When I read the Blunt Amendment that Republicans and church leaders are pushing I wrote that the proposed federal legislation would override the state laws now in place that guarantee coverage of contraception. People who have contraception coverage now under state law could lose it under the proposed federal law. True.
Well, this anti-contraception campaign is moving a little faster than I predicted, because the Blunt amendment hasn’t even been debated yet and conservatives and church leaders are moving to overturn existing state law on contraception, without waiting for Congress:
New Hampshire, one of the least religious states in the nation, has become the latest front in the political battle over contraception. State GOP leaders oppose the new federal rule compelling insurers to provide birth control to employees of religious organizations. They want to change a 12-year-old state law that requires contraceptive coverage under insurers’ prescription drug policies.
It’s hard to miss the politics fueling state House Speaker William O’Brien’s push to carve out a religious exemption from the contraception mandate.
“The Obama administration is trying to divide this country and to divide women against Catholics,” O’Brien said. “The amendment before you, however, is a way of guaranteeing religious freedom by ensuring that we are not forcing employers to purchase health care coverage that violates their belief.”
New Hampshire has required contraceptive coverage in all prescription drug plans since 2000. The law was passed by a Republican Legislature and signed by a Democratic governor. Nobody at the time, it seems, saw the policy as a blow against religious liberty.
Democratic state Rep. Terie Norelli, who co-sponsored the law, said that objection never came up.
“There was no discussion whatsoever — I even went back and looked at the history from the bill,” she said. “There was not one comment about religious freedoms.”
It wasn’t just lawmakers who were silent; religious leaders were, too.
“I wasn’t here back in 1999,” said Diane Murphy Quinlan, chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of Manchester, “and we didn’t have a full-time lobbyist in the Legislature. It’s possible that it was missed.”
The diocese isn’t itself directly affected by the contraception mandate because it, like the state’s largest Catholic hospital, has chosen to self-insure. But if the church gets its way, contraceptive-free insurance may soon be widely available on the open market.
“I ask that all of our people of good will support that which is in the best interest of that which gives life, that which sustains life,” Bishop Peter Libasci said during a recent news conference. The diocese helped draft the bill, which would free any employer, be it an auto repair shop or a metaphysical bookstore, with a religious objection to birth control.
Wow. Not abortion, mind you. Contraception. In one of the “least religious” states in the nation.
It’s unknown how many New Hampshire employers now carry insurance that runs counter to their religious tenets, but some are out there. “We are part of a group plan that forces us to do things that are against our Catholic principles,” said George Harne, president of The College of Saint Mary Magdalen. He admits that he wasn’t aware of the state law until the controversy erupted over the federal rule. But, he said, “If we had not found it now, we would have eventually discovered the problem and sought to correct it.”
If someone had told me six months ago that Republicans in New Hampshire would be openly joining with a church to draft legislation to limit to access to contraception I would not have believed it, but here it is. Talk about doubling down.
Punchy
So now anyone’s religion can trump any law, eh? I’m so glad we live in a democracy.
inkadu
What is this about New Hampshire not being religious? It’s Republican and sorta rural, so I’d think it would be religious. I’d understand the shock about Maine — those guys don’t want anything to do with anybody (including the church), but New Hampshire doesn’t seem to have the principled reclusiveness.
Mike Goetz
I guess it is not just Buddhists who light themselves on fire in protest.
What splendid PR for both Republicans and Catholics! They can use the same motto: Only White Men Matter!
Dork
So if my newly-formed religion holds deeply the morality of hiring illegal Mexican workers, Republicans will stand up and defend me and my religion, right?
SenyorDave
@Dork: You forgot about the standard BPE*, attached to all GOP-sponsored legislation.
* Brown Person Exclusion
Fwiffo
There are some people who refuse all medical treatment because of their religious belief. If they took a job as a doctor, nurse or pharmacist so that they could refuse to treat other people, would we find that acceptable? Jesus Christ on a cracker.
JGabriel
NPR:
Shorter William O’Brien: In a war between American women and a Vatican-based Catholic Church staffed by paedophiles and their enablers, we Conservatives and Republicans pick the kidfuckers.
.
kay
@Mike Goetz:
Don’t be so sure. Vasectomy is sterilization, and sterilization is contraception.
The Blunt amendment absolutely allows an opt out for an employer on covering vasectomy.
White men are at risk! :)
JC
Okay, this is clearly ludicrous. But I don’t find the media pointing out the various ways this is ludicrous. This is CONTRACEPTION. This is maturity. This is safety. This is recommended by the medical profession. An employer cannot dictate what things are and are not covered. Why aren’t people pointing this out on TV? Christian Scientists? Jesuits and blood transfers, etc?
Face
Can we thus assume Muslims will be free to practice and implement Sharia Law whereever and whenever they want?
Cuz we wouldn’t want the Republicans to be hypocrites and all.
jl
‘ “I wasn’t here back in 1999,” said Diane Murphy Quinlan, chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of Manchester… It’s possible that it was missed.” ‘
A deadly blow against freedom of religion, in place for ten years, and it i possible it was ‘missed’?
Really? Now, how did that happen?
Glad that reporters are getting around to noting that these regulations have been in place for a decade.
Somehow, I thought they had enough sense to can the Blunt amendment, but maybe I am confusing that with the VA partial retreat from barbarism.
Very well, they will do what they will do. More they push their dishonest political schemes excused in the name of their fanatic beliefs, the more it will hurt them in the general election, and better chance we will escape a crazy GOP Congress.
Fighting this with a lot of fuss and noise is good policy and good politics, and the decent human thing to do.
Edit: or should it be ‘use their professed sincere religious beliefs (aka fanaticism) as a cover for political schemes’? I sincerely don’t know and am caring which it is less by the day.
