You think a raped women going to the hospital and wanting emergency contraception should be denied, all because that hospital was owned by Catholics?
Or that atheist who went to work at the Catholic homeless shelter to help people, knowing that since the Catholic Church takes money from the federal and state government to run it, it has to serve and hire from a pool of… everyone… should be able to be denied access to the pill? Even if she has a serious disease and getting pregnant would represent all kinds of dangers to mother and fetus?
Charley… I think you’re one of the brightest guys on here and one of the smartest people I know. Truth be told, I look forward to what you write more than anyone else here — and I hope you take this as more playful ribbing than anything else. Yet, I’m reminded by something Albus Dumbledore said in one of the Harry Potter books.
“In fact, being – forgive me – rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.”
Going this route would be an incredible disaster to women, a disaster to individual freedom and even a disaster to the President’s reelection chances, his reelection seeming to be one of the motivating factors of your position.
Barack Obama will not lose one damn vote over this issue. Upwards of 98% of all Catholic women have used contraceptives. They didn’t care and obviously their husbands and boyfriends didn’t, either. It’s a non-fracking-issue. That other chunk of Catholics who get really ripped over it either weren’t going to vote for us anyway, or will swallow the bitter pill and get over it.
In fact, if what happened over the past couple weeks taught us anything, it’s that women are fierce protectors of their own rights and dignity and that trying to screw them over is definitely going to screw yourself over. If you want Barack Obama and the OFA brand to become the the next Susan G Komen for the Cure, allowing Catholic hospitals, homeless shelters and schools that take federal funds to deny access to women’s health care is the fastest way of doing it.
He will get absolutely no credit from the rightwing for doing it, and women across this country — and men who care about them — will freaking lose it. And they should.
Yet, that’s all beside the point. Here’s the bottom line: The Catholic Church benefits from federal and state governments, all across the country, to the tune of hundreds of millions — if not billions — of dollars. Every time a medicare patient walks into one of their hospitals, or a kid going to BC gets a pell grant. A lot of these services are places of last resort and denying treatment or proper medical coverage would, for lack of a better word, damn them.
Now you think the Catholic Church should be able to suck on the federal t.. — I mean accept federal grants — while denying the rights of patients and employees from getting core medical care or coverage in their medical plans? Hell to the no.
If the Catholic Church, or any church, wants to accept federal aid for its programs and services, then it serves and hires from a pool of everyone — and it doesn’t discriminate against those it serves or hires. Period. If they don’t like being in the non-discriminating business, then they should get the hell out of the accepting-government-money business.
A truly democratic-party approach to women’s health leads to fewer teen pregnancies and fewer abortions, record lows under Obama’s leadership, in fact. Why would anyone want Obama to walk back on that?
If this is framed by the federal government as, “If you take our money you have to play by our rules,” I think that’s reasonable. Then the institutions will be the ones in the position of deciding how much their teachings are worth to them.
It applies to affiliated institutions, not the actual churches (ie priests, nuns, and the people who run the church itself, etc.), meaning we’re talking about Catholic hospitals and other agencies that provide a service and take government funding, like shelters or food pantries. The republicans would like to spin it like we’re making the church pay for nuns to have contraceptive coverage, but that’s just not the case.
Furthermore, states have been doing this for decades and churches haven’t been making a peep, making this very reminiscent of the gay adoption shenanigans I mentioned in Charley’s previous thread.
This is a ginned up issue by Bishops to play politics, pure and simple. It’s an election year and the right-wing needs an issue. The bishops, who have been trending GOP for the past couple decades, thinks it’s found them one.
It’s a sad day when Bishops care more about pills and condoms than they do people going hungry, because I don’t see them raising much of a stink about all the Republican attempts to cut back on unemployment, medicare, social security and food stamps.
It’s well past time for the bishops of the Catholic Church to catch up to its members — at least if they want to reverse decades of thinning ranks. I think it’s pretty notable that I used to be a staunch Catholic and it’s exactly these kinds of issues that got me to renounce the faith. I didn’t leave the church; the church left me.
