A peculiar feature of contemporary politics is the strange rapid escalation that occurs. Take for example the recent issue over the Obama administration saying that all employers need to provide free contraceptive benefits to their employees. This applied to even religious institutions as long as they served the general public and employed nonbelievers. This practice had already been the law in some states and had been instituted in some Catholic universities and hospitals for some time. But the Obama ruling infuriated the Catholic hierarchy and they declared war on the policy on the grounds of religious freedom. When Obama shifted ground and said that the employer need not pay for it but that health insurance companies had to, the Bishops still opposed it. In other words, they did not want even secular insurance companies to provide free contraceptive services to their employees.

The Republican party has seized this issue, apparently thinking that it will hurt the Democrats, and do not seem aware that they are going further along a politically suicidal path of alienating ordinary voters by seeming to be against contraception itself.

It seems like once Obama proposed the contraception rule, it suddenly opened the floodgates of idiocy, treating long standing practices as if they had suddenly become abuses of government power. Adam Serwer reports that some Republicans in Congress are proposing legislation that would allow employers to oppose providing any services that the employer finds morally objectionable for any reason, religious or not. He points out the potential consequences if the law is enacted.

In their latest move in the battle over contraception coverage, top Republicans in Congress are going for broke: They’re now pushing a bill that would allow employers and insurance companies to pick and choose which health benefits to provide based simply on executives’ personal moral beliefs.
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If Republican leaders get their way and Blunt’s bill becomes law, a boss who regarded overweight people and smokers with moral disgust could exclude coverage of obesity and tobacco screening from his employees’ health plans. A Scientologist employer could deny its employees depression screening because Scientologists believe psychiatry is morally objectionable. A management team that thought HIV victims brought the disease upon themselves could excise HIV screening from its employees’ insurance coverage. Your boss’ personal prejudices, not science or medical expertise, would determine which procedures your insurance would cover for you and your kids.

This is bizarre behavior. It seems like all it takes is for some religious or right wing group, however unrepresentative, to make a huge fuss about something and the Republicans think it is the Voice of the People and fall over themselves to accommodate them.

Weird.