Frank
Well, there was an election. The voters, including women, voted for the Republicans with large majorities. This is what they voted for (just like in Virginia). Elections have consequences…
piratedan
guess we atheists need to draft a bill that stops our tax dollars to going to support any organized religion, no tax breaks on property, hiring or educational services. In our minds you “churchies” are just selling a belief system and as such, you’re just another business. Charity begins at home they say….
I don’t really believe that, but if these folks don’t want to live under the tenets of tolerance, forgiveness and consideration of one’s fellow person, then fine, lets get “old testament” and start picking out the parts that don’t “fit so good” for those “idolaters”.
BenA
I can’t believe the Republicans wont drop this, it’s a HUGE political loser… poll after poll… who’s the big Catholic donor funding this insanity? Or is it simply “the Dems hate this so we need to keep on it?” Or do they really think that people are going to buy into the “religious freedom” stupidity outside of the 27% ers?
Mnemosyne
@JGabriel:
I love how, for Republicans, corporations are people with religious freedom, but people are not, so my religious freedom as a citizen has to be subordinate to the religious freedom of my employer.
ETA: So how much religious freedom does my employer have, anyway? Can a devout Muslim insist that all of his female non-Muslim employees cover their heads while at work? Can a Jewish employer ban employees from bringing ham sandwiches onto the property?
kay
@jl:
Two weeks ago I would have said fighting it was good politics.
Now I think it is genuinely and substantively alarming, and should be fought, no matter the politics.
I keep going back to the years I have been listening to liberals say “they’ll go after birth control next!” and the years that conservatives and media denied that.
I’m still a little off-balance that it is actually happening.
Bullsmith
I just hope women all over the country are getting angry at this. Freedom of religion does not mean freedom for Catholic Bishops to force everyone to follow their moral dictates. It’s just fucking outrageous how politicized the Bishops have become. War, torture, fucking over the poor all pass without a peep of protest. Come election time, the only moral values that seem to matter are Republican wedge issues.
Frank
Really?? I wonder why this O’Brien didn’t say the same thing when ALL the Republican Catholics in Congress objected to the Pope’s opposition to the Iraq war. Talk about dividing our country and Catholics!
Brachiator
@kay:
There are Catholic hospitals that refuse to perform vasectomies. This is as much a war against contraception as it is a war against men.
Also, too, the notion that only white men get vasectomies is ludicrous.
By the way, the Church recently renewed its opposition to in vitro fertilization:
This gets fun. Under this religious regimen, could an employer deny health insurance to single people or to sterile men and women, claiming that his religious scruples held that only healthily fertile married people were worthy of insurance?
terraformer
@JC:
At least a few reasons:
1) The sensationalism of it all increases viewers.
2) The near-monopoly of the airwaves by interests who profit from the rubes, the ignorant, and the irrational, and who thus have an interest in misinforming and obfuscation.
3) Embarrassing high-profile people (e.g., the Bishops and other beanie-heads who had no problem with existing state law for 12 years until now) is never a good thing.
goethean
> Elections have consequences…
Except when a black man gets elected to the white house, then its “git yer guns, we’re having a tea party!”
Mark S.
New Hampshire apparently has quite the teabilly legislature. See here for some examples of what they’ve been up to lately.
peach flavored shampoo
Female Republicans must be using the Log Cabin Republicans’ playbook.
The GOP is shooting for 27% female favorability at warp speed.
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
Expect much more of this. America is the last First World battleground for the Catholic Church. They already lost Europe.
Basilisc
New New Hampshire motto:
Live free or die. Unless you’re a woman who needs preventative healthcare, in which case we’d really prefer that you die.
JGabriel
@JC:
Maturity, safety, trusting the judgement of trained professionals — Republicans & Conservatives are against all those values.
.
JoyceH
And just in case anyone believes that employers will continue to provide contraception coverage even if they don’t have to, Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center proves that’s wrong. This bleeper discovered that his company’s insurance covered contraception and is hard at work eliminating the coverage and even sent a memo to employees telling them to stop using the contraceptive coverage in the meantime – if they continued to do so, they’re committing a Mortal Sin. No really, that’s what he said.
jl
@kay:
OK, at this point, maybe saying it is good politics lacks good taste, since you are right about the magnitude of the stakes, not only for reproductive health, but any chance for improvement in US health care system at all, and more and more obvious attack on civil rights.
I am not surprised that the anti choice forces are going after contraception. I have been telling that to for years my more moderate and independent relatives, who said I was shrill.
I am surprised that the GOP power structure (assuming they have any control over their pet barbarians that they have bred coddled and fed for years) cannot see that this is hurting them, but I am beyond caring about what goes in those people’s heads.
Dave
Did he actually say that Obama was trying to “divide women against Catholics”? So all Catholics are men? I didn’t realize that, but it does explain a lot.
Dave
Did he actually say that Obama was trying to “divide women against Catholics”? So all Catholics are men? I didn’t realize that, but it does explain a lot.
Rafer Janders
“We are part of a group plan that forces us to do things that are against our Catholic principles,”
Um, at best “Catholic principles” would only require you yourself not to use contraception (a Catholic principle that 98% of Catholics themselves don’t seem to adhere to). But what principle would require a Catholic to affirmatively make contraception unavailable to others who may or many not even be Catholic themselves?
Presumably, the mere fact that contraception is available wouldn’t make someone use it: if they did, they weren’t going to adhere to “Catholic principles” anyway, and if they were adhering to “Catholic principles”, they wouldn’t use contraception anyway, even if you showered condoms over their head.
inkadu
@JC: You’re confusing Jesuits and Jehovah’s Witness. Jesuits are the most educated Catholic monastic order; Jehovah’s Witnesses hand out pamphlets and fear blood transfusion.