Boston’s Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley criticizes federal move to require health plans to provide free contraception for women
The Bishops have increasingly been concerned with divisive political issues rather than adhering to the important social justice mission of the Church. The Catholic Church will be almost nonexistant in this country in a generation if they keep this up.
Here’s a problem. Here is a private solution to the problem. Government cannot direct the private party on how it must do so, and so creates a subsidy program that inflates the crap out of the cost of the solution, and then tells the private party that if you accept these funds– which you require since we have now inflated the crap out of your costs– you will accept government control.
The expansion of the government thus justifies the government’s sidestepping of constitutional restraint on government; once sidestepped, further expansion is, of course, needed, etc.
Don’t like it, well, hospitals and whatever your organization does would be done better if directly run by the government, and your private organization ceases to exist. This is precisely the sort of argument that is fueling the Tea Party movement.
and I’d add on to the point that I doubt that this is “bad politics,” as some here on BMG have said, as well as other liberals I respect (e.g. E.J. Dionne and Mark Shields).
The decision is already pushing the GOP in a crazed fury by activating their (generally unpopular) strongly social conservative wing and threatening a schism within the party on this issue. It puts the Republicans against clear majorities of Americans (including Catholics) on the contraception issue, and allows the GOP to hang themselves with this when they should be focused on the economy. And, as a bonus, it gives Rick Santorum a new angle to attack Romney and extend the Republicans’ disastrous primary race.
I’m not seeing how this is “bad politics” — not for Democrats, anyway.
I disagree with the Church’s uncompromising stance on the question of birth control but affirm it has a right to make that stance. I have several issues with some of your contentions Rye, though I want to be clear I respect where you are coming from.
This is not what is being discussed at all but is a separate issue. The question at hand is whether or not Catholic institutions may be compelled by the state to purchase coverage for items the Church is morally opposed to. A raped woman is not volunteering to go to a Catholic hospital or volunteering to be subject to their rules so having that hospitals pharmacy stock those items, and we can have the federal government fund them if the Church does not want to pay for them, or at least referring them to a nearby facility that does stock those items, is a) sensible policy b) already happening in MA thanks to Coakley and Romney and in most states and c)again not what we are discussing here.
I feel about as bad for her as I do for a gay working for Santorum. She knew it was Catholic, there are plenty of other religious and secular places she could work, employment is voluntary association and if the Church wants to hire non-Catholics but subject them to its policies than thats its business. Will it hurt the Church and those institutions by limiting the pool and creating a Catholic ghetto, certainly. But if thats the Churchs decision than it can live with the consequences. I really do not see how she can then force a religion to violate its beliefs using the power of the state which is at question here.
Seriously dude get out of Massachusetts once in a while and you can see how the rest of the country thinks and why in fact, in our center-right country, progressive politics are difficult to pass. Go to OH, go to WI, go to IA, or hell go up to NH and talk with the Catholics this President promised at UND he would respect their views and they now feel betrayed. They shouldn’t have to choose between their pro-life sensibilities and social justice, but Obama is making them choose and many of them are independent swing voters that will vote on single issues including this one. Catholics are the largest bloc of independent swing voters in the country. They swung to Bush twice because of Clintons support of partial birth abortion and Kerrys opposition to banning gay marriage. OH was lost because of the Catholic vote in 2004 and I know many, many Catholics from that state that voted for Obama and Bush from my time campaigning there and from friends that went to U Chicago with me. I know professional women, including a lawyer and doctor both fresh out of grad school,that were in the trenches with me in Iowa, are both personally pro-life but pro-choice in the public sphere, and are devout Catholics that were also strong Obama supporters. They will likely stay home, they arent voting for Romney, but they are staying home. This could have a significant impact and it undermines the mandate.
A few points where we can agree and move forward:
1)the compromise
Axelrod is working on a compromise that allows Church workers to get the coverage from their insurers directly and pay for it like they would a regular deductible. In theory, they get their coverage, they dont pay extra for it, and the Church can wipe its hands. In practice, how both sides react will show their true colors. Those on the left that feel betrayed will show their true colors as people that, like Falwell, will force their moral views on those that disagree with them. If the Church still rejects that generous compromise, it shows its true colors as an outdated institution trying to revive a patriarchial Catholic culture that is long and thankfully dead. Lets see what happens. But as reality based individuals I think we can both agree thats a sensible compromise.
