PLAYER57832 wrote:thegreekdog wrote: PLAYER57832 wrote:thegreekdog wrote:I think the bottom line here is that the Obama administration is going to work with the Catholic Church to get the "right" thing done, that provides health insurance on an adequate basis without the Church having to pay for health insurance that covers contraceptives. That's a good compromise.
Its a "good compromise" perhaps if its only Roman Catholics being employed. Else.. it is no such thing.
When the church goes from being a church to being a public employer.. the rules change. For them to operate a public facility, (even aside from Woodruff's point about accepting public money.. including Medicaid, Medicare, etc.) and then proclaim "religion" is just wrong.
BUT, it is how the Roman Catholic Church and many more modern Evangelical churches have decided to operate. What it really amounts to is "religious freedom" only when its convenient to
them.
I have NO problem with offering churches themselves exemptions. Even individual parishes that might hire, say a secretary from another religion, generally are small enough (less than 50 employees) that they don't have to abide by standard labor rules, (aside from the religious aspect) anyway. However, this is about Roman Catholic hospitals, schools, etc.
They want it both ways. They want the benefits of being a public institution, but also the benefits of being a religious institution.
To see how scary this is, just imagine that the only hospital available within 30 miles of your house is run by a Jehovah's Witness.. or even a Christian Scientist. A bit extreme, perhaps, but.. well... is it really? The fact that you find this rule "reasonable" is irrelevant. Its the principle involved.
How are you defining a "public employer?" I'm confused by your use of this term.
A church is defined as unqiue. Religious freedom protect them from having to comply with all but the most serious laws. (roughly) Still not utterly unlimited, but a Roman Catholic school can generally require teachers to be Roman Catholic (though in practice not all actually do) and generally are exempt from hour/pay limits for priests, etc, etc, etc.
HOWEVER, when you get into things like hospitals, particularly hospitals that are a sole local provider of services, that changes. Then you have multiple obligations. The higher obligation is to provide ALL medical services. Also, they do accept federal and state funding, so those funds come with specific requirements. It has been asserted over and over in court that no employer can deny coverage of birth control. There are several basis for this. The first is that often birth control is used for medical reasons that have nothing truly to do with inhibiting births. The second is that birth control specifically is deemed part of pregnancy/women's health and thus rules that limit coverage of his specific medication, apart from any other constitutes a violation of women's rights. Men are not impacted by this, so its specific to women. The third is that women deserve equal protection, no matter to whom they are employed. The third is that this is, at best, tangential. These institutions, individuals are NOT being required to actually pay for birth control directly. They are required to provide insurance which should, as full coverage ought, include birth control as one of many options (and again, for many reasons that have nothing to do with inhibiting births OR that do have to do with that, but because carrying a pregnancy is deemed medically harmful to the woman and unlikely to succeed). It is up to the individual covered if they wish to use that service or not.
NOW the Roman Catholic church is actually trying to go beyond that and say that ANY business owned or run by any Roman Catholic should omit this. So, it means that women now have to know their employer's religion and abide by the individual choices of that employer. That is NOT religious freedom it is religious bullying. Furthermore, it MUST be said that if this were any other issue, not specific to women, there is no way this would pass.
thegreekdog wrote:I suppose what Catholic-run institutions could do is fire all non-Catholic employees or make a condition of employment the non-use of contraceptives.
Which, unless it is directly part of the church would be discrimination. Again... exactly why these claims are bullying, not about religious freedom.
The REAL agendas here are that the Roman Catholic Church does not like the American view of Abortion and birth control and is thus continually fighting to exert ITS position onto EVERYONE, not just its church members. They want freedom for THEIR beliefs, but refuse to respect any freedom of anyone else who disagrees. SECOND, you have conservatives who could care less about birth control, but are more than happy to use ANY excuse they can to take out the Healthcare reform act. Some of those holding the last do so for legitimate reasons, but more often than not it gets down to this idea that seeing a doctor is somehow a privilage that we, in the wealthiest country on Earth cannot provide its citizens though many of the far poorer nations can and do. (and for far less money than we spend here).
So I think what you're saying is that if a Catholic-run hospital receives money from the federal or state government, it is a public employer. I can agree that Catholic-run hospitals do receive money (whether directly or indirectly) from the federal or state government. I don't agree that this qualifies them as a public employer as there are likely numerous business institutions that receive money from federal or state governments. So if your definition of public employer is "receives money from the government," then probably most companies are public employers. And therefore your definition is bad.
I'm also unaware of ways in which the Catholic Church avoids laws on minimum wage or working conditions (or anything else). Perhaps you can provide some evidence of that in some way.
As I understand the Affordable Care Act, it provides that employers are required to provide a certain amount of coverage for employees, which includes birth control. The way I understand health insurance is that employers pay a portion of the fee for the health insurance. Thus, the employer is paying a portion of the fee for health insurance, which includes a mandate by the government for birth control coverage. So, if the Catholic hospital is required to provide health insurance the includes birth control coverage, it is, in fact, paying for health insurance that includes birth control coverage. Whether the birth control coverage is used or not is irrelevant. Whether the birth control is used for birth control or to control other health issues (for example, regulating menstrual cycles) is also irrelevant. What is relevant from a legal and constitutional perspective is the following:
The federal government is requiring private businesses to pay for something (health insurance for employees). That, I believe, is unconstitutional unless the government's attorneys can prove that the Commerce Clause covers health insurance (i.e. that health insurance is interstate commerce). I don't believe the government can, will, and should win this argument.
The second element is only relevant to the extent that the government can win the commerce clause argument and is only relevant to the Catholic Church. This element is whether the requirement to pay for health insurance that provides coverage for something that violates the particular religion is a violation of the free practice of religion. So that's the second element. I suspect, for some of the reasons you've stated above, this is an argument the government can win.
From a political perspective, it becomes even more starkly clear what should and will happen:
A whole lot of Catholics vote Democrat. In the 2004 election, 47% of Catholics who voted cast a vote for John Kerry. I could not find statistics on the 2008 election, but I suspect it is similar. I won't get into the reasons why I think that's the way it goes, but suffice it to say, Catholics make up a pretty large part of the Democrat voting bloc. So, the president and the Democrats want to make sure they don't alienate a large part of their voters and supporters by pissing off the Catholic Church. I don't make that statement with any value judgment in mind, this is purely a political game. Therefore, I believe that, like he's done for other corporate political supporters, the president will provide an exemption (or fix) to the Affordable Care Act that applies to employers affiliated with the Catholic Church. This will render any constitutional discussion moot in any event.
Finally, with respect to your last paragraph, it is true that the Catholic Church wants abortion and birth control to be outlawed in the United States purely for religious reasons. That being said, as I've indicated above, when the GOVERNMENT does something that FORCES a religious institution to PAY FOR birth control, that crosses a line and is no longer about the freedom of the individuals, but rather about the requirement that the church pay for something. With respect to this particular issue, the church is not concerned with whether people can use birth control or get abortions, they are concerned with having to pay for that use.
Player, let's be frank here - you really have to read my post. If you don't read it, or if you answers are irrelevant or conjecture disguised as fact, I'm going to go back to not responding to your posts. I know you probably don't care, but... well, I spent a lot of time on this post.
EDIT -
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/20 ... tion-rule/So speaketh TGD, so it shall be!