Benjamin Franklin
@kay:
You buried the lede? : )
marianne19
NH’s Republican party was, until recently, moderate-to-libertarian in its social policies. In the 2008 elections, a lot of those Republicans got bounced by so-called “Tea Party” types in the primaries. As soon as they got into office they started trying to push through a culture war agenda–roll back gay marriage, right-to-work, now this. Some of the looniest even tried to have (not sure if it ever happened) hearings on Obama’s birth certificate. It’s been an eye-opener for moderates and independents and I doubt they’ll hold the majority come next spring. Meanwhile, lots of harm done. O’Brien is a real piece of work. He’d love to have a theocracy up here with him as Pope.
BTW, checked Wikipedia and they say NH is “among the lowest level of religious commitment;” I think that goes along with the libertarian strain of many folks here. They don’t want government, or even god, telling them what to do.
El Cid
While they’re at it, now would be a good time to bring back all those laws banning premarital and extramarital sex (and of course banning the gay sex).
It’d be good to at least try to outlaw color and require life be lived in black & white in 4:3 rather than today’s devilish widescreen, but that may be aiming too high.
Citizen_X
Well, I’m joining the Rastafarians, because then I can start a grow-op, right? And I can take out my share of taxes that goes towards arresting/prosecuting/jailing potheads, right?
No? How about if I incorporate?
kay
@Brachiator:
I agree. Too, I have no idea “who” gets vasectomies, because I never, ever dreamed that any person would need to defend access to vasectomies on the PUBLIC POLICY level :)
I have noticed conservatives and media sneering and dismissing the out of pocket costs for birth control pills, though, so I looked it up, and sterilization costs btwn 400 and 6,000 dollars, depending on man/woman and specific procedure.
Not an insignificant cost, particularly for women. The Blunt amendment easily allows an opt-out for sterilization of any kind.
dedc79
As Cole just was discussing, it all comes down to how the media allows the debate to be framed. If they fall for the religious freedom BS, then it might play well in libertarian NH. If it’s framed properly as an infringement on rights, then hopefully NH will balk.
Southern Beale
Newt Gingrich is in Nashville right now trying to generate some interest. A local news reporter just tweeted that Gingrich said he’ll sign a series of exec orders: 1. Abolish czars. 2. Move embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem.
Oooh. That’s a big motivator!! I’m sure people are beating a path to the polls as we speak (early voting has opened here so technically one could do so should they be so inspired…)
Bulworth
That’s so awesome. His liberties were being violated and he didn’t even know it! /
kay
@marianne19:
Thanks for saying that. One of the biggest media-pundit lies is that the Tea Party aren’t “social conservatives”, or that conservatives have somehow “moved away” from social issues.
My. Ass.
You’d have to be a male pundit to say that, and ONLY male pundits say it.
Rommie
I’m starting to wonder if the people behind all this realized their chances sucked in November, and decided to get done what they can while they still can. The quickness of all this “religious freedom” talk makes it seem like there’s a great hurry to Git R Dun before the window closes.
Ohio Mom
New Hampshire may not be particularly religious but it is very, very conservative in a libertarian kind of way. They only adopted state-wide kindergarten in 2009 — I think they were the last state to do so — they just didn’t see a need for paying for anything before first grade. They also have an extremely regressive tax system, though for that I don’t remember the particulars. I think that cutting back on any sort of benefit just fits their general worldview.
Ohio Dad almost got transferred there, I guess that was back in ’99, and I remain very thankful that didn’t happen, even though I continually miss the rest of the east coast.
Anyway, how New Hampshire ended up next to door to Vermont and Massachusetts is a mystery to me. I mean, you’re not surprised to find Alabama and Mississippi sharing a border…
Lauren
As much as this terrifies me, if it’s another nail in the coffin for the whole notion of employer-provided health insurance, then it’s a conversation worth having.
kay
@dedc79:
I think every insurance policy is New Hampshire now covers birth control (except for self-insured entities) under the 2000 state law, so they’d better start paying attention, because they have it now.
jl
@Bulworth: I think these religious people need to remember that lying is a sin too. I simply cannot believe that line, I think it is preposterous that these people did not know.
peach flavored shampoo
All the important ones.
Southern Beale
Wow. This is amazing. President of Ireland calls Tea Party guy a “wanker whipping up fear.”
dedc79
@kay: I get what you’re saying. This is a faux-controversy – another example where the second Obama is for something the GOP has to be against it even if they supported it in the past. And it would be a good idea to remind residents of the state that what’s about to happen is that some of them are going to lose accessibility to birth control because of these nuts.
Punchy
Holy Jeebus….me and the Nooter actually agree on something.
Brachiator
@kay:
D’oh! What I meant to write here was that This is as much a war against contraception as it is a war against women.
Clearly, women would bear the brunt of many of these stupid, cruel, challenges to contraceptive policy.
@Ohio Mom:
Uh, New Hampshire, kinda important in American history:
But I’m sure you were jesting.
marianne19
Ohio Mom-
The tax system here may be more important to most people, and certainly Republicans, than religion. Candidates have to take “the pledge” never to vote for or sign an income tax or sales tax bill. So we have a very high and regressive property taxes.
I do hate seeing your comment comparing us to Alabama and Mississippi; with what’s going on lately I guess we fall into the “used to be a nice place (re politics)” category along with Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Paul in KY
@Basilisc: In the woman’s case, she gets to ‘live free and die’.
Rafer Janders
@Bulworth:
Again, I’d like someone to ask them how, in a practical sense, their liberties could even be violated: if all you are doing is offering to pay for contraceptives, presumably a devout Catholic following Catholic teachings wouldn’t buy contraceptives in the first place, so there’d be nothing to pay for, would there?