2) Why the Mandate sucks
What should be happening is a discussion about why the Mandate sucks, and instead of feeding GOP arguments that the mandate is evil simply rebutt them with, “well we wouldnt be forcing individuals and institutions to violate their beliefs if the state could just cover the healthcare itself” and amongst thinking people, like Christopher and others on this site, I think we can all agree this incident shows the vital necessity for a true public option. In that world this problem would never have happened since employers would be out of the insurance business and instead focused on their business, their mission, and wouldnt need to wrangle over what they covered or alternatively decide what to cover capriciously. This discussion should, above all else, show why employers are bad arbiters of health insurance coverage.
in regards to talking to a couple devout Catholic Obama supporters, but the fact is that such people are far too small a part of the broader voting population to make any noticeable dent in Obama’s numbers. In other words, people will be voting on the economy, not contraception. Politicians who decide to make this contraception issue a priority are the ones putting themselves at risk, since, as Carville put it, “it’s the economy, stupid.” Yet the Republicans are making an issue of it, to their own detriment.
I would also dispute your notion that Catholics are the “largest bloc of independent swing voters in the country.” While decades ago there was a difference between Catholics and others, today there’s little difference in voting behavior between Catholics and the rest of the population. Catholics “swung to Bush” in 2000/2004 compared to 1996 not because of social issues but because of all of the reasons every other group swung to the Republicans relative to a good Dem year in 1996. Put simply, Catholics are like the rest of the population. They swing towards Republicans in Republican years and towards Democrats in Democratic years.
Dead right on the issue (and Charlie, what were you thinking?), but it is no small thing to have dog-whistling letters from the Pope read from pulpits across the U.S. between now and election day.
There is a real history of anti-Catholicism to which the whole fraudulent “religious freedom” frame is designed to link Obama. It is another attempt to make the election about tribal alliances rather than issues (such as contraception).
In that respect Catholics are not “like the rest of the population”: to whit, they are Catholics. It looks to you as though this is about abortion and contraception, but to them it is about persecution.
I expect this stratagem to have some success with its target audience. I also expect the election to be very close. So it’s something to worry about.
I could see if it were about denying care to AIDS patients, or patients with STDs or denying care to gay people because they are gay, or pregnant women because they are not married. That would be horrific and worthy of a mandate to stop it. But forcing them to offer free contraception in their health care plans is a poor choice to go out on limb on, especially when contraception is readily available without insurance and not necessarily an emergency or life threatening situation.
it needs to get the frack out of the taking-government’s-money business.
Under no circumstances whatsoever should the government EVER give a single dime to an organization that discriminates against its clients or its employees. If a group of catholics wants to open up a catholic hospital or shelter and take government money, that’s fine, but it can’t discriminate. Period.
And forcing religious dogma or moral beliefs on patients and employees of these organization is discrimination. It’s against the law, despite whatever you think, and it should remain that way.
Ensuring these organizations can’t discriminate against women on their health coverage is only being consistent with current policies re: employment and those being serviced, and consistent with what many or even most states are already doing… despite the fact that it’s never been raised as a serious issue before this year’s election season — being the latest manufactured social issue.
Um, yeah, it kind of is what’s being discussed. Just listen to yourself.
You see? It absolutely is an issue and being put on the table by people like yourself. You sound like Joe Lieberman who just wants to shuttle rape victims from hospital to hospital until someone FINALLY has the decency to treat them. HOW DARE YOU? The person was RAPED!
They get to go to the nearest hospital possible and get immediate treatment and support. If a hospital can’t do that, it has no business being a hospital. Please remember, women aren’t always going to have much of a choice when they’re under those circumstances.
