It was an odd moment today on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, when secular MSNBC news anchors defended religious liberties against an ordained reverend.
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski disagreed with Obama’s mandate that all employers fund 100% of the costs of employees’ contraception and sterilization. There is no conscience exemption for religious believers, and the exemption for religious institutions is so narrow that Catholic universities and hospitals will not qualify.
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Fellow MSNBC host Al Sharpton took the opposite side. “I think that if we’re going to have a separation of Church and State, we’re going to have separation of Church and State,” Sharpton stated. He added that Obama’s decision was “not calculated on politics,” but “based on principles.”
Sharpton argued that if Catholic organizations received government money, they should provide contraception service for their employees who don’t agree with their theology.
“If I am a person that works in one of these institutions I have the right to say to government that I disagree with my employees and want to exercise that, otherwise, why are you putting government resources here, are you allowing government resources to be used based on the belief of the church?”
The mandate, however, is not based on whether or not an organization receives money from the Church.
“The Catholic religion believes certain things, they believe it to be fact,” Brzezinski said. “So you’re asking them not to be Catholic, if you impose certain regulations on them.”
Scarborough warned that the Federal Government decisions was “staggering” warning people on the left that a conservative administration could easily impose a decision against providers of contraceptives.