If, on the other hand, Catholics are buying contraceptives, then you’d think that’s the Church’s problem right there, that Catholics themselves are already ignoring the Church’s teachings….
Comrade Dread
@JoyceH:
So the holy and perfect work of the Son of God to redeem my soul was undone by my wearing a condom a few times when I had sex with my wife?
Okay, then…
JGabriel
@Dave:
It’s not that all Catholics are men, it’s just that men are the only Catholics the Pope takes seriously.
.
opie_jeanne
Ugh. Had a Mormon cousin drive down from Salt Lake to visit Dad on Friday, and her husband started braying about the misuse of contraceptives and that without them there are no consequences for irresponsible sex.
After acknowledging to my cousin (I love her and not her husband) that SHE wanted every one of those 9 children, I said that we stopped at three because at that point we realized we were outnumbered. Then I pointed out to HIM that contraceptives are the responsible way for an adult to behave, to prevent unwanted consequences, so that babies are conceived are more likely to be WANTED.
I couldn’t believe that utter prat. I don’t know what my cousin ever saw in him.
He
PTirebiter
@dedc79: Absolutely. Addressing the facts about contraception or defending contraception only reinforces the idiototic idea that a “controversy” exists. Better to tell them to shut the he’ll up because the 1st amendment rights of employers don’t trump the 1st amendment rights of their employees. Give them a copy of Jefferson’s Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.
James Madison wrote it “extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making laws for the human mind.”
Culture of Truth
Looks like they’re taking “Live Free or Die” a little too literally.
Politically Lost
I’m starting to wonder if the marching orders coming out of Fox HQ (or wherever Republican talking points are hatched for daily consumption) have been hi-jacked by someone on the our team.
The Daily Show used to regularly do a bit about how a consistent message would be repeated over and over on Fox. You know, the cool montage of all the Fox assholes saying the exact same thing in a short period of time. It became so obvious a gag (that all Fox personalities were required to repeat the talking point of the day) that I think the DS just had to move on to some new material. The joke no longer had any punch because it was so obvious. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen so many times the repetition campaigns on Fox then become the fodder for politicians to try and “do something” to fix whatever talking point has been ginned up at the Fox Fear Factory.
This contraception = strangling Jesus in his manger thing is going to burn all of the down ticket and state level republicans something fierce if they keep this shit up much longer.
Has someone gotten control of the talking point generator?
Comrade Dread
Well, except for that whole perdition thing, assuming he believes in a literal fiery hell.
Funny how people making this argument forget their own doctrines in the name of Puritanical zeal.
harlana
i’m sorry to state the obvious, but i just cannot believe this is where we are right now; and it’s really nice, telling all those unemployed people who can barely afford to feed themselves that it’s wrong to practice contraception or to punish them for doing so.
but of course, we need more wage/debt slaves to replace the worn out ones who can just go ahead and die
JC
@inkadu: Ah, that’s right – thanks. I knew that, actually, but posted quickly…
kay
@dedc79:
It is, but, honestly, I don’t know what to do with those.
I would say just dismiss it as faux and don’t defend, but I think one has to take them at their word if they’re writing law, which they are.
I think we can all say “hah hah, look at those crazy conservatives!” but this is actual federal and state law.
Lately, I just look at what they do, because parsing motives makes my head spin. I just take it straight and look at it, because I don’t have some other, more clever, reverse back-flip approach involving “framing” or whatever.
The reality seems alarming enough to me, actually.
slag
@dedc79: Don’t forget the increased level of complexity and uncertainty for the average citizen/employee/consumer. It’s hard enough out there to find a job you want that provides a salary you can live with. And now these freedom fighters want you to have to delve into the intricacies of your potential employer’s health plan too! Choice…I do not think it means what Republicans think it means.
redshirt
I’m simply impressed that these Wingnuts and their corporate sponsors can make a controversy out of anything they want. Anything. How do you defeat that when logic/facts/truth plays 3rd fiddle?
Mnemosyne
@opie_jeanne:
There was some troll over here the other day whining about how women only wanted the Pill so they could be promiscuous, because apparently having sex with my lawful husband whenever we want to is now being “promiscuous” and not, I don’t know, “monogamous.”
Redshift
@Rafer Janders:
It’s worse than that. They’re not in any sense “paying for contraceptives.” Employer-provided insurance is part of the employee’s compensation, and objecting to it including things that are against the employer’s religion is no different than saying employers should be able to prohibit you from spending your pay on it. The ludicrous objection, plain and simple, is that touching money that’s used for something against the employer’s religion is a violation of religious freedom.
Nutella
Yep, the birthers of New Hampshire had a legislative hearing which turned into a small riot when the decision did not go their way. The people from the attorney general’s and secretary of state’s offices had to lock themselves into a room to get away from the mob of screaming legislators. Makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it?
Orly Taitz was there, of course.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Rafer Janders:
For a non-trivial fraction of the US population, “religious freedom” = having the power to impose religous tyranny on other people. Unfortunately this strain in our culture goes all the way back to the very beginning, see the founding of Rhode Island colony for example.
The men who drafted the US Constitution knew what sort of whirlwind you end up reaping when you sow in this fashion, because they were as close in time to the viciously brutal wars of religion of the mid 17th Century as we today are to Lincoln and the US Civil War. Since then Americans, and especially American elites, have forgotten a lot of things the Founders knew, while making a fetish out of invoking the names of the latter as if they were the holy saints of a secular cargo cult. It is more than a bit obscene, actually.
quannlace
Well, the economy is getting better and they can’t be sure if higher gas prices will hurt Obama. So bring back the classics-Culture Wars!
kay
@dedc79:
I will say this. I heard the loathsome Mary Matelin on cable news last week and she was shrill, denying that conservatives are going after contraception.
