Religious freedom and contraception - another long rant

[Ted King]

cbelt3 wrote:

At some point I'll have to read Ted's post and respond intelligently to it. Sorry, Ted.... you went to a lot of trouble to posit and here I went and ignored you completely. :damnyou: My bad.

I expect a lot of people just don't have the time, patience or inclination to read such long rants so it's no biggie. If you do manage to get around to reading it, I would be interested in your thoughts, though.

[cbelt3]

Ted, I completely agree with your opinions of wedge issues. Since they are not *real* issues, and are entirely manufactured. OOh.. let's do THIS to engender a reaction in THAT ...A Pavlovian and manipulative approach to politics.

Of course most politics is about manipulation.

Ted King wrote:
...Why don't we make religious freedom exceptions in all kinds of spheres of activities? Why can't a soldier refuse to fight in a particular war based on his religious convictions?

- - - -
It's called being a Conscientious Objector. Now made largely irrelevant in an all-volunteer military. Very common in WWII. Most CO's were made medics.

Ted King wrote:
Religious freedom is important, but it's not absolute and I don't think if people reflected on it much they would desire to have it applied in sweepingly wide ways. In a thoughtful society, what we would be talking about now is how to balance the value of religious freedom with other values, not playing political wedge games with it.

Sadly most folk regard religious freedom as either an absolute YES; in that one is allowed to practice any religion without interference of government.

Or an absolute NO ;in that one should never be allowed to practice religion in any fashion in association with Government, or often in Public at all, as if religion was a horrible personal vice.

It's even more strange that folk who claim to be 'Libertarian' take either side of that particular dialogue, thus proving the following truth (I'm sure someone quoted this better):

Membership in a philosophy almost guarantees that you will find a reason to disagree with it when it pertains to your personal life, thereby making you look like an idiot.

[Ted King]

mattkime wrote:
>>They did so not because they agree with the Bishops about contraceptives, but because they were swayed by emotional appeals to concerns about religious freedom.

were there any numbers on this? Catholics at somewhat used to being at odds with their leadership.

I agree that many Catholics are quite willing to disagree with the Bishops on many matters of doctrine - and certainly on the matter of contraception. Let me requote a bit more of what I wrote than what you quoted above: "Appeals to emotions about religious freedom are powerful - look at how many Catholics that use contraceptives rallied around the cause. They did so not because they agree with the Bishops about contraceptives, but because they were swayed by emotional appeals to concerns about religious freedom." "look at how many" was deliberately vague because I don't know the actual numbers, but it isn't small in absolute terms:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...teady.html

Virtually all Catholic women (98 percent) have used contraception, according to a study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute last year. And a poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute before Obama announced the compromise found that 58 percent of Catholics support Obama’s initial requirement that employers provide employees with health-care plans that cover contraception.

So a pretty large majority of Catholics weren't persuaded by the Bishops with respect to their argument about religious freedom, but there's about 40% of Catholic woman (and almost surely a similar number of Catholic men) who didn't support Obama's original position but obviously also don't agree with the Bishops about contraceptives. Out of that 40% there must be a lot of Catholics that didn't support Obama's position because they agree that the church hierarchy should have the religious freedom to reject medical insurance coverage of contraceptives even though they don't agree with the Bishops about contraceptives. Since there are about 80 million Catholics in the U.S., even if only half those 40% feel that way, that's a lot of Catholics.

[Ted King]

cbelt3 wrote:

[quote=Ted King]
...Why don't we make religious freedom exceptions in all kinds of spheres of activities? Why can't a soldier refuse to fight in a particular war based on his religious convictions?

- - - -
It's called being a Conscientious Objector. Now made largely irrelevant in an all-volunteer military. Very common in WWII. Most CO's were made medics.
I am well aware of how Conscientious Objector status works. I looked into it very thoroughly before getting drafted in 1972 (while the Vietnam war was still pretty hot). You have to object to ALL wars to qualify. I had a moral objection to the Vietnam war but at the time I couldn't say that I had a moral objection to all wars. The whole thing was really hard to deal with, but I ended up letting myself get drafted and fortunately did not end up in Vietnam.

So unlike the Blunt amendment that would have let employers pick and choose what parts of health insurance coverage they would have moral objections to, there is no such picking and choosing about which wars you can morally object to, to be exempt from fighting in it.

cbelt3 wrote:
[quote=Ted King]
Religious freedom is important, but it's not absolute and I don't think if people reflected on it much they would desire to have it applied in sweepingly wide ways. In a thoughtful society, what we would be talking about now is how to balance the value of religious freedom with other values, not playing political wedge games with it.

Sadly most folk regard religious freedom as either an absolute YES; in that one is allowed to practice any religion without interference of government.

Or an absolute NO ;in that one should never be allowed to practice religion in any fashion in association with Government, or often in Public at all, as if religion was a horrible personal vice.

It's even more strange that folk who claim to be 'Libertarian' take either side of that particular dialogue, thus proving the following truth (I'm sure someone quoted this better):

Membership in a philosophy almost guarantees that you will find a reason to disagree with it when it pertains to your personal life, thereby making you look like an idiot.
I'd love to see a poll where people are asked if Constitutional rights are absolute. I suspect an alarming number of people would say they are. I imagine it's mostly just a matter of not thinking through the implications. But it also probably largely comes from, as you suggest, having the habit of thinking that all moral issues must ultimately be black and white - something is either morally right or it is morally wrong, period - not contingent on circumstance at all. I sort of have sympathy for the inclination since without such simplification moral issues can quickly become extremely perplexing, but it just isn't a realistic perspective to have for a great many moral issues.

[davester]

It is against my religion to support the killing of people (and our own troops) in foreign lands during wars waged on false pretenses. This applied to both the Vietnam and Iraq wars and the invasion of Grenada. Nevertheless, I was forced to financially support these wars by paying income taxes that to a very large degree were used for exactly this reason. This is no different than being forced to pay for insurance premiums that partly support services that some religions find offensive. Heck, what about christian scientists? All medical intervention is against their religion I believe. Should we allow them to opt out of everything? Such a stance is a recipe for chaos. Every single person with a belief system disagrees with some aspect of the use of the money that the government compels them to spend. That is the only way that our country can work. This wedge issue is 100% bogus and the republicans could give a rat's ass about religious freedom.

[mattkime]

Lets try a push poll asking if organizations should be allowed to opt out of regulations that go against sharia law and see what sort of favorability you get.

[RgrF]

A single payer system would make all this fodder from politicians and clergy moot. Yet another reason the right opposes single payer, it keeps wedge issues like this available to drop in the dialog at will.

[Rolando]

RgrF wrote:
A single payer system would make all this fodder from politicians and clergy moot. Yet another reason the right opposes single payer, it keeps wedge issues like this available to drop in the dialog at will.

Or a "Public Option" for employees of a Religious Organization.

[Bill in NC]

Even within a single-payer system there will still be controversy over coverage of medications for elective choices.

E.g. does the above cover boner pills?

Generic only, or the new super-duper (but expensive) branded ones?