In many cases, the Catholic hospital is the only hospital around, and in other cases they’re going to go where the ambulance or friend takes them… and should policy be shaped by rightwing nuts, they’re not going to necessarily know they won’t be able to get necessary treatment that’s needed at that location, forcing them to go over the entire post-rape ER ordeal all over again and forcing them to feel dejected at the very moment they need care and support.
As for the government funding rape kits and emergency contraception…. it already does! What do you think medicare, medicaid and all the other federal and state grants do? It funds hospitals and doctors. You don’t actually think the Catholic hospitals raise money from Catholics to fund those hospitals, sans federal funding and health insurance premiums? That would be laughably naive.
Those hospitals, each and every one of them, take in millions and millions of federal, state and even local dollars every single year. By doing that, it means they can’t discriminate at those hospitals against patients or employers. Period. If they can’t observe those rules, they should do as Caritas Christi is trying to do now and get out of the hospital business.
Seriously, dude, learn to read a poll. You may be an outlier, but Catholics are more heavily in favor of Obama’s plan to include contraception coverage than the American public at large. The outliers aren’t voting for us anyway, or are Catholic Bishops trying to bully the government with a very weak hand, given the fact that their flock thinks they’re with the dinosaurs on this issue.
You can deal with anecdotes and your on the ground “feelings.” I’ll be more than happy to be the one who deals in facts.
First of all, “a gay?” Seriously? I find that incredibly offensive. I am a person who is gay, or even a gay person. I’m not “a gay.” Gay people are people, not “gays.”
Now, moving onto my point. You are living in lala land if you think a shelter or food pantry that takes government funds has the right to discriminate against either those who use it or those hired to run it. Lala land. You seriously think an affiliated shelter taking government money should be able to discriminate against its employees? That’s nuts!
Thankfully, the government sees things differently and churches are not allowed to discriminate against those who work in the food pantry or shelter, and those being serviced by them, when government money is being used to help fund those organizations.
As I’ve said over and over again, if a church can’t get out of the discrimination business, it has no place in the take-government’s-money business. The government aggressively defends that principal, whether you are aware of it or not, and should continue to do so.
I happen to help organize a monthly food drive that collects thousands of pounds of food every month and donates that food to food pantries across the area, most of them having an affiliation with the Catholic Church. It never bothers me because I know the pantries aren’t allowed to discriminate against (or proselytize) anyone in those pantries or anyone working for them.
In the real world — the sane world — organizations that take money from the government aren’t allowed to discriminate. As soon as we withdraw from that principal, we formally become the American Taliban. Hell to the no.
You want your religion to be able to discriminate? Fine. Tell it to stop taking the government’s money. You can’t have it both ways.
If a Catholic is a litmus voter on abortion, they’re already not voting for us. Oh well. I’ll be more interested in going after the sane Catholic voters.
And, yes, I said sane. Why sane? As I linked above in a comment, we have record low rates of abortions today. Why? Because of plans like the one under discussion, making contraception widely available. If people care about reducing abortions — and I think most people can agree we want abortions safe and rare — then they should be voting for democratic ideas re: women’s health.
Furthermore, nice try trying to conflate contraception with abortion. This isn’t and has never been about abortion. This is about contraception, which 98% of Catholic women use.
And you think we’re losing votes from it? ROFLMAO!
No compromises — banning discrimination when government money is being taken by non-profits is a core value behind the American government, with decades and decades of history behind it. We can’t retreat from that, at least if we want to be a free and fair country.
Beyond that, it will never work “in theory” and I’m not interested in trying to see what happens — while women and families suffer. Women and families are not guinea pigs, and the bishops have done nothing that earns trust in my lifetime. Manufacturing this new social issue “crisis” just belies that point, especially when this has been the way things work in many or most states for a long time now, as well as the federal government when it comes to hiring practices and service agreements.
Most importantly, if we give way on this “compromise,” what else? Maybe the Catholic Church will decide it doesn’t want its hospitals offering insurance that covers HIV medications for gay employees because they’re gay? Or what about employees of a federally funded Christian Science Church charity, if their Church decided it didn’t want its insurance plans at that charity to cover anything other than spiritual healing? Where does that madness end? Almost no one would accept the religious institutions discriminating in those cases, why on earth would we accept them discriminating against women when they take federal funds?