She went nuts when it was framed that way. Started sputtering about radical feminists and abortion, and I think her reaction is an indication that they are afraid of this continuing.
Nutella
@slag:
Just think of the awkward interview questions: Candidate trying to ask about health insurance without giving any personal details away, company making religious proclamations in the interview or the employee handbook about which sex acts it approves of for which people. Shudder.
Yevgraf
@Nutella:
Apparently, Orly is a big deal among Israeli Likudniks. Every time I think about her, I have to stifle the urge to send Hezbollah a donation for a bomb.
Redshift
@redshirt:
It’s tough. Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit acknowledged that while he could identify and characterize it, actually counteracting bullshit is very difficult, because debunking it is a lot of work, while it takes no effort at all for the bullshit artist to come up with a new line of BS.
Ohio Mom
@marianne19: I didn’t mean New Hampshire was like Alabama and Mississipi. I meant, here’s an example of two states that share a border and as a result, share a lot of the same history and culture; we’re not surprised Alabama & Mississippi have lots in common. Just like you might say of a family, oh, they are all a bit nutsy, or they are all really, really smart.
But New Hampshire is next door to Vermont, of single-payer fame and Massachusetts, the state that gave us Ted Kennedy. New Hampshire (like the states you mention, plus Ohio) might have had a saner legislature in the not-so-distant past, but it was never, ever as liberal as its neighbors.
What was so different about New Hampshire’s history that it didn’t end up with state-wide kindergarten before this century? After living in Cincinnati for almost 30 years, I could probably cobble together an explanation of why Ohio is so different than Kentucky, with which we share a border.
tamied
@kay: Did you see Nancy Pelosi on Rachel Maddow the other night? She said the war against abortion always been basically about contraception and that they were glad it was finally out in the open.
Bubblegum Tate
@BenA:
The only people they hear are the 27 percenters. And those 27 percenters are absolutely convinced that they’re winning this issue, hence the desire to keep pressing it.
Yevgraf
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
A dogmatic Catholic friend of mine who went through an extreme wingnut phase (he’s sane now) used to try to tell me that it was about his liberty to determine what kind of society he was going to raise his children in. In his mind, that was true liberty – that the desires of the individual were irrelevant to that discussion.
ETA: My kids are direct line descendants of Roger Williams, something I proudly have them announce in our whitebread, wingnutty school district.
Brachiator
@JC:
Sadly, an increasing number of nutcases see the medical profession as a bunch of snobs. Who needs medical science when you have the Baby Jeebus?
slag
@Nutella:
It’s an all-access pass to your life for corporations: “HR is everywhere you don’t want them to be.”
Southern Beale
@kay:
Indeed, from Maureen Dowd’s column:
Um … yeah.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Nutella:
Law of unintended consequences: once a company brands itself in a religious sense, it opens itself up to consumer boycotts on the same basis. How many employees have to get screwed over in this manner before the word gets out?
Quick show of hands: how many folks here will go out of their way not to purchase goods and services from a business that outs itself as anti-contraception and anti-women’s health in this way. Count me in.
slag
@tamied: Go, Nancy, go! And keep going!
Peregrinus
@Mnemosyne:
I find this hilarious, because as a Catholic, I remember discussing the role of monogamous sexual relationships with a priest and both of us agreeing that there was nothing inherently un-Catholic about having extramarital sex in a committed relationship.
This is why I stick with the orders. (Other than the Capuchins, I suppose, now that they’ve turned out rotten to the core as well.)
dedc79
@kay: It’s a pretty remarkable/terrifying development. I’ve had to have conversations with numerous “moderate” friends, explaining that the crazies are no longer the fringe. They are writing and passing legislation that is turning parts of the country into theocracies and that it’s only a preview of what will happen if obama loses.
Citizen_X
@Southern Beale:
Wow is right! So awesome I’m posting the link again. Go watch it now!
Yevgraf
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Query – considering that a corporation is a total creature of the state, how does one excise the entity from participation in general “health and safety” police requirements?
opie_jeanne
@Comrade Dread: He’s a Mormon; they don’t believe in Hell, just lesser levels of heaven.
Seriously, they think there are four levels of heaven and that all of us are going to the bottom one unless we accept the proxy baptism they will do for us, because God certainly isn’t capable of sorting people out any other way.
tamied
@Peregrinus: I had dinner on Saturday with some friends who are all practicing catholics. The subject came up when they were discussing sacrifices for lent (no dessert after dinner). One of the women said she hadn’t been back to her church after her priest had been exposed as a pedophile. She said they were all a bunch of hypocrites.
Nutella
The Mormon god is so dumb he needs direction from the church hierarchy here on earth? Pretty low standard for divinity there.
Frank
@opie_jeanne:
Next time you see him you may want to ask him what he thinks about the Iraq war. Their so called Mormon Prophet came out for it back in April 2003. If he cares so much about life, then why was it worth so much useless killing of innocent lives in Iraq?
Mnemosyne
@Peregrinus:
Pat Mustard, is that you?
(Sorry the clip quality isn’t very good.)
PeakVT
Why do the laboratories of democracy keep producing something that looks like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster?
cathyx
@opie_jeanne: That’s not any more preposterous than believing in hell.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
This probably kicks the GOP in the gut nationally, but the problem that I keep fearing for the life of me is that it might not matter. They seem dead set on codifying this bullshit for decades and even if they get wiped, they’ll probably still have it on the books unless the courts strike them down, and they’ll spend years obstructing any attempt to undo it until the usual Public Amnesia hits and the electorate forgets just how awful this shit is because gas prices went up another dime around the next election. It’s a dangerous tread, especially considering how much ground the GOP owns state-level now, and a national sweep not exactly assuring the state-level features a similar paradigm shift.
pseudonymous in nc
@PeakVT:
Because they’re run by a bunch of Igors?
