One thing or another?

Dr. Taylor Marshall (I find that name very cool for some reason) wrote about a month ago regarding the HHS mandate.  Basically he believes that we as Catholics are missing an opportunity to write about the real issue about the HHS mandate; that is, the evil of contraception, abortion, and sterilization.

While I sympathize with Dr. Marshall's view I do not think this is an either/or situation.  For myself, talking about both religious freedom and these evils the mandate is foisting on us are mutually complementary discussions. And I'm not alone in this assessment.

To me this highlights two issues.  The first is that in any discussion about Catholic doctrine we will find that there is a great deal of intertwining.  If one takes contraception for example, we will discuss marriage, sexuality, the human person, and the nature of male and female.  The Faith does not lend itself well to bullet points or slogans.

 The second issue is that the HHS mandate really is evil.  It encroaches on just about everything, from the fundamental nature of the human person to how someone can run a business.  It cuts across moral and political lines in an hostile and arrogant fashion.  As such to criticize the mandate from a variety of perspectives is not only reasonable, it is required to illustrate the full scope of how bad it is.

So from my point of view this is not an either or scenario.  Some will be moved to look at the mandate from the religious freedom perspective.  Others will look at confronting the evil head on.  While Dr. Marshall's concerns are noted, I do not think we are missing any opportunities.  In fact, as Desmond's article illustrates, the mandate has given society a change to talk about the evil that has consumed families like a cancer.