Addressing your last point — the mandate, public options and single-payer health care systems — it’s neither here nor there. It’s simply not on the table. This issue is being decided now; the battle for a better, fairer and more affordable health care system is unfortunately decades in the making. When it comes to ensuring the American people have easy access to quality health insurance, we’re still in triage mode.
Who is still a church going member and pretty conservative on pretty much every issue including social ones, thinks the Church’s stance on birth control is stupid.
And he ain’t EVER going to be for a liberal, anyway.
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You are right that employers are bad arbiters of health insurance and shouldn’t have to be in the insurance business, they should be able to focus on their actual business.
But the problem doesn’t go away by making everyone support contraception via a public option. It would still be forcing people to pay for things they think are gravely immoral and should not be available at all, let alone forced to pay for. The public option should cover non-controversial basic medicine, and controversial treatments should be paid out of pocket or through supplemental insurance or charity.
I have an idea: the Democratic Party should step up and offer to pay for everyone’s contraception, and people that think contraception should be free should just donate to the Democratic Party. When people pick up their prescription for contraception, they should be given it free or if they can pay for it themselves, it would be like a contribution to the Democratic Party.
Contraception is not controversial among the public.
Good medicine is based in science, not politics. Various cults can and do choose to make almost anything “controversial” — those cults should be ignored, not pandered to. Vaccines do not cause autism. Flouridated water is a case study in successful public health initiatives.
I have a better idea than yours. Organizations who think their personal magical thinking entitles them to impose their personal prejudices on those they employ or service (in the case of hospitals, schools, and so on) should do so without any government funding, and hope like hell they don’t get prosecuted for illegal discrimination.
The ones squawking the loudest about this, while defending the Catholic Church because so many institutions are affiliated therewith, are really talking to evangelical Protestants when it comes to votes. There are also Reagan Democrats, many of whom are Catholic, who while themselves may in fact use contraception, still manage to latch on to this as a symptom of how things have supposedly deteriorated. Not saying I get the logic, mind you.
I think its more than that, they have bought into Republican narratives that the President hates Christians, wants to tell them what to do, and will in fact force his moral views on others. Rather than rebutt this ludicrous charge, those on the left that crafted this decision and have defended it on this blogs and others across the country have shown themselves to be openly scornful of the Church’s rights and gleeful that they can force this policy, however sensible and just it may be, down its throats. And really a lot of liberals are conforming to the worst anti-religious stereotypes the Republicans levy at us. And as minor of a regulation it is, its a gut check for a lot of voters and conforms to the worldview that their way of life is under assault by radical liberals hell bent on killing God in the public sphere.
What you don’t get, jconway, is that the church doesn’t have both the right to 1) take federal dollars to fund their charities and non-profits and 2) discriminate against those who use them and are employed by them.
They can do one or the other, not both. The Catholic Church has to decide: does it want to continue to use federal money to help fund its non-profits, or does it want to go it alone and/or close up shop?
Historically, they’ve always come down on the side of “we’re going to take the government’s money and not discriminate.” Only recently has this changed, as the bishops and cardinals have moved over to fringe-right territory and have decided to use the considerable number of non-profits affiliated with the church that have grown over the past century as a blunt weapon against any policy supported by government that the bishops don’t like.
They learned how to do this with marriage equality to some effect, and now they’re getting greedy and seeing how well it can work on other issues.
The church leaders do this despite the fact that almost universally the members of the church have been against them — and, after all, it’s not as if they can be fired for it. When someone’s made a prince of the Catholic Church, they get that job for life. And, at least with the past couple popes, it’s those who are more willing to play politics on social issues that are getting the jobs in the first place — so they’re rewarded for their deeds, despite however it makes their members feel.
To be honest, this helps explain why the Catholic Church is losing thousands of members in the United States every year, including me just a few years ago.
PS.
I’m not “gleeful” about this. I’m actually sad. Remember, I was born, raised and confirmed as a Catholic. I didn’t want to leave the church — the church left me.
