.
Note how the first element—doing what the individual wants—replicates the Casey formulation. This formulation coincides with the HHS mandate: the “freedom” of persons who want artificial birth control, abortion-inducing chemicals, sterilization, and other desires. This “freedom” is not something that ought to be done for the sake of all including the unborn and those persons with well-formed moral consciences that take stock of the “ought.”
Religious liberty is in the cross-hairs these days. I wish it were otherwise, but since it is not, let me suggest something for this web log community to consider: which of these two fundamental camps that I have identified in the HHS mandate matter is pursuing the self-serving and which is pursuing the other-serving? I submit that the distinction is clear.
Supplementally to the essay Sherif Girgis and I did for Public Discourse responding to Bob Hockett's thoughtful questions about how we ought to be analyzing the HHS mandate from the moral point of view, Sherif has offered a comment on the possible analogy with indirect governmental support for religiously-affiliated schools though voucher programs:
Grant that, as [Robert George] and I in our Public Discourse piece agreed with Prof. Hockett, there is a formal parallel between (a) the government's support of Catholic education through vouchers, and (b) the Church's (forced) support of contraception under the mandate. And suppose that the (forced) cooperation in the second case is unjustified cooperation with immorality, given the Church's views about contraception and abortion.
From these points, all we can infer from the government's willingness to subsidize parochial schools is that the the State doesn't think it immoral to be a Catholic, or teach children Catholic doctrine. But the kind of governmental "endorsement" of Catholicism banned by the First Amendment is not that. What the First Amendment forbids is for the government to endorse Catholic teaching as true, or otherwise favor Catholicism (in theory or practice) over other religions.
In other words, I think the worry that if you oppose the mandate, you should oppose school vouchers, rests on an equivocation on the term "support" between these statements:
--Out of respect for religious freedom, the Church shouldn't be made to support abortion and contraception.
--Out of respect for non-establishment, the government shouldn't support Catholic teaching by subsidizing Catholic education.
Here is a short piece of mine, up at USA Today, on the HHS mandate and Friday's announcement of planned modifications to it. A bit:
. . . It is true that not all those who object in good faith to the community's laws can or should be accommodated. It is also true that, in a pluralistic society, everyone sees his or her tax dollars used by governments for some programs and purposes they oppose. At the same time, a free society like ours will regard it as often both wise and just to accommodate religious believers and institutions by exempting them from requirements that would require them to compromise their integrity. This is such a case.A crucial thing to remember, both about the mandate and the promised adjustments-to-come, is that it is deeply un-American in its hostility to diversity and pluralism in civil society.
The mandate's religious-employer exemption is limited only to inward-looking entities that hire and engage only their own. It embodies the view that religious institutions may be distinctive only insofar as they stay in their place — in the pews, in the pulpit, at the altar. It reflects a troubling tendency to impose ideological sameness and conformity in the public sphere, to insist that all groups and associations act like the government, in the service of the government's goals.
The mandate prompted an impressively united reaction by those who cherish America's tradition of religious freedom and accommodation. On the left and on the right, among Republicans and Democrats, there was an appreciation for the fact that this was an overreach. It was, and still is.
David Gibson quotes a theologian "who, like several others interviewed, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of angering the hierarchy," and says that the bishops (and the hundred or so "culture warriors" who have signed the George / Glendon / Garvey "unacceptable" letter) "fail their church's own moral reasoning" and, in essense, flunk "moral theology 101."
First, it is quite mistaken to dismiss all of the signers of that letter as "culture warriors"; the signers include people whom I know Gibson would, on reflection, concede are very serious Catholic thinkers. But, let's put that aside.
Obviously, the bishops and the letter's authors are closely familiar with "[t]he category of moral reasoning . . . called 'cooperation with evil.'" It is useful for Gibson to educate his readers about this category, but wrong, in my view, to assert or conclude that the bishops and their advisors have failed to "[think] all the way through" the matter. This (very important and valuable) way of handling and analyzing hard cases, it seems to me, provides a way to frame the engagement, but it will not, by itself, answer every hard question. The bishops, and the letter writers, know all about -- as does Gibson, who I think is a smart writer -- the distinctions between "formal" and "material" cooperation, and between "immediate" and "mediate" material cooperation. They reason through the problem, employing these categories, differently. (See, for example, Robby and Sherif Girgis's pieces here and here.)
It should also be emphasized that the "cooperation with evil" analysis does not resolve the question whether the mandate illegally or needlessly burdens religious freedom, or undermines the integrity and witness of religious institutions, or creates scandal. But, that's a matter for another time. . .