Mike Lamb
@opie_jeanne: So unwanted babies should be around as a “lesson” to “promiscuous” women?
opie_jeanne
@Nutella: That’s my reaction to their view of God. Really, God can’t determine between my frailties and those of Hitler or Pol Pot, because neither of us were practicing Mormons?
I’m sure they’ve baptized both of those monsters by now which means that they are now elevated to a higher level of heaven. I would not accept the favor if offered. I’d prefer to stay down in the bottom level (if they’re right) and stew in my Methodist juices.
kay
@dedc79:
The truth of it worse than the specifics. I read the other side. This is BROAD.
The argument is that government can’t regulate religious entities, because ONLY religious entities get to define what their core mission is, hence, they object to the Obama rule because it’s a statute that defines their religion as NOT including giant health care entities. They will pick and choose what law they follow, and we will simply have to trust their good intentions, because, again, even questioning whether any law falls within this protected sphere is forbidden, as infringing on their “liberty”.
That’s endless. It’s HUGE. It’s a radical redefinition of “religious liberty”.
opie_jeanne
@Mike Lamb: That’s exactly what he meant. I nearly gasped when he said it.
My son was just such a lesson, although I was monogamous but not yet married to my husband (engaged).
The Bobs
Someone really needs to introduce a bill requiring prostate exams for every viagra prescription. That probe had better be of a frightening diameter and quite cold. These are men, they can take it, right?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@PeakVT:
Because the majority of Americans who are eligible to vote don’t think is it worth the trouble, especially during midterm elections, so the most impassioned minority (which is the 27%ers) are able to take power by default.
When people don’t show up to vote, or vote in a grossly ignoratn fashion, this is what they are voting for, whether they realise it or not.
opie_jeanne
@cathyx: I don’t know that I believe in Hell, other than the one we are capable of creating for ourselves here on Earth if we choose. Same with Heaven. Probably makes me an apostate of some sort.
FlipYrWhig
@Redshift:
IMHO it’s even worse than THAT. There’s one ludicrous claim that religious liberty attaches to money, such that your employer gets to treat your paycheck as his and not yours right up to the moment you intend to purchase something.
Then, when it comes to insurance, the idea seems to be that the employer’s pious money mixes with unclean money in the risk pool of the insurance company, so anything the insurance company does with any portion of the religious employer’s money is tainted.
And then, on top of both of those, there’s ANOTHER ludicrous claim that the problem isn’t just _using_ the employer’s conscience-stricken money on something sinful, it’s the sheer _potential_ for using it in that way. If the employer’s plan covers birth control and no employee ever uses that feature because they’re all devout Catholics who hew to Church doctrines in every respect, that’s _still_ a violation of what they call religious liberty.
It’s total madness that doesn’t square with any way we think about whose money is whose. In fact, the Republicans’ biggest rallying cry to this point has been that taxation constitutes the government taking “your money.” These ideas can’t both be true. Your paycheck is either your money or your employer’s money, but not both.
(And the government issues the fucking money in the first place, so maybe the right view ought to be that it’s soiled with secularism from the moment it comes off the demonic printing press.)
pseudonymous in nc
@Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity:
That’s true, but the future of American Catholicism is Hispanic, and the people making the biggest flap about contraception seem to be middle-aged Irish-Americans. It’s like the last hoorah of old ‘white ethnic’ Catholicism.
opie_jeanne
@pseudonymous in nc: “…..and the people making the biggest flap about contraception seem to be middle-aged Irish-Americans….”
The word “male” needs to be inserted after “middle-aged”.
Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937
This seems like punching hippies and pissing off liberals more than anything.
Mnemosyne
@opie_jeanne:
My favorite vision of the afterlife that I’ve heard is that Heaven and Hell are identical: you’re seated at a banquet table filled with the most magnificent feast you’ve ever seen, but all of the utensils are too long for you to reach your mouth.
In Heaven, everyone is having a great time chatting and feeding each other from across the table. In Hell, everyone is sullen and glaring at each other because none of them trust any of the others to feed them in return.
I think I know which table Mitt and the other Republican candidates would be sitting at. :-)
opie_jeanne
@Mnemosyne: I remember hearing that a while back and I thought it was excellent. Thanks for reminding me.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
@Bubblegum Tate:
you underestimate the basic nihilism of catholics, and their willingness to do stupid things that contradict everything else about their lives and the people they alledge to care about in the name of faith.
one can only hope this is merely a fever. the fear i have is that the whole “anti-catholic” bullshit bait, actually resonates enough to make catholics in large number anti reality.
Redshift
@FlipYrWhig: Agreed. Thanks for fleshing it out. The point remains, though that while pointing out the scary cases of what employers might choose to “religiously object” to may be effective, we shouldn’t concede the wrongheaded idea that insurance is something that “belongs” to the employer.
cathyx
@Mnemosyne: I’m hoping it’s more like it was betrayed in the movie “Defending Your Life” with Albert Brooks. That would be divine justice.
Digital Amish
Serious question – has vasectomy coverage been discussed in any of this?
FlipYrWhig
@Redshift: Absolutely. I think the whole issue is ripe for 99%-1% framing — “When it comes to your medical care and your conscience, Republicans want your employer to get to decide for you” — but that hasn’t quite happened yet.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
The employers negotiate the health care plan. They may do this before you are ever hired, or paid, by the company. Your abiility to buy into the plan is after the fact.
