The latest salvo of the ultra-conservative circus is accusing President Obama of “Trampling on Religious Liberty.”
According to The Heritage Foundation, “The Obama Administration’s mandate under the Obamacare statute that many religious employers provide health care coverage for contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization tramples upon their free exercise of religion. The Obama Administration should immediately exempt such religious employers from the contraception mandate. The Administration’s trampling upon religious liberty with the contraception mandate illustrates yet again the need to repeal the Obamacare statute. (http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/01/obamacares-contraception-mandate-tramples-on-religious-liberty/) This is pretty representative of the rhetoric from like-minded groups.
According to ABC News, “The issue has heated up since Jan. 20, when Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius issued a final rule requiring that all women have access to free preventive care services, including contraceptives. The rule includes an exemption for churches and houses of worship, but not for other religious institutions such as hospitals, universities and charities.” (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-02-08/catholics-contraceptive-mandate/53014864/1)
So what was a directive aimed at providing contraception services to women, WHO MIGHT WANT TO HAVE IT, has turned into a supposed battle for religious freedom.
Why? Well, the most visible and outspoken opponent of any form of artificial contraception, The Catholic Church, is opposed to any thing that force any of their organization to offer it to women, WHO MIGHT WANT IT, regardless of they are Catholic or not.
Now, this is somewhat understandable that The Church should be allowed to exercise its rights under the First Amendment not to have to do something it objects to on religious grounds. So, the Obama Administration softened its stance somewhat by making the contraception services available to women, WHO WANT IT, through the private insurance they are provided, and not by the religious organization itself, thus taking the Catholic Church and any other organization that objected out of the loop.
Was that satisfactory? Of course not!
Why? Because the conservative movement created a firestorm that this was a religious rights matter and not a health issue to create yet another talking point to use against the President at election time. It rallies the base; it incites people to be more interested in Republican candidates for President, who according to the polls would all lose against the President if the election were held today.
But, it also exposes two ironies that the conservatives would rather ignore.
Irony #1 – The Catholic Bishops and Conservative lawmakers making a big deal out of this issue do not have the American people behind them and The Church does not even have a majority of its women members behind them. According to a recent poll,
A majority (55%) of Americans agree that “employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost.” Four-in-ten (40%) disagree with this requirement.
Key breakdowns
- 58% of all Catholics agree employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception. That slides down to 52% for Catholic voters, 50% for white Catholics.
- 61% of religiously unaffiliated Americans say employer plans should cover contraception.
- 50%of white mainline Protestants want the coverage. However, for evangelical Protestants, that drops to 38%.
And perhaps of greater note among election-watchers:
Women are significantly more likely than men to agree that employers should be required to provide health care plans that cover contraception (62% vs. 47% respectively).
A second poll, also released today from Public Policy Polling, has similar findings. (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2012/02/contraception-catholic-bishops-obama-hhs/1#.Tz5Y5LT4J3o)
Irony #2 – The same folks that suggest President Obama is “trampling on religious liberty” would not vote for Mitt Romney solely because he is of the Mormon faith.
“For Chuck Hofstra, Romney’s religion is flat out a “deal killer.”
“I like a lot about Romney, I get a lot of positives … but you know, his faith of Mormonism … I mean, they do not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, that he is the son of God. And if you take away the deity of the son of God, who died for our sins to forgive us of our sins, all he is is just a mere historical figure, then,” he said.
“That is a huge difference between somebody who believes he’s Jesus Christ, the son of God, co-creator of the world, the Trinity, versus somebody who just thinks, ‘well he was a good man, a good prophet who walked here on earth, a historical figure, he’s a great man, but that’s the end of it.’ And see it’s just hard for me to vote for somebody who just doesn’t see the deity of Jesus Christ,” he said. (http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/21/does-mitt%e2%80%99s-mormonism-matter-in-south-carolina/#ixzz1meBo9Xua)
How is that not “Trampling on Religious Liberty?” This is but one example of the kind of talk you hear from the conservative side.
Wheat & Tares 
You’ve got small questions you’ve wrapped up into a metaquestion.
It is interesting that most universities have fought paying for contraception, after all, it is pretty universal, and their students are a high consuming group.
But it becomes a question of who pays and how they pay. Generally, if you add it to a health plan, you are just changing how people pay. It is not insurance against catastrophic need or spending spikes, but is a method of paying for a regular consumable.
