There is a religious war being prosecuted in America and it is borne out of an exaggerated sense of superiority by extremists in the Republican Party at the behest of the USCCB. Since the start of the 112th Congress, Republicans have sought to impose religious superiority over women despite the Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights and non-discrimination. Whether it is redefining rape, personhood amendments, or invasive medical procedures, the GOP’s religious war is an attempt to impose faith-based rules on women. In the case of contraceptive use, many women use birth control for health reasons and not just to prevent impregnation so Republicans are endangering women’s health in more than one manner.
In the past two weeks, polls have shown that an overwhelming majority of women want contraceptive coverage in health plans and there are some large Catholic institutions, such as the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, that provided the coverage without a mandate. In fact, 53% of Catholic voters agree “that women employed by Catholic hospitals and universities should have the same rights to contraceptive coverage as other women,” and 62% of women agree that employers should be required to offer health plans that cover contraception at no cost. The poll numbers increase among Democratic voters (73%) and younger Americans (65%) who do not subscribe to the USCCB’s ban on contraception coverage.
This exaggerated religious superiority over the rest of America has become inflammatory and Republicans have made extreme comments regarding President Obama’s support of contraceptive health. Rick Santorum told an audience in Texas the Obama Administration was “crushing faith in America” and putting America “on a path towards the French Revolution and that what’s left in France became the guillotine, and if we do follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.” Santorum knows President Obama is not conducting a war on religion and has no intention of beheading Christians, but his religious superiority influences him to make absurd statements to incite evangelicals to action in lieu of any real threat.
The Catholic Church’s exaggerated sense of superiority goes back centuries, and as their influence over other countries wanes, they enlisted Republicans to legislate and impose their rules on America’s women. Boehner, Santorum, and Rubio are all practicing Catholics and they have demonstrated their allegiance is to their faith and not the Constitution they swore to uphold. The Catholic Church flaunts politicizing the pulpit and instead of reporting the offenders to the IRS, Senator Rubio followed the USCCB’s edict and instructed his staff to impose the church’s ban on contraception through legislation. The USCCB reigns supreme in their organization and that is their prerogative, but they have no authority over any citizen of the United States. The Republicans who obey the USCCB must choose whether they are employees of the Vatican or the federal government and rein in their imposition of religious edicts on women. American superiority rests with voters and it is not an exaggeration to say that if Republicans continue attempting to impose Catholicism’s ban on contraception on American women, even 98% of Catholic women who have used contraception in their lifetime will vote to end inferior Republicans’ tenure.
Republicans and the Cathoilc church need to listen to women. If the majority of women want contraceptive coverage in their health plans than leave them alone. We have a Separation of Church and State and the church should know this before trying to change our laws. The Republicans our dumb they all about hey we want smaller government only for the democratics and if they had their way they would control everything you do and give the rich more money.
You mean a religion is trying to force religion on the populace? This honestly doesn't make any sense anymore. The problem is that there are so many Catholic controlled institutions such as hospitals and universities that have employees who are not Catholic. The Church is attempting to influence public policy directly in what should be (but is not likely) a violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. As the article highlighted, there is no general support for this exception, but just Republican's groveling to a powerful interest group.
How so? It doesn't address Catholic teaching, Catholic tradition or anything relating to Catholicism. Words like papal, Pope, bible, abstinence make no appearance. There is no discussion of the argument's history, nor any kind of argument for or against contraception. Why did you even post this in this forum, since it's entirely about politics and not theology?
That and it's a shitty op-ed, which reads as the conspiratorial shrieking of a nut job to everyone who doesn't already agree with him.
I was raised Roman Catholic and no-one, family member nor religious authority, ever told me that birth control was immoral. This may be because the power of the church in Ireland today is mostly symbolic, or honorary. It is kind of resented because they used to have real power, and they abused.
Hell, I was fifteen before a friend of mine informed me that the church frowns upon sex before marriage.
There is no discourse to be had yet, that's the point. You've started a thread titled "Catholicism and Contraception" but have said nothing about Catholicism or contraception.
This expands off of previous discussions held in the PCE BAR. Anyone who doesn't understand the situation clearly has been living under a rock for sometime or were comatose. It doesn't seem like anyone else that's posted in this thread has had an issue with grasping the concept of it. What's your excuse?
I think the problem with the plan mandating Catholic insitutions provide coverage for contraceptives wasn't so much about whether they oppose the use of contraceptives and more about the independence of the Church from the power of the State. They felt the mandate was infringing on their rights as a religious institution, which is a tricky thing because in the US, we do treat religious institutions differently from your everyday corporation. I don't really think it's the Catholic Church fighting against women or anything like that.
I know from the Republican side, they are simply angry about the government mandating ANYTHING, so it won't ever be resolved with them. Their view is that if soemone wants contraceptives, it should be up to them to pay for it or they should switch to a job that covers it. That's mostly because they lack the general understanding of both the cost of birth control and the difficulty with just "finding a new job". And again with them, it's not a feeling of religious superiority as claimed in that article, but more about their basic conservative principles where the government keeps out of people's lives.
