Ideally, Separation of Church and State doesn't mean Religions are untouchable...

I put ideally in there, because in practice, its haphazard and inconsistent.

The problem is that too many times, what the government does and what it should do are two very different things. This goes for religious freedom as well. In many cases, rather than treating religions and the religious equally, we put them on a pedestal, where they don't have to follow the same rules as everybody else, and this is, by default, preferential treatment.

The first area that comes to mind is tax exemption, now before people cry foul on this one, think about it, there's a special category for churches where they don't have to follow all the same rules as charities and other non-profits. Namely in auditing and accountability rules. Gets even worse on the state level, where sometimes the rules are set up to give preferential treatment to established religions and makes it more difficult for other religions, especially "non-traditional" ones to file for tax exemption. My question is, how is this constitutional?

If any religious organization wants tax exemption, then they should simply be considered non-profits and/or charities, and they should have to follow all the same rules therein, and open their books to government scrutiny, like all other organizations of this type.

In addition, as I said, there are states that go even further than the federal government, another thing that comes to mind are day care and preschool centers. Secular ones have to follow rather stringent rules on safety and health, while in many states, those run by churches are exempt from oversight or having to follow these rules. Now is this equal treatment, is this constitutional?

When we get into public funding of charities and necessary services, such as child adoption, food banks, soup kitchens, hospitals and clinics, etc. then should get even stricter. Yes, religious organizations should have equal opportunity to compete for these funds as they apply for them, but why should they be exempt from the same accountability and non-discrimination rules as secular organizations?

Look at the Office of Faith Based Initiatives(or whatever its called now), which, by its very existence shows preferential treatment for religious organizations over secular ones. Not to mention different rules and lack of oversight, which is a huge problem. If your church wants to set up a charity or service to provide for your community, that's wonderful, but if you receive one dime of government funds, you sure as hell should be under scrutiny to make sure those funds don't go to religious purposes and should be required to follow all state and federal non-discrimination laws.

What about religious freedom you may ask? Well, the thing is that religious freedom has always had some limits, certain practices have to follow secular rules(health, safety and ethics rules for slaughtering animals for instance), or are outright outlawed(human sacrifice). As long as there's a compelling secular reason for such limits, then its such restrictions should be practiced. When you step outside your church, or you home, you have to deal with people who don't follow your beliefs and/or practices, and so to have a functioning society, we all have to make compromises.

An example would be pharmacists and so called "conscious clauses" which are complete bullshit, if you'll pardon the language. They perform a necessary function in society, and frankly if you can't do your job without your beliefs getting in the way, then you shouldn't be in that job. Hell, I'm in a similar position, I have to violate my beliefs(political in this case) in the job I have right now, on the back end of this sucky health care system of ours.

I won't name names, but I work on the service side of a PBM(Prescription Benefits Management company). They are a middleman between pharmacies and members and the insurance companies for prescription coverage. We don't set policy, we simply follow the policies that insurance companies set up.

In fact, I'm damn near ecstatic that the Obama administration changed the rules on contraception coverage for religious organizations, considering that, hell just a few weeks ago I had a member call, asking why his daughter's birth control wasn't covered through his plan, and my explanation was rather blunt, told him it was a Catholic hospital his wife works for, and he said simply that he wasn't Catholic and that the restriction was bullshit. I told him I agreed, but that I was powerless to change the policy. Oh, I could have, so easily, got into the system and override the medication right there, while he was on the phone, but I didn't, and you know why? I would have gotten my ass fired because of it.

Where the fuck is my conscious exemption? It gets even worse when the plans are run by complete assholes who won't cover things like injectibles(imagine a call with a diabetic on that one), or charge outrageous co-pays on many different prescriptions. High deductible plans are the worse, though, your damn near better off without coverage at all in that case, they hardly cover anything, and charge outrageous prices on everything else. Hell, if I had the power, and I don't, I would give away prescriptions for free, fuck the insurance companies(excepting abusers, which I get calls from occasionally). But again, I don't, first, I don't have control over prices or co-pays, I don't have that type of access to the system, but again, I'm doing my job.

Of course, its not all bad, some plans we operate under give us wide leeway as to what we can do, so I can do more of what I want, and sometimes I like telling members the truth when pharmacies lie. It happens more often than people think, a pharmacy enters the wrong information in their system, it comes back with rejections/errors, and then they tell the members they don't have insurance or prescription drug coverage, without bothering to contact us to verify the information or the coverage. Pharmacies are surprisingly lazy when it comes to this, a 2 minute call from the number on the back of the prescription card and problem solved. Instead they unnecessarily piss off the member and then the members call me demanding answers. During the call, its very satisfying to be able to solve a member's problem, and get them pissed at the pharmacy at the same time.

Eh, enough about that, got side tracked, the point is, particularly when it comes to medical care and coverage, why should religious organizations be exempt from the rules I have to follow? Indeed, considering the nature of medical care and prescription drug coverage, shouldn't they be opened to even more scrutiny and oversight? These are people's lives we are playing with here, not luxuries. It shouldn't be subject to people's subjective religious beliefs, but rather based on medical expertise and science.

The point being is, first off, religious freedom shouldn't doesn't give you freedom from the rules everybody has to follow, and second, religious organizations should have to follow the EXACT same rules as secular organizations.