The question then becomes is it cheaper for a person to buy it directly, or to pay their insurance company to handle it. Lots of interesting questions there.
Moving up one step, to the Catholic/Obama controversy, there is a lot going on between he and the Catholic bishops. There is a good amount to suppose that the bishops have people behind them in significant numbers when you change the question to “should the Catholic Church be required to pay for” …
Interesting what a difference framing makes, which is your overall point.
i see you are keeping up in the tradition of our general authorities by using “so called” to denigrate positions you dont agree with. i like it!
“I see you are keeping up in the tradition of our general authorities by using “so called” to denigrate positions you dont agree with.”
Huh?
Stephen,
Your question is a good one, but cascades into Women’s reproductive rights and such, which I am not too interested in debating here.
But, the old adage seems to be in play, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” or in this case, “8 lbs, 5 oz of cure.”
If Obama ended world hunger, there would be wealthy, fat, well fed people that would say that the government is taking away the poor, skinny, malnourished people’s god given right to starve. These businesses are not houses of worship.
What I fear will happen is that these businesses will drop health care coverage for their employees and that would truly be sad.
dba.brotherp,
Way off topic.
What I fear will happen is that these businesses will drop health care coverage for their employees and that would truly be sad.
This part is not that far off topic. It is just misguided. Replicating my comment on the February 8th BCC post:
And before you object that employers will just pocket the savings, please explain to me why they haven’t dropped coverage and pocketed the savings already.
As for the religious liberty aspect, consider the tax expenditure for employer-provided health insurance. (Tax expenditures are government spending programs administered through the tax code.) To the extent that those plans cover contraception, the government–and, by extension, taxpayers of all religions–have been subsidizing birth control for years.
Speaking of “Irony #2” — all this puffed-up outrage about the State infringing on the first amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion would have been helpful ~125 years ago when polygamists were being jailed and property seized.
What’s that quote?
Last Lemming,
It would be interesting to see what the effects of non-employer financed health care would have on the prices. That is kind of what Ron Paul says, which I both agree with and think a bit naive.
The Congress will never let that happen because it protects the large insurers, healthcare providers and other special interests involved in the healthcare business.
Jeff,
It looks like I have just fallen victim to my weakness of writing my thoughts out. What I was trying to say was this outrage (by Republicans) appears to be a power play. I can appreciate the outrage from religious leaders concerning churches but I don’t consider those businesses as houses of worship.
I feel that because it was proposed by a Democrat some people automatically oppose it. The Democrats do the same thing. I was trying to use an example that if something truly worthwhile happened, there would be people opposed to it. I guess I failed 😦
dba.brotherp,
Ok, I get you now. And it’s true.
Heheh, this is a great thread, I am enjoying your comments almost as much as the post.
Allow me to proudly declare myself with the ultra-conservatives (Catholics????) on this one. I have no moral argument against birth control. My views on the ethics revolve around the moment when your moral choice is changed from deciding HOW MANY children are to be born with WHICH child is born being a random event (avoiding conception), to deciding that a particular fertilized egg — a PARTICULAR potential human being — should not live (which morning-after pills, and later abortions inevitably involve). The idea that the being LEAST responsible for an unwanted pregnancy pays the highest price for the mistake is morally abhorrent to many Americans, not just Catholics.
But I know from many a lunch time discussion over the years with devout Catholics that their seamless distinction between contraception is exactly as honestly held and as constitutionally protected as an LDS insistence on barring those without TRs from Temple ordinances, or insisting that Kosher groceries not promote sale of pork, even though white meat is healthier than beef, and we’d probably cut down on heart disease expenses. Catholics teach that it is PROFOUNDLY immoral to pay for access to the pleasures and intimacy of sex by destroying potential life. The accuracy of their beliefs is irrelevant to their constitutional protection because our nation was founded by people who had seen the state, going back to the Tudors, destroy people’s lives to bend churches to the goals of the state.
Voluntary provision of health care plans covering contraception (as Lemming notes) already exists BUT IS STILL AGAINST THE MORALITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. Now the church must be brought to heal before the state by being forced to participate in it?
Even though there is no case that anyone, even Catholics who wish not to follow the teachings, are being unduly burdened in obtaining contraception or abortion?
And the “compromise” proposed is even more obscene — and I use the term “obscene” intentionally. Religious institutions with moral objections are still compelled to buy insurance policies that offer the “reproductive” health services for “free”, in direct contradiction to the notion of Obamacare that such services are required because they are costly to women. So premiums paid by the religious institutions must rise.
