Yes, to quote Mel Brooks, "Everybody go to Hell except cave 76"

Word.

One side wants to give employers the right to infringe upon the religious and sexual freedom of their employees by denying them benefits that clash with the faith of their chosen insurance company; and the other side wants to ignore the first amendment and force all companies with any spiritual claims to go against their own beliefs.

It's a very sticky situation and I find it odd that the person with the best idea for solving this issue hasn't even bridged his plan to it. Romney wants to remove the rights of employers to create this problem and make sure everyone has access to employer-independent insurance.

The reason that employee health benefits are so great is because the employers are holding all of the warehouse supermarket (Cost Co/Sam's Club etc) membership cards. They buy insurance in bulk and in turn receive a big discount.

Romney's plan solves the financial problem of employer independant insurance as well. The employers would no longer hold the bulk discount cards, instead there would be groups of private citizens signing on to plans together. Plans of their choosing, thus respecting their religious and sexual freedoms, and plans that they, not their employers, own; which can then go with them from job to job.

As for why Romney hasn't mentioned this, I have no clue. I speculate that pointing out the benefits of his plan giving employed women access to birth control isn't something the moderate Republican candidate has missed, but rather something he thinks would alienate him from the evangelicals which your bar graph shows are against this. Evangelicals which aren't showing up to vote for Romney anyway.

Actually, I believe the problem is this: the Catholic Church wants to be a tax exempt church even as they want to run for-profit entities that hire non-catholics. As a church they can have whatever funky rules they want, but if they want to run businesses. they should have to obey the laws regulating business, and they don't want to.

There's a reason why the Catholic Church is one of the wealthiest entities in the world, they've been cutting tax deals that favor them since forever. they know how to do this negotiating, including using hyped up moral outrage and cries of persecution while they do.

They aren't forcing anyone to USE the contraception that is available, only that it is available on every policy. Does this mean that insurance companies do not have to be required to include blood transfusions because it might be against someone's religious belief? What a ridiculous argument.

So on otherwords Romney supports a private insurance exchange.

Agreed, there should be a clear defining line between business and religious organization laws.

How do you separate church and state when your state is Capitalist and your churches are businesses?

@terriels

No, they aren't forcing anyone to use the contraception provided, and I agree with your position; but let's look at it from the opposite end. Someone who is forced by their employer to pay into a health care system which provides services that go against their moral values is, unwillingly, enabling other people to use birth control by paying for it themselves.

@The Mouzer

Yes, exactly. I had to research the term, but thank you for summing it up.

You make a valid point. But again, these are religious moral beliefs we're talking about here. They don't get to apply to everyone, and those who don't want to use contraception don't have to, while others can. More important than your personal moral compass is the right to choose for yourself. Even if I were against this, I would accept that I'm not everyone, and if God frowns upon this so much, he'll give them what's coming to them. I don't need to worry about it.

@Bill Davis

Most people pay into insurance so that they can receive the benefits for themselves, and what others do with it really shouldn't factor in. They can just pretend that the money they put into the system is being used for moral purposes, like breast implants and abortion.

It is important that democrats not be cavalier about framing an issue like this as a choice between being a democrat or being loyal to their religion. Substantial blocks of dem voters like Latinos are influenced by this issue, so let's not be flippant.

Nancy Pelosi was wise in the way she approached this, by stating what every Catholic knows- Most catholics do not accept the Church's moral authority over the question of contraception and divorce. "I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the Administration on this."

I would go further and say some things Speaker Pelosi probably feels it unwise to elaborate on. I have no idea whether she agrees or not but theologically, the Catholic church is on questionable ground by asserting that payment of insurance premiums makes them complicit in sin if a worker chooses to use their health care insurance to acquire contraceptives. They are no more complicit morally than if the compensation took the form of wages paid to the worker. In neither case does the Church any longer retain dominion over the resources so therefore they have no grounds to assert they are subsidizing sin. The worker has sole dominion over the resources and it is their moral choice and responsibility to use them or not use them.

Pelosi doesn't make this moral argument because it invites direct confrontation with Church authority. Nonetheless, I think it is an argument that needs to be made by faithful laity. Most Latinos personally agree with Pelosi but I doubt they would say it to their Priest's face. More importantly, if they believe the government is attacking the Catholic Church and forcing it to participate in sin, many are going to stand loyally by the side of their church even if they disagree on what the church is asserting.