This is obviously paternalistic and creates room for mischief. But an employer could say under this medieval view, “we only offer health insurance to married men who have stay at home wives, and who do not use birth control. ” This could be spelled out to you during an employment interview, before you were hired. Your deduction for health insurance would be your money, but not the health care choices made available to you.
So, here, the employer could say that it is not your money.
piratedan
well I can see where the Catholic Church is coming from, after all, they don’t need contraception in order for them to enjoy the kind of sex that is practiced by its clergy, just guilt, shame and an army of lawyers to allow them to maintain the status quo and hey guess what, they already have that.
kay
@FlipYrWhig:
But that’s next, FlipYrWhig, because it has to be.
They successfully got abortion removed from the list of what federal money can cover, and they used the exact same ridiculous and endless fungibility argument to do that.
They’re paying for birth control NOW, in Medicaid and Title X funding, so the logical extension of their argument is “we can’t pay for that either”.
The fungibility argument they use for abortion fits like a glove for the next round, which is “we can’t allow federal funding of birth control”.
Title X and Medicaid. Really poor women won’t have any access to birth control.
That comes next year, or in three years, but it’s coming. They almost HAVE to do it, after telling us “paying for” birth control was unimaginable.
bemused
@Mike Lamb:
The unwanted babies are not considered a lesson to promiscuous men? Oh wait, I suppose the fathers can’t be promiscuous because they are not using contraception. If women use contraceptives, they are being irresponsible and there must be consequences for being responsible….or irresponsible… whatever.
Such screwed up people. I’d say men like that are so afraid they can’t control themselves, they need the women to be unprotected so they will be too afraid to have sex with them.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: OK, but the insurance company makes a play for the contract by anticipating things like employee co-pays, so the whole edifice is built with some proportion of employee money all along. It might not be yours as a new employee signing the contract, but it’s yours soon enough, especially (in a prosaic way) because of the attachment you make to the company during the probationary period before benefits kick in.
(I think that’s how I’d see it.)
But, again, if you take up the Watergate challenge to “follow the money,” that leads in some interesting directions, especially if you subscribe to anything like a labor theory of value. In that case, the only reason why the employer has the money to pay you in the first place is because you the employee are productive, i.e., generating (surplus) value. He signs the check, but he didn’t do the work.
makewi
What a shame. Employers should be forced to provide coverage for whatever the progressive set decides they should.
FlipYrWhig
@kay: Yeah, the “fungibility” argument is screwy because you can never get to the point where it’s turtles all the way down. Sure, money is fungible, but a church or any other employer doesn’t coin its own money; it funged itself into their money from other sources first. I work at a public college and pay taxes scrupulously. Taxes support the government, the government supports public services, some of which are done by churches. Some of the money I touched at some point, if you tagged it, might have ended up in a church coffer somewhere. (From there it could have bought yams for a soup kitchen, then paid a cashier, who then paid taxes, which went to the state government, which then paid me.)
But no one would say that I got to dictate how that church spent its money. And yet the argument is being made that the church gets to dictate how the government spends its money.
It’s a truly odd vision of the circulation of money.
And I know _we_ know all this already, but I have to keep venting about it, because it’s just so crazy.
FlipYrWhig
@makewi: Welcome to the idea of “government.” We’ve been experimenting with ’em for a few centuries already. Join us.
wrb
@Yevgraf:
Williams:
makewi
@FlipYrWhig:
Sure, sure. Just so long as it’s clear between us that the only legitimate acts of government are those which please the progressive set.
FlipYrWhig
@makewi: Oddly enough, progressives want the government to advance progressive aims, and conservatives want the government to advance conservative aims, and they argue about it and elect politicians who are simpatico to argue about it by proxy. It’s a frustrating system, no doubt, but over time we get used it.
makewi
@FlipYrWhig:
So then in terms of governmental process, you are fine with the introduction of this bill. No argument here.
LAC
Next time some pseudo progressive tells you to sit on your hands in order to “show” somebody something, kick him right in the nads. Fucking idiots better get out and vote these mofos out of office.
FlipYrWhig
@makewi: Politicians are within their rights to introduce asinine things, and citizens are within their rights to decry them, shame them, and dissuade them from going forward. I don’t think there’s a dispute over that, and I don’t get what point you thought you were making, but, _basta_.
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
Makewi thinks that your employer should be allowed to, say, dictate that all female employees wear a headscarf to work even if the employees aren’t Muslim because otherwise you’re infringing on the religious liberties of the employer. And the religious liberties of the employer always trump the religious liberties of the individual. If you don’t want to have to, say, attend daily Mass to keep your job, then find another job and your employer will be happy to hire someone who doesn’t mind saying a “Hail Mary” or two so they can keep their job.
stratplayer
The push for employer conscience exemptions is a mere preliminary to their ultimate goal of taking down Griswold alone with Roe. If they manage to pull it off, I may never forgive my self-styled “fiscally-conservative but socially-liberal” Republican friends who allowed this to happen. It’s their fucking fault for caring more about tax rates and lightbulb efficiency standards than basic human freedom. I call total bullshit on any Republican with the gall to invoke “liberty” as any kind of guiding principle.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@makewi: So, are you saying that you oppose contraception coverage in health insurance? Is it a conservative ideal to oppose easy access to contraception?
