shipperx | And that's not all...

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And that's not all...

What's with the blind spot here?

Do people just 'forget' about other religions?

What it if said boss was a Scientologist and disallowed any psychological or psychiatric treatment? Or wouldn't cover any treatment for addiction for your son or daughter or your spouse (because they don't believe in 'addiction' either) What if your boss was a Christian Scientist who doesn't believe in vaccines... for anything! Or, you know, any medicine whatsoever!

Or a Jehovah's Witness and no blood transfusions for you! Your next car accident could needlessly lead to death.

Seriously, have people gained such American Christian Big Church privilege that they've lost sight of the fact that there are OTHER RELIGIONS (and idiosyncracies between various denominations of Christian)?

Or exactly why there is separation of church and state in the first place? That it actually protects people's religious rights that they are separate from the state, that it allows you to freely worship the denomination of YOUR choice rather than one selected for you by someone else... (LIKE YOUR BOSS!)? Or what destroying that separation could eventually entail?

Have people become so wrapped up in the concept of "A Christian Nation" that they forgot that the founding fathers of the 18th Century grew up studying British history of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Century. You know like when Henry VIII ~~stole~~ took over the monastaries ~~taking everything in sight and them smashing what was left to pieces~~ once he 'converted to Protestantism? And when his daughter Mary executed untold numbers of protestants because of Catholicism?   A lot of Christians died... at the hands of other Christians while arguing over which denomination was the 'right one!'

And, bowing to Monty Python, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition!  ... or the Salem witch trials...

How would Catholics or mainstream (or fundamental!) Protestants feel if the state sanctioned and enforced a religion and it was...Oh, I don't know, for conversational purposes let's say Mormonism? Would a very religious Southern Baptist really be comfortable with 'prophet' Joseph Smith?  After all, that is a form of Christianity too (even if those other demoniations might consider it to be heretical). No one said that a state mandated  "Christian Nation" would be your  chosen denomination!

That's the point!

There's a reason why the founding fathers wanted separation of church and state. History is littered with reasons why. It was done so that you'd have the choice of which religion to worship, so that the state ( or. your. boss) could not force a specific religion on you.

Ahem.

Excerpt of the article the inspired this rant:

Only one Senate Republican — Olympia Snowe of Maine, who is retiring — voted against a truly horrible measure on Thursday that would have crippled the expansion of preventive health care in America. The amendment, which was attached to a highway bill, was defeated on a narrow 48-to-51 vote. But it showed once again how far from the mainstream Republicans have strayed in their relentless efforts to undermine the separation of church and state, deny women access to essential health services and tear apart President Obama’s health care reform law.
The amendment, which was enthusiastically endorsed by Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, would have allowed any employer or insurance company to refuse coverage for any activity to which they claim a religious or moral objection.
That would have meant that any employer who objects to cervical-cancer vaccines could have refused to provide health insurance that covers them. The same goes for prenatal sonograms for unmarried mothers, or birth control, H.I.V. screening or mammograms...

ETA: And now Republican Lisa Mukowski says that she 'regrets' having voted for it. A little late, don't you think?

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I'm practically apoplectic in my opposition to this bill for all the reasons you have so ably listed.

It's like someone sounded the misogyny signal!

I think very few people actually remember that the first Crusade was against other Christians (the Albigensians). Damn them and their heretical views that women are equal to men! Get the stakes and torches!

No one said that a state mandated a "Christian Nation" would be your chosen denomination!

I know many a Baptist who would claim to rather die than be Methodist or Church of Christ, yet I try to bring this very point up to them. Would they want the government trying to tell them that they had to be Catholic or a Mormon or anything else that they already didn't identify with? Of course they wouldn't, but they always seem to be convinced that because they are already "right" that whoever got into power would be like them... even if that isn't a choice in the election... I just don't get that, but I'm a heathen secular humanist. XD

I really do think it's partly privilege. They don't perceive the differences in the way they want to view things and the way that they treat Muslims. And it never seems to cross any of their minds that with all the differences between denominations, that if it were turned into a state mandated thing, chances are it wouldn't be their denomination. Then you'd be shit ouf of luck, huh.

This is how a lot of really horrible things happened. Clearly we skip over the middle ages too damn quickly in school.

Hear, hear.

Yes, they have forgotten. Or, in their self-righteous assholicness, just. don't. care.