This sentiment can be defeated by the following argument: The law is no more forcing the Church to participate in sin than when the law requires the Church to pay wages which also can be used to pay for contraceptives. The Church is not being attacked. Dominion over those resources passed from the church to the individual. The Church may expect them and council them that it is morally wrong to use their wages or health insurance for contraceptives, but they no longer retain dominion over those resources and so the sole moral responsibility is the worker's.

very good. Being a Latin-American. We are no different then most fellow Americans. If we know the truth will do what is right.
Republicans have learned to spew there rhetoric true or not.
We Democrats I feel forget that just because we may feel we are on the right-side doesn't mean there are not powers that be changing or shifting the real truth;-)
Knowing all the facts matters.
As George on Friends says "It's not a lie if you believe it"
And that is the jest of it FOX News and the like get that and worship to it. We as American Citizens must make sure the truth as well as all the truth is known;-)
Good Op J M

While this is all true, some people have missed a bigger issue.

Non-profit status must be revoked by the IRS for any institution engaged in significant political activity. That includes trying to influence elections and government policy.

Gingrich got in trouble with the House Ethics Committee for the same kind of thing and had to pay a $300,000 fine because of this during the 1990s. He was using a non-profit school to conduct political campaigns.

This is not negotiable because non-profit status establishes a strict separation between church and state. Government is prohibited from influencing religion, and religion is prohibited from influencing government. This is a constitutional requirement because non-profit status is only granted to institutions doing work equivalent to the government which cannot be done by the government.

Several churches have violated federal tax code by attempting to influence contraception, abortion, and LBGT rights. That makes all of those organizations libel for back-taxes dating to the time of the original infraction.

Churches are free to do these things, but they are also free to pay taxes if they do so.

The Church may expect them and council them that it is morally wrong to use their wages or health insurance for contraceptives, but they no longer retain dominion over those resources and so the sole moral responsibility is the worker's.

Which is part of what I don't understand. Keeping people on your payroll increases the likelihood that you can manipulate them to your way of thinking- you know, winning their 'hearts and minds.' How, then, does it stand to benefit the Church to turn anyone away who disagrees w/ them? Last time I remember Jesus didn't say: Ye, verily, preach only among those whom are already in agreement because to be loved by a man who already loves you is truly more awesome than to be loved by a man who doesn't.

@The Mouzer,

Ditto. You can't get someone to agree with you after you club them in the head.

Can I just for a moment suggest that Latin Americans might consider it an insult to their intelligence when they are talked about as if they were controlled by the decisions of the church.

As it is insulting to Arab American's when they are misidentified as Muslim, and so on, for Jewish Americans and African Americans.

Actually, it's insulting the intelligence of every American to imply that because you belong to an ethnic group, that you belong to, or should be talked at as if you belong to a certain Religion as well. There are large populations of Christians and Atheists in "Muslim" countries.

That's just addressing the idea of misidentifying Latinos as being all Catholic. There's a whole different argument on messaging. Which I really should not go into it.

Suffice to say that this chart is doing exactly as you would suggest, it is directly showing that there is a difference between what they believe and how the act in practice and what their church presents as "Doctrine."

So please let's not go sixteen rounds while you defend your religion.

We know not all Christians are nuts, we're not trying to say all Christians are nuts, we're not talking about all Christians being nuts, we're showing the nutty Christians.

Nutty, (so as to be clear,) to mean insane and radical, and Christians as to mean an element of a larger set, not the entire set.

Latinos are not stupid, they get that some of Christianity is radical, we can talk about the radical ones with out always having to temper our speech to make sure the independents are following along.

This is't just about how Democrats come across to swing voters after all, What about those Democrats who are against Religion?

Or are we supposed to just be silent so that the Democratic Party can look good?

"And the people all said sit down, sit down you're rocking the vote."

Don't sidestep them; bowl them over.

I'll Knock them over with statistics, by 2015 for Ages 18 and under, Whites will no longer be the majority. Atheism is trending upwards in America with over 55% of Atheists being age 35 or younger. Women are beginning to react to Republican overreach across America, "You can't put your hands there, and no, the State can't put their hands there either." Is trending upwards again.

Of course, no one is trying to demonize White Male Christians, but they don't get to control the world anymore either.

oh, hell - the only infrstructure the Right wants to build is a rickety one-way bridge to the 16th century.

"By the reasoning of the White House's critics on this issue, people of faith are apparently hostile towards people of faith."

And it's also apparent that the whole "evangelical white male domination" thing is shrinking that population, ergo, they aren't having sex, or they haven't figured out how to do so & reproduce!! What a conundrum!

According to the Pew Research Foundation, 45% of evangelicals are over the age of 50. Of course they want to ban birth control. They don't need it!

http://www.pewforum.org/Age/Religion-Among-the-Millennials.aspx

My brother- in- law who is extremely active in his very catholic church (at which my sister converted, and is also very active) got a vasectomy. It was covered by insurance and would have irritated him to no end if it weren't. I love how this argument is mostly directed at women, but vasectomy isn't even an issue.

This is another evangelical harrangue that has no bearing on the reality of the vast majority of people's lives.