“No,” says Secretary Sebelius, because the health care system will actually make a PROFIT from avoiding all the expenses of pre-natal, pregnancy, delivery, and pediatric medical care that these unwanted children would otherwise incur.
See, we can solve our debt problems if we can just find enough unwanted people to get rid of! That would be absurd if ORGANIZATIONS LIKE PLANNED PARENTHOOD hadn’t gone down exactly that road, with all of the best intentions, at the beginning of the LAST century, and only stopped their insanity when the extreme right took over their argument and matched it with industrial-strength efficiency in the elimination of people THEY didn’t want around!
Are we REALLY so much more civilized than the Europeans of a century ago that we ever want to give such control over conscience to a majority vote?
And in case anyone is wondering, I’m not a pacifist, but I’ll protest just as strongly if some future president tries to reimpose the draft and eliminate CO exemptions to participation.
dbabrotherp:
Catholic charities like hospitals and soup kitchens are the essence of Catholic mission — you know, the redistribution of wealth that Obama celebrates in other contexts. It’s just that it’s hard to keep chapels and naves sufficiently sterile for hospital beds. 😀
The Congress will never let that happen because it protects the large insurers, healthcare providers and other special interests involved in the healthcare business.
I don’t understand what “Congress will never let happen.” I was describing Obamacare, which Congress has already let happen.
Last lemming,
The Congress will never let the Healthcare market truly be a free market because real competition would drive the prices down.
Firetag,
Nice try! And we should respect the Catholic Churches beliefs on contraception.
But when you run businesses which do not have a direct link to your religious practice and employ people not of your faith, you have to have a certain allowance.
Women who need contraceptive services should be able to get them like everyone else.
The LDS Church has a number of for profit businesses for which you do not have to have a Temple recommend to work there. They may have a more strict code of conduct then some businesses, but imposing religious believes is not one of them.
Not all women use birth control as a contraceptive, it’s also used to treat such things as endometriosis. It should be covered by insurance.
SingleintheCity #17,
True!
Where is the moral outrage over having to provide the blood transfusions that Seventh Day Adventists object to? Where is the outrage over providing insurance for anyof the medical interventions that Christian Scientists object to?
This is a transparent attempt to subject women to the values of a church they may or may not belong to and not a small degree of tyranny in the process. It’s time to stop to stop enabling organizations that would treat normal, legal, private sexual activities and personal decisions as though they were suspect in some way. And I am not talking about being a libertine. I am talking about the activities of married American adults.
Jeff:
I would agree with you regarding things like hunting clubs and malls (Mormon examples) where the connection with religious mission is tenuous at best. And I could certainly see the requirement for BYU, where there is no, to my admittedly imperfect understanding of LDS teachings, theological basis for limiting family size anyway.
But the Catholic church has BEEN the national educational system in some countries since the middle ages. It’s certainly part of the historically embraced religious mission, as are the types of charities I mentioned above. Religious exemptions should be extended on a RELIGIOUS basis, not on accounting, in order to preserve First Amendment protections.
There is actually a “Hawaiian Compromise” that limits such institutions to providing only information on where such services can be obtained — and these services have already been widely obtained, demonstrating that they can be obtained without further compromising the First Amendment.
SingleintheCity:
Pretty much all insurance policies limit/permit services of any kind on the basis of medical necessity. The same distinction can apply to contraception. (Life and health of the mother is a valid, well intentioned distinction that people have been able to drive trucks through to satisfy the demand for abortions several months after conception.)
I will note personally that I can not renew one prescription for a weekly anemia medication that is expensive, even though it is the only thing that prevents me from RE-developing the heart-threatening anemia for which it is prescribed. As soon as its absence causes my symptoms to recur in a few weeks, it will immediately be covered again, as will the doctor’s visit and test necessary to demonstrate that I need the medicine again. Such are the absurdities when government health care and budgetary constraints meet each other.
Fire tag,
I can see your point of view. I have a hard time specifically with hospitals not being a business. For example, if I go to a Catholic Health System hospital, I am charged for services. If I don’t pay I am sent to collections.
Catholic Health System hospitals are already subject to Federal and State regulations by accepting government money in the form of Medicare and Medicaid. They also get a sort of subsidy by not paying some taxes that a for-profit hospital would have to pay.
