If Catholic Charities wants to exercise its First Amendment rights to be mean to gay people, then perhaps it should stop getting almost two-thirds of its budget from tax dollars.

And speaking of “conscience clauses”: what happens to a physician or nurse in a Catholic hospital whose conscience dictates giving a rape or incest victim full information about options, including Plan B? Right: that physician or nurse can take her conscience to a new employer. The Catholic hierarchy has never favored any freedoms but its own, and its time to stop letting sectarian doctrine dictate the use of public money.

[Cross-posted at The Reality-Based Community]

Mark Kleiman

Mark Kleiman is a professor of public policy at the New York University Marron Institute.