There’s many great catholic institutions that have been built up over the century and have helped millions of Americans — and all of those organizations are now under assault.
They’re not under assault by government, which continues to provide billions in funding to these organizations across the country, but rather by over-entitled bishops who are using these organizations as political weapons.
These are bishops who are completely divorced from what goes on at these institutions on a day-by-day basis and have little, if anything, to do with how they’re run or funded. If they cared about these organizations in any real way, they wouldn’t be playing politics with them.
When the Archbishop of Boston shut down Catholic Charity’s adoption services in this state because of marriage equality, even after Catholic Charities adopted to gay parents for decades and after the board of Catholic Charities fought the Cardinal on the issue, it was a disservice to Catholics everywhere and a motivating factor on why I left the Church.
When Cardinal O’Malley or any other bishop wants to play politics and use these organizations that have been built up over the decades as political weapons, it’s not the government or church that loses… it’s the people. If you want to talk about who’s assaulting who, and who’s gleeful about it, don’t look at people like me. Look at the Cardinal O’Malleys of the world.
If the rightward swing isn’t a defense mechanism over being under attack because of the sex abuse scandal. A sort of “it’s NOT our LIFESTYLE!” hyper-over-defensiveness…
Of course, it IS largely a product of their lifestyle (sorry, but repressing totally natural and very human desires and giving NO support system to cope with the guilty feelings every time you have a normal reaction to, say, a pretty female congregant is just *asking* for really horrible stuff to happen as a result.)
Honestly, I hate the Catholic Church, so I couldn’t care any less about their little baby hissy fit. What I do care about are the many NON-Catholics that work at RCC-affiliated schools, hospitals, and social service centers, who ought to have access to the safe, effective, and LEGAL treatments they and their doctors decide they need or want.
What’s next, allowing Scientologists to forgo covering mental health medications at a Scientology-run facility, or allowing Jains to not pay to cover blood transfusions at a center they run? Or some other bizarre religion from covering breast cancer treatments?
Come on. Where’s the line?
No one is stopping people from paying for their own contraception. Even Rick Santorum isn’t about to make contraception illegal and prevent access to it.
The line is where an insurance provider chooses. They shouldn’t be mandated to cover anything, though they should be mandated to list what is covered and not covered by their plan.
That’s exactly what Rick Santorum is doing.
You don’t talk about how you’re the one candidate willing to go there on contraception and not be putting it on the table as a candidate. That’s absolutely what he’s doing, by continually making this appeal.
I know, that’s what I was referring to. He’s willing to “go there” means SAYING that contraception is not OK, it causes problems, etc. In otherwords, not just saying “oh, its a kooky religious tradition thing and they need an exemption” but defending the position and speaking out against contraception. But not even a President Santorum is about to make it illegal, and deny access to it. The furthest he could go is reversing Obama’s mandated free coverage.
The way he wants to do it is by giving states “choice” in the matter, so they can go ahead and ban it. He’s very clear about that.
It’s just a backdoor way of doing it and he deserves NO TRUST on the matter. It should be assumed that someone like that would ban it at the federal level if he could.
No, the most he’d do is say that states cannot force their residents to pay for it. That seems appropriate, I don’t like being forced to subsidize abortion and contraception here, I think my rights as an American are being violated.
If you’re a Catholic priest who wants to get ahead, you don’t do it by being a social justice advocate or ending war these days. You do it by pushing on right-wing fringe issues. That’s the way to get the promotion, even if doing that drives away thousands of church members every year.
That’s the great part of being a bishop. There’s almost nothing you can do to get yourself fired. If you’re bleeding members because of your crazy talk, telling the 98% of sexually active women who are using contraceptives in your diocese that they can’t use contraceptives, it doesn’t matter.
The Bishop can’t be fired, not really, and, in fact, is likely to be promoted for what he’s saying, no matter how ridiculous or absurd he looks to the membership of his diocese or how many of his membership leaves the church in protest. After all, the Bishop’s bosses can’t be fired for being on the fringe, either. They can only get promoted for crazy talk, too.
