Obama Admin Regulating Religious Employers

We are referring to the mother tongue, so the correct phrase would be "proper motherf---ing English." It's one of those usage quirks that a lot of people get wrong, so don't sweat it too much. I think Strunk and White have a page on this so you can go learn more if inclined.

 

I think one of the things I find difficult with the debate is the sheer range of things that typical insurance coverage doesnt cover. Even the best health insurance coverage is going to require additional coverage for vision and dental costs. Hearing aids arent typically covered by health insurance companies. Pharmaceutical drugs are typically subsidized, but the co-pays can be pricey, especially for medications that are uncommon. Surgery, scans, etc. typically have a percent limit on coverage (80-90%).

So if we're saying that contraception is something that literally HAS to be covered by insurance companies, I guess my question would be what makes it more important than everything else that insurance companies elect not to cover.

 

Gosh, you leave a thread for a few days and all hell breaks loose.

I was hesitant to jump back into this thread because people are being quite disrespectful of my church, my faith, and the institutions that pour forth from them. But then I thought that's probably partly my fault, for not communicating effectively or being snotty to other posters. Can't say I'm always the best representative for the faith here on the BBS, but I try, and right now it looks like no one else is really stating the position of the church with respect to this issue. That said, I'll try my best (and I'm away on training right now so I don't have much else to do being away from the family and all-- 3 kids by the way, so I practice what I preach on the contraception issue ).

Where to start?

1) I think there was tacit agreement that the accommodation issued on Friday by the President doesn't really differ from the original mandate and the problems the church had therein with it.

2) I want to address a lot of rhad's concerns summed up when he says "If the catholic church wants to argue that affiliated industries are "religious employers", than they need to both a) stop accepting any federal or state dollars, and b) prove it by not hiring anyone unaffiliated with the catholic church."

First the legal issues involved with taking federal or state dollars and whether that takes away from an institution's ability to be a religious employer. The acceptance of tax dollars has absolutely nothing to do with this decision. (I made sure to consult one of my old professors, author of this piece, about the legal aspects contained therein, because I wanted to get it right and make sure we are all on the same page.)

The HHS issued a mandate, which is applicable to all entities, federal and non-federal. Prior to a 1991 Supreme Court Decision (Employment Division v. Smith) exemptions were carved out for religious objectors to general laws by way of making a free exercise claim under the first amendment. For instance, the Amish could not be forced to send their children to high school, etc. See Yoder. In 1991, a group of Indians in Oregon brought suit to enjoin (fancy legal word for stop) the enforcement of a criminal statute banning peyote use among other narcotics. The Supreme Court essentially threw out the old system for bringing religious liberty claims and instituted a new regime wherein “neutral and generally applicable laws” did not constitute free exercise violations. Of course, this caused some ruckus in the religious liberty world of constitutional law, which really doesn’t break down in any ideological fashion (for instance, I’m in favor of the ruling).

2 things to take away from the Smith decision. 1) State and federal governments were free to make accommodations for religious believers, and have long been encouraged to do so. I believe, although I haven’t checked the sources, that Oregon eventually made an exemption for the Indians who want to smoke peyote to do so in their religious settings.

2) Congress got pissed and Teddy Kennedy and Orin Hatch came together to put forth the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). RFRA essentially implemented the supreme court’s test prior to Smith, i.e. an application of a free exercise burden to the person … (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest. RFRA was shot down on the state level in City of Boerne, but it remains valid with respect to federal laws. As I mentioned, the mandate will most assuredly fail under this test, which is pretty hard to pass, in federal court.

Rhad is concerned with the concept of conditions of funding. That is something wholly separate from a religious free exercise context. If Congress wants to put conditions for funding that tie into what a religious institution does they can do so, but so far they have not limited access to funding for hospitals, universities, and charities. That question would be a establishment clause case, and if the school voucher system is likely evident of how the court would rule on that establishment clause issue.

So, the long and short of it, in the legal context, without RFRA, it seems that the mandate would pass constitutional muster (although an argument can be made, I don’t know how strong it would be, that the high number of exemptions (I think there’s over 1,000) indicates that the law might not be as generally applicable as the administration might hope.