It makes me want to throw them all off a cliff, then deny them medical care on the grounds that I'm religiously averse to lending succor to demons.

Or succor to assholes?

It does make you wonder whether they ever think anything through...

It makes me wonder who denied them health coverage so that they could have their heads extracted from their asses.

Thinking is something only those liberal elitist snob college-goers do!

(I swear, I don't like making sweeping generalizations about any group, but some groups make it damn hard...)

Maybe because they make such sweeping generalizations?

:is speechless:

It feels like we're being dragged back to the Middle Ages.

Doesn't it though.

And what really frosts me is that constant yammering about being a Christian nation and yet not one single person who yammers about this appears to have actually read the Bible. I'm pretty sure that phrases like - "Love thy neighbor as thyself" and the notion of giving away all your wealth to help the poor are in there as opposed to stomping and pissing on the poor while tossing them a penny if they're feeling generous that day.

It's amazing how it doesn't align with what Jesus actually taught.

Seems to me that far too many people interpret "freedom of religion" as "the freedom to impose your specific religion on others if you can". Other religions don't get to play the same game since, well, they're not usually in a position to force themselves on anyone by political means, so it's a moot point.

I'm so sorry you guys have to go through this again.

Seems to me that far too many people interpret "freedom of religion" as "the freedom to impose your specific religion on others if you can".

Exactly. *sigh*

Rush Limbaugh "So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here's the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch."

SERIOUSLY????

Edited 2012-03-02 20:06 (UTC)

He's paying for that particularly vile remark as we speak. His advertisers are stampeding for the door.

Disgusting troll. Notice how this poor girl (who was going to speak about the way birth control is sometimes prescribed for ovarian cysts) is a 'slut' and a 'prostitute' for using birthcontrol... But, what? He's awesome for using viagra? (And Oxycodone and Vicodin and...) But he definitely uses viagra. What does that make him (other than a disgusting troll).

Exactly. What he doesn't know is a lot of us used birth control for painful period, ovarian cysts, perimenupause, and hormonal imbalance. While to date the only use viagra has is to permit you to have sex.

He's a troll. Always been one. So happy I can ignore him. I couldn't when I lived in Kansas.

It's making me crazy. Dear Republican Party: Separation of Church and state. Look it up.

If they looked it up, they'd read it backwards. So... *sigh*

The gross stupidity of our elected representatives is truly beyond belief.

The amazing thing here is that even though the Blunt amendment failed, FOUR DEMOCRATS voted for it.

It makes me want to puke (on Rick Santorum).

Really the Blunt amendment was STUNNING in its stupidity. What the hell? Do these people not THINK at all?!

My mother was recently bemoaning the fact that Olympia Snow the only sane Senator from her district was not running for re-election because she was sick of the bi-partinanship and the insanity.

At any rate, word on everything you said above. I've decided the Republican Party has lost its collective mind and we should figure out a way to ship them all off to some alternate reality.

I do think they've lost their mind.

Once upon a time I actually was a Republican, but at some point I think that TPTB slipped their tether to significant chunks of reality.

The whole party appears to be catering to the extreme Christian right.
I feel for the fiscal conservatives who are forgotten.

Between catering to a fringe that wants theocracy, a questionable wars, de-regulation of Wall Street and oil companies. And regressive policies from everything from light bulbs to contraception... I just...

I still consider myself to be a moderate. It's just that Republicans aren't moderate any more. I had thought that losing in 2008 would make them change trajectory and tack more towards the center. Boy was I wrong. They've just kept going further and further right wing. Moderate and centrist is in the far distance of their rear view mirror these days.

Has the GOP been moderate since Nixon? I think George HW Bush was fairly moderate - I know he had issues with Regan who was far too consevative and catered more to the right wing (actually that's when the right-wing began to have a major influence and came to prominence in the 1980s with the whole Family Values thing). And Bush lost to Regan in the primaries, because of the Conservative Right Wing (which actually looks fairly moderate in comparison to the 21t Century's brand of Nuvo Conservatives...).

hee. I consider myself moderate as well. We're surrounded by extremists. Bah.

Probably not. But as a kid, these things didn't really penetrate much. I do know that one of the issues I had as a kid was that I couldn't understand George Wallace (ostensibly a democrat) as governor of my state (perpetually). I cringed at him. So in my kid-mind his Republican opponents were the more modern, less embarrassing ones.

