End the Government Attack on Faith and Alcohol

Posted by Tom Wark on Feb 15, 2012

It's clearly an attack on faith and conscience!!

It has come to my attention that as part of implementing the mandates of the new federal health care law, I am required to provide health insurance to Wark Communications employees that cover, among other things, treatment of alcohol abuse.

And yet, my conscience tells me that alcohol consumption is a good thing. My personal faith informs me that the consumption of alcohol on a daily basis is commanded as a means to a proper and well-lived life. Yet, here I am forced to violate my conscience by providing the means for my employees to NOT consume alcohol.

This is a direct and personal and calculated attack on my strongly held, personal faith.

I have a year to comply with this directive. I have a year to figure out how to violate my conscience where alcohol consumption is concerned.

I can only hope that others who are similarly violated by this law join my cry of protest.

For now I know the Catholic Bishops are on my side as they too find that, just as I am required to violate my faith that alcohol is a necessity for living a good and moral life, they are required to violate their own faith by providing insurance that allows women to access birth control.

I can only hope that those members of faiths that have as a matter of conscience the belief that the sick should only be attended to by prayer, will join me in protesting this new health care law as it will force them to provide insurance to their employees even though they believe no care for one's health beyond prayer ought to be undertaken.

I can only hope that my employee brethren of the Muslim faith who, as a matter of their conscience, cannot allow a woman to be examined alone by a male doctor, will find the will to oppose the health care insurance Law also. This mandate for insurance demands muslims provide insurance to their employees that just as easily would result in women being alone and in close proximity to a man who is not their husband, just as that same law will require me to violate my faith by providing health insurance that will lead to fewer people drinking alcohol.

Of course this latest attempt by the federal government to force myself and other people of faith to violate their strongly held beliefs is not the initial instance of government attacks on conscience. What of those that hold strong as a matter of their faith on matters of race and gender and sexuality? For years they have been forced unjustly to violate their conscience by adhering to anti-discrimination laws.

What of those who as a matter of faith and conscience believe they ought not be forced to part with their hard earned money to support state programs? For years they have been asked to pay federal and state taxes.

It goes on and on.

If I fail to provide Wark Communications employees with this insurance that allows them to combat daily alcohol consumption, as my conscience tells me I must, I will be fined heavily. I will have to close Wark Communications and the world will lose the precious Public Relations services I provide.

Is there any end to this madness?