So contraception is a now a new front in the US culture war.

[Parthenon]

And trying to defend this mindset using "religious freedom" is even more insane. No one's religion (that I'm aware of) requires them to not only abstain from certain behaviors, but to prevent ANYONE from doing those things. And if such a religion did exist, it wouldn't fly legally, first amendment or not.

By the way, theres a Muslim proverb that roughly goes (I'm paraphrasing heavily since I can't remember it well):

"If you see something wrong, correct it with your hands. If you can't do that, then correct it with your words. If you can't do that, know that it is wrong with your heart."

There are probably similar commandments or teachings in Judaism and Christianity as well.

On the other hand, there are also proverbs in Islam about how as long as you're doing things right then other people doing wrong won't affect you, and that there is no compulsion in religion, and that you aren't a true believer if you harm your neighbour, etc...

[angelfromanotherpin]

As usual, The Daily Show cuts through the bullshit.

You've confused a war on your religion with not always getting everything you want. It's called being part of a society.

[LargePrime]

It might be pointed out that Rachel Maddow has been covering the several states that have introduced "personhood", or birth control banning laws. Today, Virgina was the latest.

This is what the republican majorities in the several states have been doing for the last two years of the greatest financial crises since the last republican great depression

[sabs]

Republicans don't care about the country. They don't care about people. I'm actually convinced that anyone who votes Republican these days is actually either a complete idiot, or actively trying to destroy the country.

The Republican party as a whole has undertaken policies that are bordering on treasonous.

I'm seriously disappointed in Obama. There have been serious abuses of civil rights, and his stance on SOPA and his deep ties to RIAA are disturbing. He shows a fairly large inability to lead, or a delusion that Republicans aren't Monsters. That being said, at least he's not /actually/ trying to destroy this country.

[tzor]

As opposed to the POTUS who has been fucking off playing golf and forcing Churches to supply abritifacients to nuns.

[RobbyPants]

As opposed to the POTUS who has been fucking off playing golf and forcing Churches to supply abritifacients to nuns.

You mean requiring they give them access? They aren't required to actually give them fucking birth control. They're required to give them access. The nuns can individually choose to use it or not on their own.

...Which is pretty much the same as them using any money they're given for doing their job to buy birth control; something they can do or not do with a resource given to them by their employer.

The catholic stance on this is so fucking retarded. They're whining that them not 100% getting their way is somehow an attack on their religion. No one is being required to take birth control.

[sabs]

As opposed to the POTUS who read stories to kindergardners while the twin towers fell. Or Hid for 3 days without saying a peep.

Or spent almost 1/2 his presidency ON VACATION.

President Obama has taken 61 vacation days after 31 months in office. At this point in their presidencies, George W. Bush had spent 180 days at his ranch where his staff often joined him for meetings. And Ronald Reagan had taken 112 vacation days at his ranch.

so FUCK YOU you ignorant jackass.
And they are forcing Church Affiliated organizations to cover contraceptives. Not churches. And frankly, the Relgious stance on Contraceptives is /rediculous/ and insulting. You can take your fucking religion and shove it up your ass with a hot poker. The ability to control WHEN you have children is a wonderful thing. But no, you're such assholes, that you want to shame people from having sex that isn't for pro-creation. Well you know what? /fuck/ you.

[Kaelik]

1) Tzor, you criticized him for not doing his job, then for doing his job. You are retarded.

2) Everyone making fun of Tzor for being a monster, you are slightly wrong.

Yes, it is true that the Catholic Church doesn't have to provide nuns with birth control. Yes Tzor is lying about that. Yes, Birth Control is not abritifacients by which I assume he means abortifacients. Yes Tzor is lying about that. Yes, the Catholic Church doesn't have to provide access to birth control for nuns. Yes Tzor is lying about that.

But point of fact, Catholic Hospitals are also not required to provide Jewish doctors they employ with access to birth control anymore. Obama had a great compromise where instead the insurance organization must legally provide them free of charge, and cannot charge the Catholic Hospital.

So great, now the Catholic Hospital does not even have to provide non Catholic employees with access to birth control.

But that won't stop Tzor from lying about it, because Tzor doesn't actually give a shit about whether or not a Catholic institution is paying for the birth control. He only cares that birth control exists, and he won't be happy until it no longer does.

