PJ: The Republican party has gone so far to the religious right that it begs the question about what their fight is all about. Is it about the freedom they say that the Obama administration is taking away from them (although I can't think of what 'freedom' they have lost). Or is it much stranger than that? Do today's Republicans want everyone to live by their standards? That is to say, their Christian standards? First it was adding abortion to their official platform more than two decades ago, an issue which they have campaigned on ever since. They even have a litmus test for anyone who wants to run as a republican on how they see the issue. They don't want to have government take care of those babies after they are born and they don't really want to fund public education, but by golly birth those babies! Let us also remember that they don't mind sending 18-year-old kids off to war to get the heads blown off. So you would think that the GOP would also be big on preventing pregnancies by the use of contraceptives. Wrong! The war against contraception has begun with leading Christian (Catholic) candidate Rick Santorum decrying that the use of contraceptives "is not OK". He firmly believes marriage is between a man and a woman and sex it solely for the purpose of procreation*. He's even said that if elected president he will actively work to pass laws that address these issues. End of discussion. Yikes!
Now I can name one freedom that the US may be on the verge of losing if the right-wing gets their way.
*http://www.salon.com/2012/01/04/rick_santorum_is_coming_for_your_birth_control/
Updates: From the Washington Post: War on Birth Control http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/rachel-maddow-the-gop-war-on-birth-control/2012/02/10/gIQAbZ734Q_story.html?hpid=z3
From the New York Times: The Battle Behind the Fight: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/opinion/collins-the-battle-behind-the-fight.html?_r=1&hp
The Economist
Barack Obama, Catholics and contraceptives
The accommodation
Feb 10th 2012, 19:51 by C.H. | NEW YORK
IT IS not every day that Republicans can seize on an issue that encapsulates everything they hate about Barack Obama. The recent scandal over contraception comes close. Mr Obama had ordered that all employer-sponsored health insurance cover contraception. The president has ample reason to make contraception available, as my colleague describes here. Churches were exempt; institutions such as Catholic hospitals, which employ workers of all faiths, were not.
The bishops, naturally, went berserk, but so did conservatives. Making Americans buy health insurance was bad enough, an encroachment on personal liberty, they thundered. Making Americans pay for something they believe to be morally wrong is utterly beyond reproach. Government overreach had reached its most extreme form.
The furour continued to build. In recent days Mitt Romney attacked the president for the rule. This inspired the usual meta jujitsu, as Mr Romney’s competitors attacked Mr Romney for the attack, which they judged to be insincere.
Given all this, it was almost inevitable that Mr Obama would capitulate, or in the words of his senior advisors, offer an “accommodation”. Today the White House announced that religious groups would not have to cover or subsidise contraception. Instead, insurers would be obliged to offer contraception free of charge, with the guarantee that the religious employers’ premium would not rise accordingly.
The Catholic Hospital Association and Planned Parenthood are each apparently placated by the change. On first blush it seems like a sensible solution to a tricky problem. But the fight won’t go away. The religious institutions are exempt because they believe contraception to be morally wrong. What about any individual business owner who feels the same way? Why not apply the exemption to him? Mr Obama may have stamped out today's fire but it is sure to flare up elsewhere.
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