Advocating “physician-assisted suicide,” Edgar Allen Beem writes that “As a person of faith(?), I am frankly sick and tired of the Catholic Church and religious conservatives trying to force their beliefs on society as a whole.”

This is an example of the muddled thinking and hypocrisy that is increasingly common among many “progressive” opinion writers and others who are trying to deny my First Amendment rights of free expression and religious freedom.

Beem writes: “If you think that suicide is wrong, don’t do it, but, for heaven’s(?) sake, don’t tell others they cannot.” Translation: Don’t do as I do, do as I say, and stop defending your beliefs so I can impose my values on you.

Beem argues that because religion holds a particular viewpoint, that viewpoint should not be considered by lawmakers, thereby imposing a religious belief on others. Religion teaches that stealing is wrong. If I support laws that are against stealing, am I imposing my religious viewpoint on society? Religion teaches many things that can be understood as true by people who aren’t religious at all.

All law is fundamentally about imposing somebody’s view on somebody else. So the question is not whether we will impose something on somebody, but whether what is being imposed is reasonable, just and good for society.

“No man ought to inflict upon himself voluntary death, for that is to escape the ills of time by plunging into those of eternity.” — St. Augustine.

Walter J. Eno
Scarborough