But the real take away and thing that is upsetting those in the Catholic world is the fact that this is the sort of thing that generally is given an exemption. We have a long standing opposition to artificial contraception that is well documented, as well as a long standing doctrine on complicitness with acts we deem to be immoral. We are being given a false choice, one that does not have to be made to achieve what the president hopes to achieve, and that’s scary for a lot of people (trust me, I’m plugged in to the upper echelons of the Catholic world and they are not happy). It seems aggressive and almost a slap in the face to a lot of Bishops and religious who supported some sort of overhaul of the healthcare system, who were promised there would be strong conscience protections by the president (ahem Notre Dame speech), and are now being forced to choose between continuing their ministries or sinning against their conscience. That’s a crappy place to put people. It just isn’t right.

Now, with the legal thing out of the way, I want to clear up two misleading factual things I keep seeing on here.

First, the 98% of Catholic women use contraception thing I keep seeing. You guys need to take a look at the actual Guttmacher Institute thing to see how ludicrous and un-useful this number is. Per the Guttmacher Institutehttp://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/Religion-and-Contraceptive-Use.pdf, their study excluded any women who were a) not sexually active, where that is defined as having had sexual intercourse in the past three months, b) postpartum, c) pregnant, or d) trying to get pregnant. If you are keeping score at home, that means the study includes unmarried teens and young women who sleep with their boyfriends, married women actively avoiding pregnancy. It excludes unmarried women and teenage girls who are not having sex (or have not had sex within three months), married women who at some stage in the pregnancy cycle, and nuns! That’s a big number of people. Now I’m not trying to say that all Catholic women are living chaste lifestyles, but the 98% number is ridiculous and should stop being used until you have a study that actually measures what it purports to measure. It’s out and out misleading of the way things are going, and is downright scandalous. It essentially says if you are a Catholic who is using contraception, 98% of the time you are using artificial contraception. Ok. That really doesn’t tell us much.

Second, the 28 states thing that keeps getting thrown around. These state laws offer many exemptions that are not just religious exemptions (i.e. a religious employer can opt to self-insure (one that does not include contraception), offer an ERISA plan which takes the purchasing of immoral insurance out of their hands), or drop prescription drug coverage. Only two of them (CA and NY) are comparable to the federal law in lack of exemption, but they don’t have a may provision like the federal law does, making it even less of an exemption than the least amenable states’ laws.
And it was weird how Catholic Charities went to court over the issue but apparently they didn’t raise enough of a stink about it for you. http://www.thehilltoponline.com/nat...n-benefits-to-employees-1.470296#.TznnTbF8CHg

So to get down to the brass tax, I think those in favor of the mandate are more interested in “bringing the church into the 21st Century” and “getting rid of the stupid”, then with providing contraception coverage (which could easily be avoided by adding an ERISA carve-out or some other measure to protect the conscience of those who disagree.

Sorry that took so long to get out, wanted to make sure I had the legal aspects correct before posting.

 

I'm allowed to state why I support a particular position and oppose another, including my motivations for those feelings. If you have a problem with it, then I suggest you leave the d&d. Because it's not changing.

 

You should probably know that people are disrespectful of the church and faith and its institutions because the Church is incredibly disrespectful towards other people. If the Catholic Church, for example, didn't give us about a dozen reasons to absolutely abhor it as a whole by advocating gender and sexual discrimination, covering up child abuse, helping to spread AIDS in Africa, and so on and so forth, you'd probably see that whole disrespect thing go away. So, before you play the victim card, take a good look at the mirror and realize that people aren't picking on you for fun, they genuinely don't like the faith or organization and what it stands for (and with good reason).

Now... moving on.

Not that two wrongs make a right, but one of the best points made in this thread was rimrocker's post about moral objections that anyone can make to virtually anything. Simply because one invokes the morality clause does not and should not exempt you from the law. Main point I'm trying to make here is that Catholics, or religious folk of any stripe, aren't being singled out here. We all have to deal with the moral conflicts involved with cooperative governance. We've all been getting our toes stepped on for a long time, so nobody is special in that regard.