Not only that, the results of this survey (as well as the evidence of one's senses) show clearly what a massive fraud the religious right has perpetrated on the country since the late '70s: which is, that they and only they represent what is truly religious in this country. It's bonkers, Americans are far more diverse than that, and yet people swallow it. The "leaders" of the religious right think that they have a vast army behind them. I don't see it. Particular when it comes to reactionary Catholic bishops. They may be strongly against contraception, but unless the majority of Catholics are bishops, I can't imagine how their opposition matters very much.

Yes, yes, yes! Absolutely right! Why no one is making this arguement on the national stage is beyond me..

Thank you Drew. t's the kind of stupidity stemming from the same people saying gay marriage destroys the sanctity of marriage when it's been straight couples divorcing and having premarital sex all these years. There's just NO LOGIC TO ANY OF IT.

This statistic is a bit misleading -- the way I usually see it cited, 98% of Catholic women who admit to being sexually active use birth control. Whether that sexual activity is occurring inside of marriage or not is usually unclear.

And the other 2% are celibate nuns.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/Religion-and-Contraceptive-Use.pdf

Exactly!!

Hah! Most likely if the gander needs viagra, the goose doesn't have to worry about getting pregnant....

Anita Dunn no longer works for the White House, so she isn't speaking for them. The CHURCHES are exempt, but the business entities that accept federal money are not. That seems pretty simple to me.
I am also appalled, at the blatant political activity on this by the Bishops. I believe that the letters read from the pulpit should cause a review of their tax exempt status.
By the way, I am a Christian, and my church goes the extra mile NOT to be political.

They didn't make it clear that she is no longer with the White House. They introduced her as a White House adviser. That is apparently her advice to the White House. Birth control really isn't an issue for me, but having my religion called backward and stupid is. It is a vote changing sort of issue.

If you're a Catholic, you support child rape. That, to me, is backward and stupid, and should be called out as such.

I am also appalled, at the blatant political activity on this by the Bishops. I believe that the letters read from the pulpit should cause a review of their tax exempt status.

Well, for one thing it's not clear that there was anyone listening to them read besides the usual "church ladies" who are mostly long past having any need for contraception. And, yes, I realize that that's a rather sexist stereotype. I'm in a bad mood.

Aside from my mood issues, I'm all for the Church pushing this as hard and as deep and as often as they can. Mostly because for every person who changes her mind on this to go with the Church, there are going to be dozens who are going to rethink their politics based on this, erm, pocketbook issue.

Since the clear majority of women (sez the article) disagree with the bishops, I guess the usual "church ladies" must include a "broad" section of cross-dressers.

Don't forget propagation of the faith - as in making new little Catholics to continuing putting into the collection basket. The Boomers didn't procreate as many faithful as expected and that was because of birth control.

We had to pay for it, but it was cheaper than a dozen mouths to feed and send to Catholic School!

Exactly right. And the most important part of that control is control of women's reproductive capabilities with the support of the fundamentalist right. The "religious freedom" argument falls apart when you realize that, if a church with a moral objection to transfusions made that argument so that it could deny coverage for transfusions to workers in affiliated institutions, everyone would laugh at them.

stupid is as stupid does

I know that sounds harsh, but, seriously, you're talking about a group that believes that almost 6000 years ago a Stone Age woman had a chat with a snake, and then ate a piece of fruit, and THAT'S why we die.

Now, I don't care if they want to believe that's actual historical fact, but they also want that taught in public school as history AND science, and they want that forced on all of us in our laws.

Just sayin...

So let it be taught in school, but include all other religious creation tales, etc. I would actually benefit students, I think, to learn about all of the similarities and differences in the different creation tales. I think there was a bill introduced in a state (don't remember which one) where the Democrats added an amendment to include not just the Christian creation story, but the Bhuddist, Hindu, Islam and Scientology creation stories. The more people know, the less likely they are to discriminate. Just saying :)

Er I think Ruth's complaint there was more about the fact that religious doctrine is being taught in history and science classes, which essentially means attempting to validate religious doctrine as if it's empirical history or science. It is not. If they were teaching religious doctrine as part of a world's religion class or a philosophy class then I could agree to have a wide arrangement of religious beliefs and non-religious beliefs taught. But we should not allow things of faith to be presented as though they are factual or vise versa. You are free to believe what you want, but that doesn't necessarily mean that your beliefs are grounded in fact.

There are a lot of supermarket Catholics--people who pick and choose which doctrines they follow and discard the rest. We call them hypocrites.

Mike, you forgot the third category:

which doctrines they follow, which doctrines they demand that other people follow, and discard the rest.

The issue is not what individual people believe, but the principal of the Church. The Church has consistently condemned birth control. To force it to support contraception is a step too far and an over reach on the government's behalf. If you don't like the policy, work somewhere else. And, to call Catholics stupid is an insult to many Notre Dame alumni

The Church has a serious credibility problem about morality. They should pay more attention to what is going on in their Church rather than the members bedrooms. Glass houses, stones--you know the rest.