That influenced my perception of party a great deal, I think. And it probably wasn't a particularly accurate perception. But I was a kid. By the time I was of age to vote it was the age of Clinton.

I was never a fan of Bush (because, to be truthful, I had soured on Bush I) but I honestly thought "Well, really, how could he mess things up? really."

Yeah... I didn't quite grasp how things could be messed up.

I was wrong.

This argument is exactly why I hoped we'd never see Obamacare go through- because once it did, everyone's religious rights became threatened. Why should person a, whose religious beliefs ban practice x, ever have to pay for person b to undergo said practice? This isn't about access to healthcare. No one is criminalizing birth control, or psychiatry, or anything else. Rather, there are legitimate questions to be asked about who is responsible for paying for those things. Does responsibility lay with the employer, or with the end user of the services? And from the first moment that we began moving away from end user payment, with the advent of employer- provided insurance, we were headed towards this fork in the road. I only hope we make the right decision. To my mind, the fairest thing is to make everyone pay for their own medical care directly, so I find Obamacare particularly repugnant, as it seems to me to be 180 degrees in the wrong direction from where we need to go.

We are on different sides because we're looking at different aspects of the issue. You're worried about everyone getting whatever services they think they need. That's a laudable concern. But I'm looking at a different question- why should anyone have to provide someone else's medical care at all? Why should my employer pay my medical bills? This is a laudable concern as well, and one only (a very few) Republicans are worried about.

This is a very complex issue, and it can only shake out one of two ways. Either we protect the rights of people to refuse to cover particular services that violate their belief systems, or the government will coerce people into performing acts that violate their conscience. Not merely Catholics, with our beliefs that contraception and abortion are mortal sins- but also Christian Scientists (who will be forced to provide their employees medical care that goes against their belief system) and scientologists (who eschew psychiatry.) Exemptions aren't the answer- the only logical move is to disconnect medical insurance from employment conditions. That will be done either by funding a national health service (ala Britain) or going to a pay as you go, user-pays medical system. As a conservative, I'm hoping for the latter. (The NHS takes tax monies from everyone, to fund everything- badly. So everyone's getting their religious scruples stepped on, paying for things they might not believe in. I cannot see this as a workable solution.)

I want to respond to this in a somewhat detailed way but I'm pretty booked this morning. Will get back to. I think you know based on the post you're responding to that we disagree here on a number of points.

Talk later,

I look forward to your reply. (You know, I've always got you and Leslie and Wendy in my head when I'm trying to work out what the other side really think about an issue. It's much healthier for me, when I disregard the boards and pundits and talk to people I actually know and like.)

I know we disagree on the principles of the matter, but I wanted to get my voice in here as the rational opposition- everywhere I go online it's been, "Separation of Church and State! Your church can't tell me what medical practices I can use!" and even worse, claims of woman-hatred. I wanted to remind everyone that the Separation clause works in both directions, and that people can have legitimate, non-misogynistic reasons for being on the other side of the issue.

(And I think everyone's pretty much in agreement right now, re: Rush. The man has stepped in it seriously with his comments this week. Way over the top this time, and very bad form.)

It's going to be long. Sorry.

You pretty much know that I'm going to disagree on a number of points. And you know that I used to be a Republican. I can only tell you what caused me to change my mind and cease to be one.

This argument is exactly why I hoped we'd never see Obamacare go through- because once it did, everyone's religious rights became threatened.
I don't believe in viewing it that way. It's akin to saying we can't build a bridge because people might jump off of it. The problem that the Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare") tries to address are real problems.