In contrast, I don’t have to pay to go to a Catholic/Mormon service. If I don’t pay an offering/tithing to a church, I am not sent to collections (can you imagine those guilt filled collection calls?) Churches don’t get government money for their worship services.
It’s hard but if you don’t want government interfering, don’t take the money.
Jeff, thanks for this discussion.
I have a couple of observations:
1. Your Irony #1 seems irrelevant to me as it relates to the position of the Catholic Church. That church may teach and practice its doctines as it sees fit. (I agree that the political granstanding is ironic given the lack of popularity with the position, and if that’s what you’re getting at, then I agree).
2. The real irony in your #2 is that Hofstra is so ignorant of Romeny’s religious belief (the only part he gets right is the Trinity issue). But I don’t see where Hofstra’s stupidity tramples on anyone’s religious liberty.
Firetag,
“But the Catholic church has BEEN the national educational system in some countries since the middle ages. ”
I am sure you relize we are not talking about other countries, but here. It’s beside the point.
A Catholic University, owned by the church is free to impose it’s religious POV just as BYU does. but a CAtholic hopital, whic is a for profit enterprise, does not.
BTW, the new proposal byt the adminstration was similiar to the Hawaiian compromise. But Catholic Bishops and conservatives rejected it because it does not meet their agenda. it certainly satisfies the requirement that church run organization not be forced to give contraception in objection to its teachings but allows WOMEN WHO WANT IT TO GET IT.
Paul,
Irony #1, the Bishops hold a position the majority of their own Church members do not. To me that is irony.
Irony #2, people will not vote for Romney because he is a Mormon, thus trampling on his religious liberty. “he might be a good man, but he’s a Mormon.” Prejudice because of religion.
Alice:
I presume you will not be applying to work at a Catholic hospital any time soon. 😀
Would it be your normal expectation to seek employment in jobs with organizations whose stated policies FROM BEFORE YOU APPLY lack something you regard as morally important? I mean, I’ve turned down job offers because the commute would be too hard on my family life, and I certainly figured in the cost of gas to salary negotiations as well.
Do vegans apply to work behind the counters of meat markets? Do TBMs seek jobs in taverns? Do pacifists volunteer for the Army?
Seventh Day Adventists and Christian Scientists HAVE in many cases expressed moral outrage on having society impose treatments on their members. Some have gone to jail for upholding their beliefs. In fact, I can point to a later member of the RLDS First Presidency who was once sentenced to death by a British court in WW1 because he refused to make war on Germans; he couldn’t see any morality in killing German saints to protect British saints. Now, that’s paying a price for your beliefs, even if I don’t share those beliefs.
I’m having a little trouble grasping the assumption that there is tyranny unless “normal, legal, private sexual activities and personal decisions” are made cost-free by the state. Clearly, nobody is actually succeeding in keeping contraception away from women or stopping the post-conception termination of life. People are making money from the process, however, and I suspect who gets the money is an important consideration on BOTH SIDES of the issue.
Jeff:
The development of the public school system did not spring whole from Valley Forge. 😀 Catholic and other religious schools were essential to education in America for a long time. In fact, public schools in urban areas are so bad today that Catholic schools are the best option for many African American and Latino children, and positions at such schools are struggled for the way rich liberals struggle to get their kids into prep school.
Jeff, I see your point.
I guess I see some irony that one might expect Catholic bishops to behave according to the popular vote of their congregants. Our leaders don’t do that. (Maybe they are ironic, too.)
Jeff:
It is inconceivable that the presence of profit or loss would actually outweigh connection to mission in deciding whether a religious exemption would be broadly or narrowly interpreted in a court challenge. The Supreme Court just ruled for a broad interpretation of who is a minister under labor law in a 9-0 decision just weeks ago. That’s right, the broad exemption got the vote of EVERY liberal on the court AND every conservative.
But as this link notes, the Catholic LEFT that supports Obamacare is also up-to-its-ears in profit considerations, and just as involved in Catholic Hospitals.
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/02/16/the-little-sisters-of-limousin
dbabrotherp:
Under tax laws, there are beasts called non-profits. The GOVERNMENT, not the proposed non-profit entity, decided the qualifications for placing such entities in non-profit categories, and decided what restrictions and benefits would be placed on them BECAUSE OF ADVANTAGES OFFERED TO THE STATE by doing so. Many religious entities are organized as non-profits, but the non-profit category is far broader than religion.
