2012 republican presidential nominee III: can romney get santorum out of his hair?

i'm not really arguing with the right people, but i find this argument to be really screwed up on even a theological level

conscience and "core values" are individual and not institutional qualities (lol i sound like a protestant don't i)

haha I was gonna say

it's about religious freedom, the idea that religious institutions might be forced to forfeit their core values in order to satisfy a government mandate, however well-intentioned that mandate might be.

I think if they want to continue treating people as if they have fewer rights & choices than the general population, they are welcome to only hire observant Catholics. Oh, you can't staff an ENTIRE HOSPITAL OR SCHOOL SYSTEM with nuns and observant laypeople in good standing with the Church? Then hire "normals" and observe the laws.

You out-of-touch fucking lunatics.

Lindsey Beyerstein painfully OTM here:

The Obama administration struck an elegant compromise over birth control coverage under health care reform. When religious employers refuse to pay for contraception, their insurance companies will have to step up and cover the cost of birth control for those employees.

The scheme works because birth control save money. If you were an flinty-eyed insurer, which group would you rather insure? People with guaranteed access to free birth control, or people without? Of course, you'd rather insure the folks with birth control coverage because they're less likely to get pregnant and have babies, which would cost you a lot more than the birth control. You could give away the birth control and still come out ahead.

Of course, just because birth control is relatively cheap doesn't mean it's free. It costs about $21.40 to add birth control pills, IUDs, and other contraceptives to an insurance plan. That money is going to have to come from somewhere.

It's unlikely the insurers will simply eat the cost and the whole point of the compromise was to avoid passing the cost on to consumers. So, the money will probably come out of premiums paid by everyone (including religious employers) or out of premiums paid by non-religious employers only.

Already Catholic special interests are objecting to funding contraception out of overall premiums because that means they're funding contraception indirectly. This kind of intransigence illustrates how foolish it was to try to compromise with this constituency in the first place. They are professionally unreasonable.

Compromise is illusory because these guys are doing spiritual accounting, they are not constrained by generally accepted accounting principles. They will make up the rules to get the result they want, namely, "We're being oppressed by your birth control!"

The U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops hates the fact that any woman might get free birth control under health reform. No matter how this program is administered, the sophists at the USCCB will come up with a sob story about how they are being oppressed by our contraception cooties. We live in a highly interdependent society with complex organizations and multiple intersecting streams of public and private money. If you're creative enough, you can always figure out why a dollar somebody else spends on birth control is tainting you.

You out-of-touch fucking lunatics pedos.

fixed

how many ppl of color do you listen to

lots. but regardless of race or party or w/e, no one has launched a serious, public offensive against "states' rights" as a general concept in recent memory. at least as far as i know. happy to be proven wrong...

they are welcome to only hire observant Catholics

I think such a restrictive and discriminatory hiring policy might run them afoul of other civil rights laws. Not expert on this, tho.

I think such a restrictive and discriminatory hiring policy might run them afoul of other civil rights laws. Not expert on this, tho.

Supreme Court just ruled about this very issue, sadly

ie religious institutions are now free to be as discriminatory as they want when it comes to hiring/firing

conscience and "core values" are individual and not institutional qualities (lol i sound like a protestant don't i)

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Friday, February 10, 2012 1:00 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't buy this at all. the idea that religious institutions can hold and express a set of "core values" seems to be essential to the concept of religious institutions held by many if not most religious americans.

iirc, that case was narrowly restricted to pastoral staff, i.e. ministers and the like.

Right, but the government can't be in the position of gainsaying religious institutions on who is and isn't a "minister," which was the precise issue in the case decided.

I think if they want to continue treating people as if they have fewer rights & choices than the general population, they are welcome to only hire observant Catholics.

― one little aioli (Laurel), Friday, February 10, 2012 1:02 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but they don't treat "people as if they have fewer rights & choices", at least not in their own eyes. in the eyes of religious institutions, it's simply a matter of being bound by principle. at least that's the way the argument's sold, and i think that a lot of americans take it very seriously indeed.

Phil D. OTM, by the way, as regards the supreme court decision in question.

Right, but the government can't be in the position of gainsaying religious institutions on who is and isn't a "minister," which was the precise issue in the case decided.

