This morning “Washington Journal” aired a call-in about contraception. It appears that Obama’s recent bill mandates that all companies include contraception in their employee insurance packages. Catholic bishops are outraged. The representative who was subjected to the calls claimed that the mandate goes against the US constitution, which he interpreted as putting no impediment on religious individual or group religious beliefs. Church sponsored employment, he claimed, should not be given a mandate that goes against its traditional beliefs. Some callers in, however, claimed that the Catholic Church, by its opposition to this bill , was being both atavistic and hypocritical.
What say you?
i don’t understand why one must choose an all or nothing side… either you hate contraception and everything it stands for, or you are pro contraception and it must be forced down everyone’s throats, or vaginas
i’m opposed to the idea of using tax payer dollars to fund something that such a large number of people find morally wrong
lets say i’m opposed to the idea of contraception morally (i’m not). why should i have to pay to support your contraception? lets say i’m not having tons of extra-marital sex (not opposed to that either). why should the fruits of my labor go to support your sex habits? even if one chooses not to use contraception, because my work is taxed, i am compelled to indirectly support something I’m morally opposed to… or i could go not pay taxes and go to prison
i’m opposed to this bill (and other laws) for this reason
so to force a catholic institution to do this… well, it’s forcing morality on a religious entity…
but
the separation of church and state argument is one I do not subscribe to in this case, because if the religious institution is providing health insurance in the first place, it’s a corporation (EWTN i think filed a suit recently). just because the company is catholic in nature, means that the institution chose to integrate church and state first by coming into existence. so why is the separation suddenly important when it wasn’t necessary to form the organization?
i think the law wins this argument
but i also think the law is wrong (morally, but for the reason of moral imposition)
Corporations are considered, “People,” in the legal sense, so I don’t think you can Constitutionally do anything to prevent a Corporation from acting on the Religious rights guaranteed it by the Constitution. Among which is, Seperation of Church and State.
You can argue that a Corporation should not legally be indentified as a, “Person,” but that is a completely different legal argument and would be very results-oriented to use in this case.
I imagine it becomes a legal minefield to create exceptions to a broad-based bill - much like the anti-discrimination laws in the UK, where we have seen court cases regarding hotel owners refusing shared rooms to same-sex couples. Unfortunately for Catholics, their religious rights aren’t absolute and in this particular instance aren’t primary.
i thought corporations were entities not people…
Inc.,
Don’t your tax dollars go, indirectly, to support two wars many find immoral?
PM.,
Yes, the Supreme Court has declared corporations to be “People” in the case involving financial contributions to political parties. They are a “voice”.
Matty,
Good to see you here again! Now that Baynor, the Republican party, the Tea party and the religious right are all siding with the catholics, the mandate will not be enforced or will be riddled with holes.
Turtle,
See response to PM. On the political scene “entities” no longer exist.
Is there a reasonable compromise position?
They must be bored. There’s no other explanation.
This is a real coup for Obama.
yup, i’m opposed to them too for the same reason
I doubt, very seriously, that RC bishops are “outraged.” I would think the Religious Right is the more outraged. The President (and believe it or not, the RCC) is being realistic. When has the Religious Right been realistic–or non-hypocritical, for that matter?
Look what boredom gets them–rampant pedophilia. But I realize that belief is often better than what one is able to do. They still preach “coitus interruptus”, which is damned difficult to do and that any sex not done for the purpose of procreation is a sinful act. We talk about the middle Eastern Arabs who want little more than to remain in their premodern condition.IMHO, the Catholic church wants to stay in the Middle Ages.
How so?
Ah, the moral minority! Voiceless these days. What compromise would work to include your beliefs?
Never, to my knowledge; but they claim to have the constitution, the “moral majority” (No, it didn’t die with Falwell.) and the Supreme Diety on their side. Their voices will and can drown out any voice of reason. Believe me, the catholic bishops are concerted in opposition to Obama’s mandate. It’s on the daily news.
that’s a really, really good question in my opinion
compromise seems to me to be something one is forced to do when strictly doing things your way is not an option
so the moment upon which i state what my beliefs are… what i think should be done… a compromise means i will get less than what i want
what i want is a system that allows me to have the power to choose what the fruits of my labor support on a microlevel. a system that gives me direct control of where my dollars go. so lets say i have to pay 30% taxes… number doesn’t really matter, but then I get to reasonably appropriate which programs get which funding… at a very detailed level. for instance i support our police forces, i’m happy to pay taxes for police… but i want the ability to say “i don’t want funding to go to this city’s police force”, because i’m aware they have 80% corrupt officers. i’m happy to give to healthcare, but i want the ability to say “i don’t want to pay for a system that forces people to buy insurance, when the concept of insurance, by design, looks for ways to not pay you”
almost as if, rather than someone else representing ‘my interests’ financially, i directly represent my interests into a system that aggregates
giving this option to the individual would allow the individual to choose, monetarily, what he supports and what he does not
that way i can say “i support our military, i support our troops, but i choose to not fund military efforts that intervene in foreign affairs when there is no foolproof evidence of an immediate direct threat on American soil.”
an effort that brings us towards this, is something i support
but i guess it’s asking for a lot
It kind of goes to your local police force one way or another, but presently, you’re right in saying that you can’t say, “I don’t want any of my tax dollars allocated to my police force.” The reason that it goes to your local police force, by default, is that when the State is dividing the tax revenue allocated to police forces, it goes to County forces by County population and Municipal Forces by Municipal population, or the County may decide what monies go to their own Municipal police forces, I’m not sure, but I would say that’s probably also based on population.
Counties and Municipalities, then, may or may not have their own taxes by which they independently allocate money to their own police forces, for instance, a portion of County property taxes and Municipal property taxes are generally used for such funding. A portion of State license/vehicle/plate registrations are generally allocated to the State Highway Patrol for the State in question, so no choice there. Levies may also be used to generate additional revenue for police forces on a County or Municipal or Township level.
The only way that you can really independently allocate where State/Federal income tax dollars go (because you would never have a choice with property/sales taxes, nor would you have a choice (other than your ability to vote) with levies, is that you can make donations to whatever police force you want, anywhere you want, and those donations would always be tax deductible. You could donate to schools and that would be tax deductible. To that extent, you can kind of decide where your money goes because it will be offset, though I doubt 100%, from your tax obligations.
The only problem with that is what if insufficient funds were to go to police departments, or the department of highways, or what have you? Your tax dollars, while occasionally uselessly allocated to special interests, are often allocated to things we consider necessities that we would not necessarily think to allocate them to.
Again, you could make tax-deductible donations to whatever branch of Armed Forces you so desire, but it would be very difficult to give individuals the ability to decide what happens with that exact money after they have done so. For instance, you could donate to the police force and say, “But, I don’t want any of this to go to anything marijuana related because I think that’s stupid,” well, you can’t really expect them to individually allocate for everyone’s money.
If this recent article is accurate, Obama just made a brilliant and hilarious move.
Excellent article!!! This explains Jonquil’s post. Yesterday, I was hearing, via PBS, more on the hypocrisy of the objectionists. Young women in Catholic Universities and colleges told their side of the story. They noted that a majority of Catholic women already use some form of contraception. The faculty could get away with using it; the students could not. “Punked” is a good word for what Obama’s strategy will do to the opposition.
On the philosophical/political side of this equation, since when have we had taxation with representation. City, county, state and federal taxes go not only for necessities, but for pork barrel spending. Can I really vote my belief? If we all could do so, democracy would amount to whatever the loudest or most monied voices think it should be about. Revision of the tax code is long overdue.