Jeff’s avatar, for example, shows him playing drums for a symphony performance. Most symphonies are organized as non-profits, but you still have to pay for tickets, and if your credit card bounces, they will send you to collections, even while they call you incessantly for further contributions. (Think public television.)
Religious non-profits are unlike other non-profits precisely in that they have additional, constitutionally granted protections that no President or Congress can rescind when the goals of the state change. It’s that old Tudor/Puritan/Roundhead/King-George thing, you know. 😀
There’s seems to be some gross misconceptions about the issues and parties involved.
AFAIK, healthcare organizations like Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) are non-profit organizations. They exist as part of the Catholic Church’s mission to minister to medical needs. Since contraceptives are an elective item (useful and can be dispensed IAW medical practice but not essential to sustain life), it is NOT for the Federal government to dictate their dispensary against Catholic doctrine.
El Jefe, it’s one thing to assert a “right” to privacy as was done in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) to restrain states from prohibiting contraceptives. It’s another to assert that there’s a “right” to them AND w/o charge via Federal dictate. This is Liberalism gone “nuckin futz”
#25 It’s more than a matter of where I may or may not choose to work.
I recently listened to someone in great pain who went by ambulance to the nearest hospital. That hospital turned out to be a Catholic hospital and the pain happened to be the result of an ectopic pregnancy. She was told that they were not willing to terminate her doomed pregnancy. To get the care she needed she had to engage a second ambulance and travel to a second hospital where they treated her.
When she was billed, she was billed by both hospitals for significant sums. But when she submitted the bills to her insurance company they would only cover one expense. She was left having to cover the rest out of her own pocket not by virtue of any decision on her part but decisions made for her by the institution.
At least she got the outcome that she needed. If another non-Catholic (or even Catholic for that matter) woman had a need not to take on a financial and emotional obligation for the next 20 or so years of her life, she would not even be able to get the birth control to avoid two horrendous outcomes if she were unfortunate enough to have to accept employment in these trying financial times when jobs are not necessarily exactly what everyone may wish for at a Catholic or Catholic-affiliated company.
That first sentence should read “…someone who in great pain went…”
The first irony is that we are trying to make logical sense of politics??? Did you see Pres Obama’s hand he played to talk about prayer and inspiration from Billy Graham? Was that to put himself in better light in preparation for these actions? Who knows.
I’m not sure I see Irony#2 is about “Trampling on Religious Liberty”…in fact, it is allowing religious liberty to voters who don’t wish to vote for a Mormon (even if they are as uninformed and ignorant as Chuck).
Paul,
“I guess I see some irony that one might expect Catholic bishops to behave according to the popular vote of their congregants.”
It was more like the Catholic Bishops want to invoke Vatican policy but their constituency does not quite believe as they do.
Heber13,
“The first irony is that we are trying to make logical sense of politics???”
Well, is always that…. 😀
Alice:
I think what you are describing should be clearly assigned to the moral irresponsibility of the insurance company, and not to the Catholic hospital. It should be fixed WITHOUT requiring Catholic hospitals to violate the conscience of the church or requiring the patient to pick up the cost of transfer. In fact, the fix should be a win for both the affirmation of women’s rights and religious conscience.
It is COMMON for patients to have to be transferred to other treatment facilities after diagnosis, sometimes even over long distances by helicopter. Every hospital can not be the best treatment option for every sickness. Hospitals specialize in some types of illness, and refer patients for others, even in a large city like Washington.
You are describing an insurance company trying to use a “medically necessary” loophole to hope the patient will give up the fight. She should bill the insurance company for the second hospital, hire a lawyer, and threaten to use the religious freedom exemption as a cudgel to force the insurance company for the second hospital to “man up”. The Catholic hospital would probably be best served to file a friendly brief supporting the patient’s claims to ensure all of the diagnostic and transport costs were covered.
Don’t know how my cell phone autocorrected to “Heheh” from “Jeff” but this remains a great thread.
Alice,
I second FireTag’s placing the blame on the insurance company. There are a wide variety of reasons to seek out multiple providers for treatment of a single condition. The insurer is just piling on the bureaucratic nonsense. Unfortunately, this will get much worse after the government gets more involved.
The rules will become more complex and there will be even less recourse. At least, with employer provided insurance you can complain to the company benefits director and maybe get some help. The HHS secretary will be much less understanding.
To add further, in the HHS Secretary asserting that she could order insurance companies to pay for health care services that violated religious conscience, she could just as easily have explicitly required the coverage of patient transfer when necessitated by a religious institution’s freedom of conscience, EXPLICITLY affirming the right of religious freedom as an exemption to the standard HHS guidelines on women’s health care.
