The fuss over the rule that religious institutions that employ and serve the general public do not qualify for an exemption to providing free birth control services to their employees seems likely to go away, now that the Obama administration seems to have outmaneuvered opponents on this issue by saying that while the religious institutions do not have to pay for the cost of birth control, the health insurers must absorb the cost. While this can arguably be said to be a mere accounting trick, it does undermine the religious freedom argument considerably.
If they are smart, the Catholic Church and the Republican party will take this face-saving way out and drop the whole matter. Birth control is something that has overwhelming public support as a public good and opposing easy access to it is an idiotic strategy. This is also an issue which risks dividing the Republican party.
It also seems unlikely to survive court challenge. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, the judge most likely to be sympathetic to the church’s point of view, is already on record in a 1990 case Employment Division v. Smith in which the court rejected a Native American’s claim that denying him unemployment benefits because he smoked peyote was unconstitutional because smoking peyote was part of his religious tradition and thus protected by the freedom of religion clauses in the constitution. Scalia said “To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”
Scalia may have been influenced in his opinion by the fact that Native Americans are not in the mainstream and the issue was drug use. If so, it illustrates how decisions that are based on the fact that they impinge only marginalized groups and unpopular acts can return to haunt you.
I’ve never heard a diaphragm called that before.
Ha! Good one.
The Catholic hierarchy, a group of old, male, professional virgins, have decided that The Big Guy In The Sky doesn’t like contraception. They also feel their particular beliefs supersede everyone elses’. These are the same guys who think the prestige and dignity of their organization are more important than the welfare of children. They are not nice men and they don’t give a damn about anyone who isn’t them.
‘Tis Himself:
They’re not virgins -- they just f**k little boys instead of women!! So contraception is never an issue for them. In the odd case where one of them forgets the prime directive and gets a woman pregnant he is unceremoniously booted out of their boys club.
See the case of auxiliary bishop Gabino Zavala, for instance.
Although you’d think when they are raping kids they’d have the decency to use a condom -- but sorry, that’s not allowed either. doG’s will don’t you know!!! Although when you’re screwing a ten year old kid in the ass it’s difficult to see how that act can be “open to the transmission of life” unless they are specifically thinking of viruses and bacteria.
I didn’t say they were actual virgins, I said they were professional virgins. Just like Ted Haggard isn’t an actual heterosexual but is a professional heterosexual.
The Catholic clergy are required to be chaste virgins, it’s in their contracts. Whether or not they are actually chaste virgins is inconsequential. It’s all about image.
Thanks for your penetrating analysis. 😉
TH: point taken..
Is Reynolds v. United States relevant as precedent?
Yes it is. In fact, the above quote by Scalia was taken verbatim from the Reynolds opinion.
If the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church were smart, they’d be atheists with real jobs.
Just sayin’.
Really? Which occupation do you think pays better?
That seems like a hard barrier for the Catholic Bishops to defeat. 100+ years of precedent, well-established and cited in subsequent cases? Why does Obama feel the need for a compromise?