^^^case centered around a woman who was a teacher (teaching both secular and religious courses) who happened to also be a minister

Anyway, I think we can all agree on "Death to America," right?

it's about religious freedom, the idea that religious institutions might be forced to forfeit their core values in order to satisfy a government mandate, however well-intentioned that mandate might be.

I am a satanist who thinks I should be allowed to randomly snatch virgins to kill at black masses. Why must you trample on my religious liberties?

Alternately, I believe that God is the arbiter in all things and (per scripture) I should not be forced to subsidize blood transfusions (duh!) nor even surgery or such witchcraft as generally goes under the name of 'medecine'.

Also, it's not just ppl of color who complain about the tyranny of the state at the State level. Have you guys ever talked to libertarians?

xp

We get that a lot, but it's usually sold as Rebirth of America.

Insert comment here:

In the midst of all the intense discussion of the administration’s so-called contraception mandate, folks rarely point out the obvious: What disaster necessitates contraception in the first place?

re Michael White: oh sure, but the lines and principles we're talking about are of the fuzzy, conflicted sort that real people draw in the real world, so philosophical logic doesn't hold much sway. there's not enough popular support for satanists and people who consider modern medicine witchcraft to make such arguments actually fly in the here and now. the catholic church on the other hand, especially as backed up by paranoid opponents of "big fed"...

backtracking a little, but lagoon OTM. we need to be aware that in the eyes of many americans, republican and otherwise, this isn't about contraception at all, isn't even about liberal vs conservative policy.

Not really. If you visit Corner-land and read posters and commmenters struggling to make this into a "constitutional" crisis the word "contraception" isn't too far behind or after.

or haha read Ned's post.

but they don't treat "people as if they have fewer rights & choices", at least not in their own eyes. in the eyes of religious institutions, it's simply a matter of being bound by principle.

Amish and Mennonite people are bound by principle, too. Voluntarily, which is as it should be, and the rule of their laws only extends to the edge of their community. They're not very relevant on the national policy scale, though, which might be a lesson to religious organizations that are falling further and further behind.

Already Catholic special interests are objecting to funding contraception out of overall premiums because that means they're funding contraception indirectly. This kind of intransigence illustrates how foolish it was to try to compromise with this constituency in the first place. They are professionally unreasonable.

No kidding. Look how long it took for them to apologize to Copernicus.

If you visit Corner-land and read posters and commmenters struggling to make this into a "constitutional" crisis the word "contraception" isn't too far behind or after.

sure, but i see that more as a tool than as the heart of the issue. the concern isn't that contraception is evil or even that it shouldn't be made available to people, but rather that the federal government shouldn't be forcing priests and nuns to hand out condoms.

yes it should

no -- contraception IS evil to these people!

contraception is evil THEREFORE the federal gov't shouldn't force nuns and priests to hand out colored condoms.

no -- contraception IS evil to these people!

of course, but what's really at stake is religious freedom from federal compulsion. of course catholic authorities think that contraception is evil, but that objection only becomes politically powerful when the fed tries to get them to pay for it.

don't buy this at all. the idea that religious institutions can hold and express a set of "core values" seems to be essential to the concept of religious institutions held by many if not most religious americans.

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Friday, February 10, 2012 3:08 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the point, in terms of birth control, is how a set of core values are instantiated. requiring/prohibiting and paying for/refusing to pay for aren't exactly the same thing.

the catholic church hires people of all beliefs to work in its hospitals and charities and universities. the church considers birth control to be sinful.

does it prevent its employees from using birth control? no, it wouldn't dare, and couldn't manage it anyway. it can't even prevent its adherents from using them, as everyone knows. it just refuses to pay for it for its employees, since health care is tied to employment in this country. as a matter of conscience this is kind of pissy if you think about it.

now, if required to cover it, what will change for the church? a small but non-negligibly-more amount of money is going into its insurance plans, sure. but will anyone be forced to take birth control? boy i hope so! lol j/k. no, of course not. will anyone's behavior even change? nope!

the government is not "forcing" anyone to partake in something, any more than the church is "forcing" anyone not to partake in that thing now.

i mean, why not require all its employees to say the rosary or something? how would the logic be any different?

again my line of argt is not really with anyone here

religious institutions are exempt from federal meddling in their freedom to act in accordance with their values, THEREFORE the federal gov't shouldn't force them do certain things - such as hand out cherry-flavored condoms

re alfred and my xpost

We already let churches off the hook for any and all taxes. Apparently this just emboldens them. This is just Yet Another Version of the Argument that Money Equals Reality (YAVOTATMER).