Good luck with that. I’m so very sure you’ll entice a majority of voters by promising to make it harder for them to acquire contraception. The vast majority of Americans who use birth control at some point in their lives were really just hoping and praying that someone would remove the terrible yoke of being able to control when and how often they have children. Freedom at last!
makewi
@Mnemosyne:
These are the things that you tell yourself in order to be able to allow others to do your thinking for you. Or your just an asshole. Either way.
makewi
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
No, this is not what I am saying. Guess I don’t need luck then. Phew.
stratplayer
@makewi: You’re using “your” incorrectly. Such avoidable errors make you look unintelligent or at least ignorant and diminish the impact of your comments. Oh, and if you choose to engage Mnemosyne, know right now that you are way out of your league.
opie_jeanne
@cathyx: I have meant to see that movie and have not gotten around to it yet, so, how was it portrayed?
Mnemosyne
@makewi:
You think your employer should be allowed to impose their religious beliefs on you, including whether or not they “let” you get birth control. Is there any area where you think an employee has religious freedom and should be allowed to not follow the religious beliefs of their employer?
I told you when this first came up that you would regret making this about religious rights, because you are now on the side saying that your employer should be allowed to dictate religion to you. So I ask again: do you think the employer’s religious rights always trump those of the employee? Do employees have any religious rights of their own, or can their employer always dictate those?
Answer the question, for once.
ETA: Though it is amusing that you think that allowing people to follow their own religious beliefs is “allowing others to do the thinking.” Yes, oddly, I do think that most people can decide for themselves what religion to follow and they don’t need their employers to decide on their behalf. Clearly you feel differently and think that employees need their employers to tell them what religion they should follow.
TenguPhule
My Religion requires I bathe in the blood of 100 Republicans a day.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
interesting theory, but I don’t think it holds up. Worst case, or conservative wet dream, employers would simply say to employees, good luck with finding health insurance, do all the negotiating on your own with your money.
I see where you are trying to get to, but I don’t think that the labor theory of value really helps you.
Mike Lamb
@makewi: No you fucking fucktard–we are saying that an employer cannot prevent an employee from purchasing his/her own health care based on the employer’s religious beliefs. Health care isn’t a gift–it’s compensation based on a contract for employment–whether at will, implied or otherwise. Why should an employer basically get to tell me how I spend my money and what health care, which I earn through my employment, is available to me?
I’d love to hear an even remotely comparable situation in which an employer is claiming some bullshit right to control its employees’ private life in this fashion…
makewi
I love how dishonest this framing is. Love. It.
Patricia Kayden
“If someone had told me six months ago that Republicans in New Hampshire would be openly joining with a church to draft legislation to limit to access to contraception I would not have believed it, but here it is.”
Are Republicans different from state to state? I assume that the party as a whole has an agenda to push and does so wherever they have power.
Mnemosyne
@makewi:
How is it dishonest? Be specific. Read the original post. Here, I’ll even highlight it for you:
You are supporting a bill that would allow any employer to decide that providing birth control to their employees is against their moral beliefs. Any employer.
So, again, please explain why it’s “dishonest” to say exactly what the bill says: your employer will be able to dictate that you follow his religious beliefs even if your employer is not specifically a church. Any employer will be allowed to do that. So what’s dishonest about my framing?
Mike Lamb
@Mnemosyne: And where does it stop? I think the slippery slope argument is pretty lazy. On the other hand, why can’t an employer withhold pay based on a religious objection that the employee purchased birth control? Booze? Strip clubs? Medical marijuana?
“Hi John, please turn in your receipts–I need to see where you spent the money I paid you to make sure it’s not going to objectionable material. We can’t be seen as supporting that.”
I mean that’s largely the logic underpinning the Hyde Amendment. Why not apply it to paid wages as well?
SiubhanDuinne
@Punchy:
Stopped clock, blind squirrel …
makewi
Your employer has no ability to not “let” you get birth control under this proposed bill. They only have the ability to decide if they are willing to pay for an insurance policy which includes it, again, under this proposed bill.
Mike Lamb
@makewi: If I can’t afford it outside of my insurance policy, then it is all about “letting” me get contraception.
And considering I pay, at least in part, for my coverage, and I am earning everything else as compensation, why should they get to make that choice again? They aren’t giving me a gift and the employer isn’t being forced to use contraception.
makewi
@Mike Lamb:
No, it isn’t no matter how much you try to pretend it is. In any case, we are talking about an amount in the $20 to $50 a month range.
Who decides the compensation? It isn’t a gift, it’s part of the package put forth by the employer and taken by the employer as part of a contract of employment. Under this bill, the employer would be able to decide if the insurance component of the compensation included birth control coverage.
Mnemosyne
@makewi:
Just thought I’d add that back in since you keep “forgetting” that part — this bill allows any employer to decide based on the employer’s personal religious beliefs whether or not to cover birth control.
So, again, based on your support for this bill, you think that any employer should be allowed to impose their personal religious beliefs on their employees.
Mike Lamb
@makewi: I see, and you can say that so confidently despite documented cases to the contrary–how very disingenuous of you. And suggesting that everyone can afford $25 to $50 per month? Seriously?
The employer gets to decide what my compensation is based on his/her/its religious beliefs? And not just my compensation, but how I spend MY money? In what world is that not imposing their religious beliefs on me?
Mnemosyne
@makewi:
And since you seem to need a little more fixing:
But, hey, if an Orthodox Jewish employer decides that all male employees have to wear a yarmulke every day, that’s not really an imposition. A yarmulke costs, what, $10 out of the employee’s pocket? So there’s no reason not to let the employer require that.
liberal
@marianne19:
How are property taxes ever regressive?
Rafer Janders
@makewi:
In any case, we are talking about an amount in the $20 to $50 a month range.
No, that’s the current co-pay. If you pay out of pocket, it’s $40-$100 a month. In a country where the average median pay for an individual is about $26,000 a year, that’s a hell of a lot of money for most people.
Nancy Irving
A church that names its colleges after prostitutes is complaining about being “forced” to violate its morals. OMFG.