They should pay more attention to what is going on in their Church rather than the members bedrooms.

Look! Over there! A moneylender!

If you don't like the policy, work somewhere else

If the Church doesn't like the policy, then the Church should not provide services to the general public.

I. Do. Not. Understand. This. Argument.

Oh yeah I forgot, barefoot, pregnant, uneducated and property.

It's been less than a hundred years since the Church openly taught that the suffering of women was payment for Eve's sin.

Girls in Catholic schools were taught that their periods were their wombs "crying" for a baby.

When anesthesia was first used for women in labor, a Catholic bishop said the Church was against it because it, "robbed God of the deep, rich, earnest cries of women in pain". More atonement for Eve.

They don't care if women suffer - they think we're supposed to, all while remaining meekly under their control.

They haven't changed how they think, just how they argue it.

Remember Ron Paul's comment on "honest rape?" Same goes for the other diagnostic indications for hormonal drugs. You just start by assuming that they're lying or that their doctors are lying to fool the watchdogs.

This isn't an academic matter to me: my (now ex-) wife had a really horrible second pregnancy [1] and despite best efforts our daughter was delivered quite prematurely by C-section in a Catholic hospital. Before zipping her up again he opined that there was no way, no how, she would survive another pregnancy. But instead of accidentally snipping the tubes while closing her he had to schedule a laparoscopic procedure at another hospital.

NOT in the best interest of the patient to have another invasive procedure just to satisfy some dudes in robes.

Postscript: that hospital is no longer a Catholic hospital. Something about the Bishop of Phoenix getting his vestments in a wad over the hospital saving a woman's life.

[1] But oh, my, did I get an awesome daughter as a result. Then again, I wasn't the one who had to go through it.

"doctors and nurses need a choice on whether to supply it" that's not the issue, they wouldn't have to. This says the employees can get their BC paid for at the pharmacy they use - not from the drs & nurses at the hospital they work at.

This only says that non-Catholic employees who get their health care from the business they work for cannot be forced to only receive the health care benefits that conform to their boss' religion.

If you work for a Christian Scientist owned business, would it be fair if you had health care and then found out that your health care was just, "pray to get better"? because that's what your boss believes?

Keep in mind, this isn't a gift - these employees are paying for their health coverage.

I respect your opinion, but the government is not forcing anyone to sin. They're basically saying, "Whatever you choose, we'll cover it so it doesn't chew into your pocket."

Ruth is right; they're still paying for health coverage, and it's still a lot, so in the end they're only getting their money's worth; knowing that in any case they'll be covered.

but doctors and nurses need a choice on whether to supply it

Why the hell should a doctor or nurse be allowed to deny service to someone on the basis of their belief? Honestly I want to know this answer. The doctor and nurse knew when they were going to school that they'd have to be dealing w/ every type of person in their profession. Doctors and nurses have to deal w/ murderers, rapists, thieves, etc. You know this before going in to the profession. Why the hell should you feel entitled to tell a woman seeking contraceptives 'no'- which BTW aren't even always used to protect against pregnancy, tyvm- because it violates your religious beliefs, but then you have no complaint about giving open heart surgery to a murderer, hmm? It makes no sense. If your argument is that people can go to a different hospital to get care then that very same logic applies to the people who go into this profession. If they don't want to serve the general public then they should not go into a profession in which they are serving the general public. At the end of the day someone is going to be inconvenienced and the Church has more to lose by saying 'no' than they do by saying 'yes,' so why would you logically conclude that 'no' is the correct answer? The individual very well may die as a result of the Church's actions- but that doesn't seem to stop you. However will the Church suffer? No. Will the Church have to condone the use? No. Does the Church even get a say in whether or not the person will use? No. Does the Church still get the chance to talk to that person about why it believes contraception is bad? Yes. Le sighs.

Why the hell should a doctor or nurse be allowed to deny service to someone on the basis of their belief?

That begs the question about Christian Science which bans all health care.

Well it's just insane because people are arguing that one group takes personal responsibility, but not the other group. The personal responsibility argument doesn't make any sense. This is an issue where 2 groups are on opposite ends and they are coming into conflict. Historically our law has always decided that when this happens it is best to side w/ the individual (except in a handful of cases) over that of the business. The only time the law has ever sided w/ the organization are in cases where the customer tried to assert they could be abusive to an employee or something else along those lines. Something extreme and otherwise silly. Every other time it's been protected that the individual rights trump organizational rights. If conservatives want to argue that it should be the reverse OK fine- you're free to take that position. But you then must argue why the current position is wrong and why you're position is superior. I have not yet had a conservative explain this to me.