[tzor]

Obama had a great compromise where instead the insurance organization must legally provide them free of charge, and cannot charge the Catholic Hospital.

It's Catholic Institution, but whatever. I really would like to know how that even makes fucking sense. How can a cost not be passed on to the consumer? In any enterprise the costs have to be passed to someone and it is almost always the consumer. In the case of insurance the "consumer" is the institution that is providing the insurance to their employer. They get charged with higher premiums in order for the company to make their new profit targets. So unless money falls from the fucking sky to pay for it, those Catholic Institutions have to pay for it.

In the Bishop's response to this so called compromise is still morally flawed.

These changes require careful moral analysis, and moreover, appear subject to some measure of change. But we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected. And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer's plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.

So let's get back to what we are talking about. It's more than contraception.

First, we objected to the rule forcing private health plans — nationwide, by the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen—to cover sterilization and contraception, including drugs that may cause abortion. All the other mandated "preventive services" prevent disease, and pregnancy is not a disease. Moreover, forcing plans to cover abortifacients violates existing federal conscience laws. Therefore, we called for the rescission of the mandate altogether.

Second, we explained that the mandate would impose a burden of unprecedented reach and severity on the consciences of those who consider such "services" immoral: insurers forced to write policies including this coverage; employers and schools forced to sponsor and subsidize the coverage; and individual employees and students forced to pay premiums for the coverage. We therefore urged HHS, if it insisted on keeping the mandate, to provide a conscience exemption for all of these stakeholders—not just the extremely small subset of "religious employers" that HHS proposed to exempt initially.

Oh and by the way, did you know that it takes two people to make a compromise?

We just received information about this proposal for the first time this morning; we were not consulted in advance. Some information we have is in writing and some is oral. We will, of course, continue to press for the greatest conscience protection we can secure from the Executive Branch. But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today's proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. In a nation dedicated to religious liberty as its first and founding principle, we should not be limited to negotiating within these parameters. The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.

[virgil]

It's against my religion to aid heathens, so I should have the religious freedom to not give them any medical coverage, or even pay them a fair wage.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Tzor, what is your position on mandatory blood donation?

[RobbyPants]

What's the problem? No one is being forced to use those services. It's an individual choice. The catholic position is to force their position on other people, regardless of their religion. Obama isn't making catholics be not catholic.

[tzor]

Tzor, what is your position on mandatory blood donation?

Has that actually come up? You're starting to get me thinking I'm in the NationStates forum again.

So in a nutshell, my position is "No, No, No, No and No, and in any case there better damn well be a religious exception clause for people who would be opposed to it for religious grounds."

[tzor]

What's the problem? No one is being forced to use those services. It's an individual choice. The catholic position is to force their position on other people, regardless of their religion. Obama isn't making catholics be not catholic.

The problem is in paying for these services. In paying for these services the person who is paying assumes a moral cupability for the actions that are being paid for. Thus one is in effect assisting in the immoral act through their funding of it, either directly or indirectly.

So if I pay someone to give you something for free, shame on me.

If, on the other hand, I pay you, and you take that money and instead of doing something else do that something, shame on you, because I paid you to do something else.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Aaand Tzor is now presenting the 'Bishop Bucks' argument, thus shrinking the distinction between his position and a parody below measurable limits.

[RobbyPants]

What's the problem? No one is being forced to use those services. It's an individual choice. The catholic position is to force their position on other people, regardless of their religion. Obama isn't making catholics be not catholic.

The problem is in paying for these services. In paying for these services the person who is paying assumes a moral cupability for the actions that are being paid for. Thus one is in effect assisting in the immoral act through their funding of it, either directly or indirectly.

So if I pay someone to give you something for free, shame on me.

If, on the other hand, I pay you, and you take that money and instead of doing something else do that something, shame on you, because I paid you to do something else.

Functionally, I don't see the difference. In both cases, the employer provides a resource which may or may not be used to obtain contraceptives. Anything beyond that sounds like a form of omission bias, like the trolley problem.

At least, that's the only difference I can see there.

[sabs]

You pay the nun a salary. And she's using the money you gave her to buy condoms. So YOU are buying condoms by that very logic.

You should not be forced to pay people a salary, because they might use that money to buy drugs.

[Kaelik]

It's Catholic Institution, but whatever.