And see, there's the trick. I know it's been mentioned in other threads, this seeming disconnect between how groups/institutions interact with the government and their views on the role of government. They either don't recognize or chose to ignore that they are accepting government money. A common problem apparently. The Catholic Church sees all its institutions as being independent of government and protected from government interference by the First Amendment while simultaneous being involved with the government by accepting taxpayer money.
Also of note is how they are bringing up separation of church and state here, but when it's Christmas they get all angry when government institutions don't put up Christmas trees and such because separation of church and state isn't anywhere in the Constitution. I think it's really just a matter of what's convenient for their agenda.
You're exactly right. Unfortunately that's how many special interest groups function in modern society. Religious institutions, businesses, corporations, and political parties are now more concerned with fulfilling their own desires, even if they started as a righteous endeavor
It's a sad fact that a lot of Catholics in the world today don't know what the Church actually teaches about things like sex and contraceptives. Hell, a lot of them don't even know that we believe that the Eucharist is actually the Body of Christ. The deterioration of Catholics' faith is depressing to me. In reply to Bobomcgraw, #6:
I was raised Roman Catholic
Take this, for example. Almost every person I've ever encountered on the Internet who was ever Catholic is no longer Catholic.
My mom said the exact same thing. One day, they can be talking about the unemployment rate and how Obama isn't making any jobs, and the next they will talk about how people should just up and switch jobs to get the benefits they want as if it's so easy.
What is there to fail to grasp? I'm saying that you guys are having a political discussion, instead of a discussion on either religion or philosophy. It's entirely about this narrow political controversy. So far, PuckPoint is the only one to come near discussion of Catholic belief, while you are continuing to talk politics.
I would normally agree that to try and decide what an institute does with it's taxpayer money is immoral, except that the Catholic Church accepts millions of federal dollars.
...Huh? It's immoral to tell them what to do with taxpayer money, but not in this case because it's a lot of taxpayer money? What?
They have to obey federal regulations, just as the average joe has to please the IRS.
But that's begging the question. The question is whether this particular regulation is good/constitutional; saying they have to follow it because it's a federal regulation ignores the entire debate.
And this is indicative of what's illogical about modern political thought. The burden of the argument ought to be on the government; instead, it's on whomever is being targeted for regulation. What's the goal here? Is it to expand access to contraceptives? There are plenty of ways to do that without forcing Catholic employers to directly pay for something they consider unconscionable. Why aren't those options exhausted first? Why choose an option that even remotely threatens to violate the First Amendment?
I know it's been mentioned in other threads, this seeming disconnect between how groups/institutions interact with the government and their views on the role of government.
Ugh, again, there is no disconnect. There is no hypocrisy, unless you sneak in all these assumptions.
The Catholic Church does not want certain strings attached to the money they receive from the feds. What's wrong with that? They can't argue for or against certain conditions? Are striking workers hypocrites for complaining about the wages they get? Can I put up a pie chart showing how much of a worker's income is from his employer, and then laugh at the worker for badmouthing his employer?
There is nothing incoherent in saying, "We think schools and hospitals are public goods and should be supported with taxpayer funds, but we should not have to pay for our employees' contraception."
Suggestion: If you want to avoid that rejoinder, don't rig the system so that health insurance is so closely tied to employment. And/or don't consider anything related to health care as a matter for insurance.
If the majority of women want contraceptive coverage in their health plans than leave them alone.
1. Why wouldn't most women want it? It's a raise. Who wouldn't support getting more stuff from their employers? 2. Leave them alone? The Catholic Church, at least in this instance, is not trying to stop anyone from purchasing contraceptives, or "insurance" plans that cover contraceptives. They just don't want to be forced to pay for them. Why not leave the Church alone?
Why choose an option that even remotely threatens to violate the First Amendment?
Freedom of speech? I fail to see how being required to cover certain items under your medical insurance counts as a free speech issue.
If this was Jehovah's Witnesses not wanting to pay to cover any kind of medical practice that involves blood transfusion, because it is against their religion, would anyone who supports the employers in in regards to contraceptives use the same argument in support of the Jehovah's Witnesses?
And yes, I would say that for Jehovah's Witnesses. They're lovely people. And I've seen that point made plenty of times recently, so I'm guessing they've never raised a stink about it before (assuming they are required by law to provide that... it's probably standard procedure for any insurance plan). But then, the Catholic Church didn't make a stink when it came to those state mandates regarding contraceptives.
Also, consider my response to Chi at #25 redacted. It's a stupid and boring discussion. Just take a black marker and draw a line on your screen obscuring that section.
I'm emphasising how stupid the argument, that they should be exempt from providing something to their employees based on their personal religious beliefs, is.