I’ll add another example of Catholic hospitals imposing religious practices on patients. When my mother was in labor in the nearby Catholic hospital with my older sister in 1962, they refused to help her deliver her baby until she signed an agreement to have the baby baptized by the hospital when she was born. So my sister is technically both Catholic and Mormon as a result. I sure don’t see this as different from the Mormons posthumously baptizing people we have no connection to.
Politics is the marketplace of ideas. The persuasive ideas win. Religion is the marketplace of top-down dogma. Over time, if you can’t convince people your dogma is better than their own views, you don’t win. Personally, this is why I always feel that people’s political views are stronger than their religious views. People re-interpret their understanding of their religion to suit their political ideologies. Politics persuades through discussion; religion dictates. This debate is already illustrating that.
Sure, Republicans appear to be veiling an anti-female crusade as a bizarre defense of religious rights (as determined by a hardcore Catholic minority), but there’s no way they actually think women can’t be allowed the freedom to manage childbirth. Definitely they’ll support private, free-market solutions to obtaining inexpensive birth control. If only that existed, some organization to help Plan Parenthood. Surely Republicans will cheer when that arises!
Catholics also will support birth control over the far worse alternative of abortion. That’s an important part of this argument that needs to be brought forward.
Hawkgrrrl:
I would largely agree with you, although I would phrase it as basic personality types largely influence both our choice of religions and our choice of politics. If you look at studies like the Pew Religious Landscape Survey, you’ll see that liberal AND conservative denominations spring up in every religious tradition, and the bodies on one side usually have more in common with those on their side than those from their own tradition on the other side.
Of course, when it comes to politics persuading as imposed to religion dictating, I think that all comes down to how much force backs the “dictation”. Politics has never persuaded the American people to give up religious liberties in the super-majorities required for constitutional amendments, and it has never persuaded the American people to enter into a nation-state without the protections of minority rights provided by those super-majority requirements. (The Constitution could never have been approved by the States without the addition of the first 10 Amendments, i.e., the Bill of Rights.) Indeed, the whole trend of civil rights has been to reduce the ability of simple majorities to impose their tyranny on the unempowered.
Frankly, if it comes down to the 82nd Airborne vs. the Vatican’s Swiss Guard, bet on the 82nd, unless the Vatican actually can call for angelic reinforcements. 😀
#42 If you’re referring to the Catholics in the pews they may “support birth control over the far worse alternative of abortion”. But if you’re referring to the bishops they specifically do not. They draw no line, permit neither and leave no option. Even when it means the certain death of the mother. And that’s the direction they would go in if they are allowed to make public policy for Catholic and non-Catholic American citizens.
Alice:
I am again at a loss to understand just HOW you think it possible that a Catholic hierarchy — even adding in evangelicals — that can not impose its views on many of its own membership is about to take over the country’s health choices.
Theocracies can only develop when a king or emperor suborns religion to the service of the state. It has been so since BEFORE Constantine when Aurelian made the state religion of Rome the soldiers’ patron god Sol Invictus.
Fear the arising of the king, not the bishop.
You’d think family planning would be high on the agenda of every religion even those who call for unlimited children. I recall a conference talk where some GA cautioned the brethren to be considerate of their wives and don’t turn them into baby factories.
Apparently, the Pope does not think the same way. but then again, he doesn’t have a family…. that we know of.
A CNN poll found that 50% (against 44% support) oppose the HHS mandate, a finding which may be of some interest.
I don’t know if you have been paying attention to this issue or not, but Catholics have been awaiting this decision from HHS for some time. It isn’t as if conservatives were chomping at the bit to make this election about social issues.
The left sees an election about social issues as a benefit, as it draws attention away from the dismal economic situation. The less we talk about the failure of many administration policies, the more we can pretend that birth control is (1) expensive, (2) hard to obtain, and (3) that Republicans want to ban it. Not that any of this is true, but when has that ever mattered?
Why isn’t my Prilosec prescription covered 100%? Why isn’t my husband’s daily diuretic medication covered 100%? The impetus behind this mandate is entirely political – the administration simply wants to give women voters something free in time for the election, especially since the health reform bill has resulted in higher premiums, but no real benefit for most people. I mean, who doesn’t want free stuff?
Also, Jeff, your last comment is downright disrespectful of observant Catholic beliefs.