No observant catholic is being forced to commit a single action that is against catholic dogma or doctrine. Every observant catholic is allowed to follow the dictates of their church. Unless, of course, giving money to someone else who then gives it to someone else who then spends it to damn their souls to hell, against your strongly-worded advice, is somehow considered a mortal sin. Which, of course, it isn't, no matter how you stretch church dogma.

Every day, people of all religions who live in a heterogeneous society with a secular goverment have to work around conflicts with their beliefs. These things usually blow up when they touch upon sexuality. This issue has more to do with fucking than it has to do with religious liberty. Same as it is with gay marriage and a host of other issues.

requiring/prohibiting and paying for/refusing to pay for aren't exactly the same thing.

that's a good point, but i don't think that this argument will be won on subtlety. honestly, i imagine that "contraception" is seen as a sort of trojan horse in the eyes of many religious americans. IF the fed can force churches to pay for condoms and the morning-after pill, THEN the fed can force churches to pay for abortions. and that idea, i imagine, is anathema to a huge and very vocal group of americans. with that bomb on the table, the subtleties of requiring/prohibiting vs paying for/refusing recede from view.

while we're whining about the church, i'm fully aware that the catholic hierarchy is concerned with things beyond other people's baby-making.

there's a relatively new archbishop here in st paul, mn, after the boomer-era guy died. the new dude can be fairly called a ratzingerite, very bright, very learned, very aggressive, very hard-line. there have been notable controversies:

an inner-city church and its priest were threatened in language approaching excommunication for failing to be 100% zealously in favor of an anti-gay-marriage amendment in the works here.

much more locally, a few years ago, a local catholic college, (upon whose board of regents the archbishop sits) suddenly prevented a beloved and well-respected prof from bringing her unmarried partner (also an academic) along on an overseas study program. this had gone on without incident for years. well, the administration. "refused to pay for dual lodgings" and also refused to allow them to stay in the same room with tender students present. the woman quit.

but we're kind of far away from the primaries now aren't we.

sometimes you'd almost like that to be what happens - like ideally, the catholic institutions could do what they wanted, and people wouldn't work for them, and so they'd realize that and change their mind. but w/ something like the academic job market - they can probably dictate terms.

Love that Mark Block quote from the interview upthread:

"I'm surprised to see you smoking!" I said.

"The cigarette is smoking," he said. "I'm just here."

sometimes you'd almost like that to be what happens - like ideally, the catholic institutions could do what they wanted, and people wouldn't work for them, and so they'd realize that and change their mind.

Yes, this. Or to be served BY them, which unfortunately is also not the case with hospitals.

(ok i know this is way o/t now but the university i was talking about just made the news again here

)

i imagine that "contraception" is seen as a sort of trojan horse

lol

^^^ my contribution

A Trojan horse of a different color

lol me

Useful bits for this week:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/10/their-bluff-has-been-called-will-the-bishops-know-when-to-fold-em/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/10/old-men-pretending-to-be-newly-upset-at-old-news/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/09/bishops-and-burkhas-and-buggies/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/08/bishops-vs-health-care-for-women-contd/

The awkward elements of Mitt Romney’s speech at CPAC Friday began even before the GOP frontrunner opened his mouth.

Like all the high-profile speakers before him, Romney delivered his address from the CPAC main stage at a Marriot hotel in Washington, DC. That means he stood behind a pair of teleprompters and in front of a pair of fake Grecian columns.

Just the other night, when he was giving his address amid the defeats in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado, Romney took a shot at the man he’s trying to oust from the White House for - well - using teleprompters and standing in front of fake columns. Here’s part of the transcript from Romney’s Colorado speech on February 7):

Three years ago, Barack Obama came to Colorado to accept his Party’s nomination. He rented out a huge stadium. He hauled in some Styrofoam Greek columns and two giant screens to set the mood. On that big stage in Denver, he made some even bigger promises.

Phase IV of Newt's master plan: unleash Callista.

has anyone read any catholic defenses of the view that covering contraception benefits is 'subsidizing' (condoning, etc.) something even though the same thing being done out of individual employee pay is somehow not? i keep waiting for complicated talk about 'intention' and action/inaction/knowledge/ignorance to come up.