Never said it wasn't. But it's a Catholic Institution that is not allowed to discriminate in employment, and must hire non Catholics when they are the most qualified for the job because they accept Federal goddam funding. So yes, they are a Catholic Institution, but Catholic churches of course have nothing to do with this, nor nuns.

I really would like to know how that even makes fucking sense. How can a cost not be passed on to the consumer? In any enterprise the costs have to be passed to someone and it is almost always the consumer. In the case of insurance the "consumer" is the institution that is providing the insurance to their employer. They get charged with higher premiums in order for the company to make their new profit targets. So unless money falls from the fucking sky to pay for it, those Catholic Institutions have to pay for it.

Well A) Some places are not so retarded that they fap to profits so hard that they pass every cost on to the consumer. Sometimes when you are making billions of dollars of profit, you can let some of the costs bleed on to that. B) Yes, it's quite possible that the costs will be passed on to the consumer, in the sense that it's an insurance company, so the more they have to pay out, the more they have to raise everyone's rates. But frankly, if you have a problem with Catholic institutions having to pay slightly higher premiums so that other people with the same insurance company get birth control, then what you need to do first is advocate for Catholic institutions only getting insurance from companies that refuse to provide birth control.

Because as long as a Catholic institution gets it's insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield, it doesn't matter if their own employees get birth control or not, they are paying some money which goes towards other people getting birth control, because that's how insurance, and fuck, taxes, work. Sometimes that money goes towards something you don't want.

[Whatever]

See, by signing those insurance payment checks, the employer is personally murdering babies. As in, go directly to Hell, do not pass God, do not collect 200 virgins. And therefore, the only possible solution is to take away everyones' contraceptives forever.

The problem is in paying for these services. In paying for these services the person who is paying assumes a moral cupability for the actions that are being paid for. Thus one is in effect assisting in the immoral act through their funding of it, either directly or indirectly.

Tzor, do you pay taxes? Because if so, you are apparently going to hell.

[Koumei]

Remember, if you feed a terrerist or fund a terrerist... you're a terrerist!

The same thing applies here. And yes, that logic actually makes... well I managed to figure all of Australia is being a terrorist nation, I'm guessing America has at some point funded Australia so that covers them as well, and Britain...

So it's a fucking stupid line of reasoning, but remember who you're dealing with.

[Username17]

Let me pull a point out of a rather long John Holbo post. Start with the assumption that ObamaCare is repealed, in its entirety, tomorrow. The day after tomorrow Abdul Hussain, owner and CEO of a large private firm with 5,000 employees, announces that his firm will no longer offer employees health insurance that permits women to visit male doctors or male employees to be treated by female doctors. This is a newsworthy event, and the day after the day after tomorrow Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder both offer the opinion that this is a form of illegal discrimination and that if it's not already illegal it should be made illegal. Will Mitch McConnell and other congressional Republicans stand up for Hussain's "freedom of conscience" in this case? Will my conservative Twitter followers?

I'm going to guess no.

Conservatives don't like the Affordable Care Act and are sympathetic on the merits to the claims of those who think contraceptives or morally wrong, so in this particular case the principle of "freedom of conscience" seems appealing to them. But there's actually nobody who endorses the general principle being invoked here.

[PoliteNewb]

The problem is in paying for these services. In paying for these services the person who is paying assumes a moral cupability for the actions that are being paid for. Thus one is in effect assisting in the immoral act through their funding of it, either directly or indirectly.

Holy shit, you actually believe this?
And you believe that to avoid this "moral culpability", people should be able to hide behind the first amendment to avoid paying for things they don't believe in?

So I suppose you support the right of pacifists (including christians, if they're trying to live like their savior) to not pay taxes to support the military?

[Josh_Kablack]

Latest from the front: Santorum backer gets caught stating senator frothy mixture's position concisely:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ ... story.html

[RobbyPants]

Latest from the front: Santorum backer gets caught stating senator frothy mixture's position concisely:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ ... story.html

I heard that right as I was getting out of my car, but it took me until the second time I heard the joke to get it.

"Hey ladies! Wanna save money? Just keep your dirty legs closed! HAW HAW!"

[angelfromanotherpin]

“You know, back in my days, they’d use Bayer aspirin for contraceptives,” Friess said on MSNBC. “The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”

Your days were full of polio and segregation; your days fucking sucked.