It’s a bizarro world with no accountability on issues we’d recognize as job performance (increasing membership, funds, social advocate causes important to the membership, etc.). In fact, in today’s Catholic Church, all the rewards are for doing a really shitty job when it comes to protecting children, keeping churches or institutions open and advocating for the things that actually matter to the membership.
Just look at the evidence of what earns high regard at the Vatican these days. Cardinal Law is still sitting pretty for all his crimes, Cardinal O’Malley is highly regarded by the Vatican for his role in shutting down adoption services, schools, churches and hospitals across his archdiocese and Cardinal Egan in New York is so secure in his job and title that he feels free to come out today and retract his ten year old apology for his part in the serial rape of little boys and its cover up.
It’s literally amazing these people aren’t in prison, never mind lecturing the President of the United States on morality.
You are 100% right about gay adoption services and other charities that have closed since they are getting federal funds. I’d honestly have no problem with them defending their values in that context if they didn’t take the funds. Calling it an assault on religious liberty while asking for the next check is definitely hypocritical. And remember the Church wouldn’t relying so much on federal money had it not so royally destroyed its donor base over the sex abuse scandal. But on this issue its the Church’s own money used to fund its own employees, and to me thats an issue of its own independence. Agreed it’d be a lot harder for you to make this case if they just refused federal funding, and it will become a problem with hospitals in the next decade. Lastly I want to be clear the compromise satisfies me, I am disappointed but unsurprised the USCCGOP, er USCCB has shown its true colors on this issue which is why the compromise was brilliant. Not too different from the previous plan but it forced them to admit on the record they want all private employers to have the right to deny contraception and would like contraception challenged publicly, that pits them against their members and against most Americans, even independent and conservative ones.
The obsession of the Catholic Church with issues of sexuality — and the relentless defense of that obsession — is wearying. Isn’t it time to sing a new song? Instead of implicitly or explicitly attacking and insulting folks like ryepower12 and me, while simultaneously demanding “tolerance”, could we all perhaps turn a new page?
I would like to see the Catholic Church pursue some different issues with the same passion that it has squandered on sexuality. The institution professes a belief in the sanctity of life. Could we see a full-court press against the death penalty? How about denying communion to every public official who participates in legalizing or conducting executions? How about a full-court press against our obscene investment in weapons and war? How about a full-court press to change an economic system that results in poverty, homelessness, and despair for an enormous share of the population of the wealthiest nation in human history?
There are many issues where the beliefs, teachings, and even dogma of the Catholic Church aligns with progressive, liberal, and Democratic thinking. Instead of berating us for intolerance, could it be time for the institution and those who defend it to spend more time emphasizing common ground?
There simply aren’t many “Reagan Democrats” around anymore. Many white working-class “Reagan Democrats” are now firmly Republican for many reasons long before this contraception issue. I’ve seen no polling evidence suggesting that Obama is doing particularly poorly with white working-class voters, compared to the typical performance nowadays for Democratic presidential candidates. Indeed, I’d be shocked if there’s any noticeable decline in Obama’s numbers because of this issue.
The nation’s largest Catholic university offers a Prescription Contraceptive Benefit
I’m sure that many Catholic-affiliated institutions do: this has been a contentious issue among Catholics, and the side seeking a change in the stance had been making slow strides. You may be surprised to learn that the Catholic Church is not a monolith.
But there is a difference between choosing to do X, and being forced by the government to do X.
“being forced by the government to do X” and “doing X because that’s a required provision in order to get the hundreds of millions in government funding every year.”
No one is forcing affiliated hospitals or institutions to do anything. Those affiliated organizations need only do anything if — and only if — they wish to be eligible for government funding.
I do not see the place where it is limited in any way by the acceptance or non-acceptance of federal funding. Indeed, it appears that there is no such provision.
But, I guess our society is tired of coddling these Catholic institutions by allowing them to provide social services, when there are so many secular organizations crying for the opportunity to run hospitals serving the poor.
The comments here suggest that this might be a good strategy for the president to pick a fight with Catholics, because it seems to have animated those who until recently posted how awful he is.
of whether the provision is in there in writing, as it is in most similar circumstances re: employment and service issues, it’s in effect.
