A gay atheist doctor in Indiana wonders if the shiny new RFRA lets him refuse service to assholes.
“Dear Governor Pence and the Republicans in the state legistlature,” Freiheit’s letter begins, “As a gay atheist doctor in a small town in Indiana, I want to applaud your bravery and standing up for your principles, because it would seem that you have given me a chance to finally stop having to treat asshole, bigoted Christians at my practice, based on my own deeply held religious views, and not anything more sinister or petty, of course.”
That is what we want, right? To make all public services and interactions conditional on agreement with each other’s world views? We want to have to fill out applications listing our beliefs and allegiances and political views every time we go to the grocery store, right?
“Governor Pence, I submit that if I am now to be treated as a second class citizen on an arbitrary basis, whenever the personal, religious beliefs of a shop owner or employee butts up against my sexual orientation, then every Christian who believes that in 2015 they still have a right to discriminate based on what makes them feel ‘icky’ and their desire to hold onto antiquated philosophical and mythological texts as if they are hard and fast universal truths will have to go seek medical treatment somewhere else, if that’s okay by you and your friends, Mr. Pence.” Freiheit then writes, “Therefore, I would like to ask directly if I can consider myself protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that you signed to discriminate against Christians based on my religious beliefs. If I am not, then I believe your law is unconstitutional as it is not written equally and does not apply equally to all citizens of Indiana.”
Let’s all invent religions that require us to reject and refuse and deny service to all sorts of people for all sorts of random (but belief-based) reasons. Then when the gridlock stretches from sea to sea, we can point out the consequences of their tiny-minded bigotry.
“The funny thing to me,” Freiheit told our reporter, “is that all day, every day I treat people who I know deep-down think my husband and children and I are all going to Hell and that we shouldn’t even be allowed to be a family in the first place, and I still suck it up and give them their antibiotic prescriptions, diagnose their various illnesses, and ultimately help heal them.” Dr. Freiheit continued, “I don’t know why the baker or the florist in town should be given a free pass to be a whiny, baby about life and the rest of us are expected to suck it up. I don’t get why if we expect doctors and lawyers to take any and all clients that come through their doors, we can’t expect everyone who operates a business in the public square, under state regulated corporate protection for their assets, to behave with the same maturity and respect.”
Because they’re in business, and business is god’s favorite job title description category.
Yay, Dr Freiheit (hey – someone named Liberty – should get the Right Wingers’ attention, no?).
Stick it to ’em, every which way you can. Rub their noses in the unintended consequences of their bigotry, the things they didn’t bother to think through, because it never occurs to them that the trick could work the other way as well.
It’ll still be a long struggle, but taking it lying down is not going to get us any further.
Fantastic article. My respect to you, Dr. Freiheit.
My religion does not allow me to serve global warming deniers. Now all I need is to think up a name and a catchy slogan and logo for my religion, and voila! No more AGW deniers in my classrooms!
Now all I need is to think up a name and a catchy slogan and logo for my religion
How about “empiricist”? or has it been taken?
Now all I need is to think up a name and a catchy slogan and logo for my religion
If you were a Christian, Stewardship Christian would do nicely.
Dr. Freiheit is a physician and everyone – including physicians – assumes that phyicians will try to rise to a higher moral standard than most of us, even – or especially – those who are in business. I can understand Dr. Freifeit’s immediate response, but in the end, someone might die if he applies it absolutely and I don’t think he would carry his principles that far. Being refused flowers and cakes are petty matters, no matter how irritating the refusal and no matter how vile and absurd the prejudice inspiring the refusal may be. Refusing to give or being refused medical treatment is not petty.
In fairness, I don’t think physicians who are religious believers would allow their beliefs to overrule their obligations as physicians either.
@#6 (I.e., too lazy to think up a pseudonym)
Thanks so much for the Dear Muslima!
@6:
Wow. You REALLY haven’t been paying attention, have you?
Just one example, and not even one from the God-fearin’ US of A: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar
I assume no such thing. Doctors are humans, and therefore some of them are assholes and religious nutjobs and act on that fact, and this is common knowledge… isn’t it?
sc_770d159609e0f8deaa72849e3731a29d, #6
Read before outing yourself:
sc_770d159609e0f8deaa72849e3731a29d, #6
Surely you’ve heard of Purvi Patel’s case.
Here’s the anti-choice doctor responsible.
Another article on the topic.
sonofrojblake:
“Doctors are humans, and therefore some of them are assholes and religious nutjobs and act on that fact, and this is common knowledge.”
Of course, and applicants for medical training are carefully selected and intensively trained in the hope “that physicians will try to rise to a higher moral standard than most of us”. The fact that religious nutjobs who believe Dr. Freiheit will deservedly go to hell consult him professionally is powerful evidence that they believe it too.
Saad:
Dr. Freiheit’s clarification “that he “really has no intention of breaking the oath” he took to do no harm to anyone” confirms my view that he would not carry out his “threat”. As I said, I understand his annoyance, but – apart from the moral aspect – it is not wise to threaten to do things you would not do.
Are Dr. McGuire’s opinions relevant to Purvi Patel’s conviction?
Any doctor, whatever their views, would surely report the case of a heavily-bleeding and probably badly-upset woman who had recently given birth to the authorities. The trial and conviction were a matter of state law.
Pregnancy and abortion are one point where moral aspects of medicine get very complicated because there is the question of which is the patient – woman and foetus – and which should be given priority of concern. Foolishly, I wasn’t thinking of that – which is probably the most frequent instance of religious beliefs intervening in medical practise – but of another instance I saw personally, where a vociferously atheistic friend was treated by a devout muslim when I said that “In fairness, I don’t think physicians who are religious believers would allow their beliefs to overrule their obligations as physicians either”.
sc_770d159609e0f8deaa72849e3731a29d
Personally, I choose physicians for their competence.
I hope that their med-school stressed stuff like diagnostics and treatment over Morality®.