I absolutely disagree. It seems to tell us that 98% of sexually active Catholic women (who aren't preggers or post preggers) use birth control. That is very significant and very telling. Why should this study include the non-sexually active? And how is it misleading or "scandalous" that it doesn't? You know why it excludes them? Because they're not having sex or able to get pregnant! That is like saying "98% of people put ketchup on their hamburgers" and excluding people who don't eat hamburgers. Why would you include the people who don't even qualify as hamburger eaters?

Nobody, save for maybe a few people actually within the Church, care about "bringing the church into the 21st century". They care about the women at risk here. You can't force/mandate the stupid out of the church, but we can force/mandate the stupid out of the government. So, don't think this is all some scheme to needle the religious. They really don't care about you guys at all, they're just looking out for themselves and each other.

P.S. I disagree with this mandate, but for completely separate reasons from the Church. And I think the saying is "brass tacks", not brass tax, although taxing brass sounds cool too.

 

because it takes out a significant number of Catholics who are not exactly following their religion carefully as it is.

 

Esteban is a Catholic and he approves this post!

 

Come on man, you know that wasn't the point of what I was trying to say. I know the church has had problems, and that people disagree with a lot of her doctrines. I really was going to walk away from the bbs because I was getting sick of reading the junk in here, said to myself, well, that's probably not the way to handle it. For the first time in 7 years I actually have a little bit of time to participate, so I'll do my best to participate and try to explain things better.

Once again, putting just forth the law so you can see why this is a big deal for Catholics, and why it is a fair statement to say the administration is being hostile towards those who object, especially when they are handing out lots of waivers and exemptions to ACA. But it doesn't really matter because the thing is going to fail under RFRA.

But that's not how the quote is being portrayed, it's out there as 98% of Catholic women approve of artificial birth control, which is not what the study says.

I'm too lazy to go through the thread, but I bet I could easily find 10 posts about changing the church's position, or the church needs to be brought up to date (into the 21st century was the one I saw the most) with regard to women in here.

Well I think brass is too shiny and should be appropriately taxed. I don't know what you are talking about.

 

Actually, I didn't know what wasn't the point of what you were saying. Having read it, and now re-read it, I still can't really see any other reasonable way to interpret it. Otherwise, apologies for the miscommunication regardless.

P.S. You were in law school for 7 years??

Probably so. Not that I agree with RFRA to begin with, but we've been going back and forth on "what is" vs. "what should be" for a while now without any progress in here. The question of the legality of something is indeed different from whether the law is just to begin with, which is why this is so frustrating to me.

It's not an approval vote. It's a study about usage. 98% of Catholic women use birth control (among those who are eligible/candidates to do so). That's absolutely true and not misleading at all. It's a ridiculous and unrealistic assumption to make that the 98% includes women who are not even candidates for pregnancy.

Only one person in this entire thread even suggested being concerned with bringing the Catholic church forward or changing their policies; and of course, that particular person is the most nonsensical idiot we've got running around in here.

Edit: bnb also hinted at it here, albeit very mildly.

I can guarantee you that nobody (outside of the church) really cares about changing the church's position (what a futile effort that would be), but rather, they care about reinforcing the government's position.

 

Wow, what's with the pgabs hate?

 

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to pgabriel again.

 

I've never hidden my agenda about anything on here, in fact, I'm probably one of the most outspoken/overt people on the entire BBS when it comes to my agenda. And, on a personal note, your regular insistence on such lies and other various stupid statements (and thread derailings) are why you're one of my least favorite posters around here.

 

Not to reply on pgab's behalf, but actually in this thread it was pretty obvious what your intentions were. I had independently noticed it also.

 

Not that I ever try to hide my point (that would be a pretty stupid thing to do and a waste of my time), but what, praytell, were my "intentions"?

I'm really looking forward to you telling me what I'm thinking, this should be just grand.