In the new issue of First Things, I have an essay on the anti-Sharia movement. Here's an excerpt:
Even though the First Amendment has now forced anti-Sharia advocates to frame their proposed laws so broadly as to be meaningless, these initiatives should be vigorously contested by the defenders of religious liberty. When state legislators across the country line up behind such bills, the aim is not primarily legal reform—it is political grandstanding aimed at reassuring nervous constituents that Sharia law will be kept out of our courts. This serves only to fan the flames of religious intolerance while nurturing public acceptance of the notion that the religious commitments of our citizens have no place in our courts. Law has a pedagogical function—as cases such as Roe v. Wade have painfully taught us—and anti-Sharia legislation harms the social fabric by its very premise: the presumption that the deepest core values and convictions of religious Americans threaten the legal order by virtue of their source, without reference to their substance.
Comments are welcome. Also be sure to check out pieces in this issue by Rick Garnett and Carter Snead.
I'm happy to agree with Bob that, as a general matter, it is better (and more Christian) to examine the merits of actions and proposals, rather than to speculate about or insinuate regarding the motives of those acting or proposing, and that -- generally speaking -- a hermeneutic of charity is to be preferred to one of suspicion.
Sometimes, however, the evidence is what it is, and points where it does. As Bob himself writes: "[t]here are limits to this policy [of charitable interpretation]. Some people ultimately confirm our most frightful fears, and it likely does more harm than good to pretend otherwise in at least some such cases. It just doesn't seem to me that we're at that point here." With respect, when it comes to this issue (school choice & education reform) -- one that I follow very closely and with which I am very involved -- I do think we are at that point. The proposed re-killing of the D.C. voucher program is indefensible on the merits (to quote Poppie, "On this issue, there can be no debate!" [insert disarming smiley-face emoticon here]), and the low-and-partisan-motives hypothesis -- considering the relevant evidence, history, and context -- best explains the phenomena. As Bob says, "it . . . does more harm than good to pretend otherwise[.]"
Is he an unjust, spiteful meanie or merely an obtuse technocrat? That is the question I'm left with, as concerns President Obama, upon reading Rick's post just below.
I had not read or heard about a discontinuation of appropriations for the DC school voucher program, and am accordingly glad that Rick has brought it to our attention. While I'm not yet in a position to opine on the merits (I'll rectify that soon), it does seem to me that the motives question can be at least partly addressed even now.
I am going to suggest, as a working hypothesis, that the explanation proposed by David Brooks in the column to which Rick helpfully links is as plausible as the spiteful meanie hypothesis. I say this partly pursuant to an often announced wish to proceed upon charitable interpretations for as long as that's reasonably possible. But I say it also in part on the basis of experience.
It is alas very easy, when concerned with big 'macro' policy questions and immersed in milieus of the sort Brooks describes (milieus of a sort I've been immersed in of late), to become a bit numbed to the remarkable and often more qualitative than quantitative differences that small programs can make in discrete local areas. It's a bit like the way memory fades in respect of how homey and lovely one's home (or one's church) is, when one's been away for some weeks. Or even like wondering 'why equity?' when law seems to speak to a matter already.
This danger is all the more pronounced, I fear, in a sprawling and pluralist polity such as that we all constitute. For there are understandable pressures, in legislating and regulating in such a polity, to think in neutral, 'one size fits all' terms. Somehow we must figure out means of maintaining this necessary neutrality without thereby losing our color and flavor - our selves and our souls. The President and his administration doubtless experience just as much difficulty, just as much occasional exhaustion, and just as much consequent temptation sometimes to resort to the over-simple and over-general in seeking that golden mean as do we. (And as, I should think, does Justice Scalia.)
Why is it worth attending to this distinction, then - that between the 'he's a meanie' explanation and the 'hes's forgetful' one? I think there are at least three related reasons.
One is that it seems to me simply better to err on the side of overestimation than on the side of underestimation of those with whom we disagree. For it seems to me that the injustice of getting it wrong is somehow more profound in the latter case than in the former.
Another is that our estimations of others often - not always, but often - become self-fulfilling. People seem often to become what we take them to be, at least at the margin.
And finally another is that the fellow whose decision we wish to see changed is apt to be more receptive to our urgings if we address him as our brother and urge the importance of the change, rather than addressing him as a spiteful meanie bent upon injustice. (Which approach would you be more apt to respond thoughtfully to?)
I hasten to add that I recognize that there are limits to this proposed policy. Some people ultimately confirm our most frightful fears, and it likely does more harm than good to pretend otherwise in at least some such cases. It just doesn't seem to me that we're at that point here.
Just when I resolve to follow Bob Hockett's commendable example, and try to assume the best even when I suspect the assumption is unwarranted, the President proposes to kill off the D.C. voucher program (again). I'm sorry -- this is a mean, spiteful, unjust, and pandering thing of him to do. It does not suggest, in Bob's words, an attachment to the "right thing."
UPDATE: I didn't notice it at the time, but David Brooks was prescient, the other day, in his (very good) op-ed ("Flood the Zone"):
Every once in a while, the Obama administration will promulgate a policy that is truly demoralizing. A willingness to end the District of Columbia school voucher program was one such case. The decision to force Catholic social service providers to support contraception and other practices that violate their creed is another. . . .