These institutions that are effected (mainly hospitals) take money from the federal government by the billions every year (collectively). They do this through medicare, medicaid, schip, state health care programs, research grants and any number of other programs provided by federal, state and local branches of government. Therefore, we expect them to not discriminate either against their employees or against those they service.
If they don’t like that, fine. As Caritas Christi is already trying to do, they can get out of the hospital business. That’s always been their choice when it comes to discriminating and taking government money. This has never bothered catholic-affiliated institutions before, until a few powerful bishops have learned how effective this can be as a wedge issue.
No one has suggested the President “pick a fight” with Catholics, to win votes or otherwise. Not me or anyone else in this thread. That’s not at all what’s gone on, either.
What’s happened is Catholic Bishops have decided to play politics, trying to use their institutions as a wedge to get what they want. They’ve taken their own institutions hostage, because stopping a few women from getting contraceptives is more important to them than the entirety of the people they help through their hospital networks.
Those bishops are not the ones who run, operate or fund these institutions and they do a disservice to all those nurses, doctors and administrators that work tooth and nail to keep those hospitals organized and operating, as well as all the patients they are able to serve.
Let’s get this real clear: the only people playing politics are a few unaccountable and over entitled bishops who are completely out of touch with members of the church at large and are the reasons why people like me — born, raised and confirmed catholic, someone who was heavily invested in my own church — are leaving the church in droves.
Why is an issue of insurance being described in terms of “access”?
Is there some other rule under consideration that would mandate what services hospitals must provide directly, rather than what services must be covered by insurance used to cover employees?
As for the politics, I guess it remains to be seen if the issue has staying power. It is certainly true that the awfulness of the GOP candidate may well keep moderate Catholics offended by this from switching sides.
If something is covered in an insurance plan, premium holders have access. If it’s not, well, that access just got a lot more limited. Women pay a lot for their health insurance, more than men, in fact; they shouldn’t have to be forced to pay twice because certain things aren’t covered, even if they could afford to do so (and many millions of them can’t).
As for politics, every poll indicates that this is a losing issue for Republicans. I would love for nothing more than the Republican Party to decide to try to make this coming election about contraception and breast exams. Go ahead, GOP, make our day. They’ll lose in a landslide.
Although not a government requirement, almost all health insurance policies cover Viagra (and other drugs of this nature). Does the catholic church or any other church, for that matter, object to this? I have not heard word-one on this from any supposed religious organization.
One might be inclined to think that this is a separate issue…but it isn’t, IMHO. The use of contraception allows women to make choices regarding their sexual behaviors. If you can’t get pregnant, then you can have sex “at will.” Something that the catholic church objects to, to say the least. So if nature determines that you cannot get an erection, then you should not be having sex either. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
The only profound difference here, however, is that many women use birth control for health reasons unrelated to getting pregnant. I am pretty sure that there is only one use for Viagra….
Hypocrisy, thy name is religion.
but the Catholic Church very publicly came out against fertility treatment and that’s universally covered across all Massachusetts health care plans. I’ve yet to hear any bishops complain about that.
that the health insurance coverage that the church has covers Viagra and
like drugs. The fertility treatment info does not surprise me in the least, either.
Any organization that turns a blind eye to child molestation for centuries is suspect in every way. If they are still considered a religion, then I am the Virgin Mary. And I know that the catholics are not the only organization with this dirty little secret. As far as I am concerned this recent chapter in the history of an organization known for torture, murder, and deceit should have cost them their tax free status. The CIA sits in envy of the Inquisition.
But, to the topic at hand, the separation of church and state was put in the founding documents for just such a reason as this. Many people who work in the catholic hospitals or the lutheran hospitals for that matter (or whatever sect you want to put in here) are not necessarily of that faith. They are not bound by their doctrines. And as mentioned by previous commentors, these organizations receive government funding. So, if they don’t want to play by the rules, take away the funding. Period. The fact that the coverage for contraception, fertility treatments, and even Viagra costs them no more in their premiums is just gravy.