There are only a handfull of companies providing Health Insurance any more and they've basically divied up the country so that they do not compete with one another for the most part and all use the same practice (for example, in my state I saw figures that basically 1 company provides in excess of 90% of the insurance in the state. Effectively there is no competition.) And even that though US population has increased by 27 million in just over a decade, the number of people with health insurance has actually declined, not necessarily because they don't want insurance but because they've been priced out of it... on purpose. The way that insurance companies have increased their profit margins has been to basically price people out, cap, or deny people health insurance if they foresee there not being a good profit margin for them... which really rather defeats the purpose of it being insurance. If you pay your premiums all those years and then you get cancer and they drop you (or cap you)... that's just not right. Same goes with infants -- INFANTS -- being predetermined to have 'pre-existing conditions'. And the pricing structure they've created is inequitable. I remember when the company where I work finally got 20 employees and we're suddenly 'qualified' to negotiate for a better plan. There's something absurdist about that. Major corporations are offered better deals than small companies which are offered better deals than individuals. What's offered to my small firm (with premiums having been raised 6 times in the time I've worked there) is one with a very high deductible and a cap of what can be spent... at least until the Affordable Care Act came about. Now lifetime caps are eliminated. Because, honestly, wasn't the point of insurance that the company assumed some risks for their reward? That more people (such as myself) pay healthcare premiums for decades with little to no using it, while others might need it because they have health problems. If it's a matter of kick you out if your sick, cap you if your sick, the whole thing is fixed for the 'house'... and health insurance companies have been making mad profits, profits such that the majority of what you pay your premium for isn't even used for covering your health but to profits for the CEO. Another part of the ACA is that the company has to show that a majority (bare majority) of your premium has to be used for healthcare instead of just cream profit before they can raise your premiums (just so that they make yet more profit, because, remember... most of these companies work as near defacto monopoly. Also people such as my nephews -- both still in school -- are allowed to stay on their parents health insurance for a few more years. Because isn't it better for them to have insurance? Good insurance? It's a myth that we do not pay for people who don't have insurance, because we do because part of what drives up health costs at hospitals is hospitals seeking to recover their losses from the uninsured by raising prices on the insured. We all pay for the uninsured. Because, we aren't going to allow them to bleed to death in the streets. So it's going to be paid for somehow... *cough*by us all*cough*

Edited 2012-03-06 04:16 (UTC)

What pushes the whole thing to another level of absurdity is that what was passed as the ACA is more or less what Republicans were suggesting back in the 1990s when they were fighting "Hilarycare" during the Clinton administration. Considering they were advocating this same set of laws when it was up against the Clinton proposal... and yet it's "The EVOL!" when it's proposed by Obama makes me suspicious 1) that their protest against Hillarycare wasn't wholly legit. Their proposals must've been for show because 2) Now they're screaming that the very things they proposed is "socialism!" And the truth is, all of it is more conservative than what Nixon was proposing in the 1970s. (It also happens to be identical to what Mitt Romney enacted when he was governor and what he was advocating (http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/mitt-romneys-suggested-three-times-in-2009-that-o) be enacted nationally (http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/mitt-romneys-advice-for-obamacare-look-at-romney) back during his last run for President. So he -- like many Republicans -- was for it before they were against it. So the screams of 'socialism' and "evil" and "government control" have a distinct whiff of hyperbole and manufactured hysteria. (It's also amazing how when people are polled about the individual aspects within the law there is very broad support. People are only 'against' when they're asked about "Obamacare" which makes one think that perhaps most of the protest is fighting a shadow and not excessively substantive. The Tea Party just did excessively effective advertising with their freakout).

Which... is kind of hypocritical in the extreme. Somehow it's the same people screaming "Get government out of my healthcare" who are behind such horrible pieces of legislation as the vaginal probing legislation in Virgina and in my state. Somehow it doesn't strike them that it's "government in my healthcare" when they're writing laws mandating an invasive (sodomizing) unnecessary medical procedure because... well, it's not needed medically. What it does is a) raise the price of an abortion. b) Is generally horrible. So basically it boils down to their using a bill to stipulate punitive medical procedure because they morally disagree. That's just breathtaking hypocrisy to me. They're doing exactly what they've spent the last several years screaming at the tops of their lungs about. Frankly, it's beginning to look like projection.

But I'm looking at a different question- why should anyone have to provide someone else's medical care at all? Why should my employer pay my medical bills?

Two things.

As opposed to...? It's markedly more expensive to buy health insurance when not part of a group. Part of the Affordable Care Act, is an exchange so that people who are not part of groups can be a pool/group so that they can have the same sort of group rate as the corporations receive. So if the thought is either that the employer should in no way be involved... then why not support the Affordable Care Act? It actually makes it easier for people to buy their own insurance. Either that of there actually be a public option so that there is an affordable alternative. Yet, somehow this is what they're screaming is "socialism!". It comes off as 'can't win.'

Secondly, I think it's very wrong to look at your health insurance as your employer's. It's not. It's yours.

You earned it. You performed work for it.

It's your job/work-related benefits... that you earn through your labor. They aren't 'giving' you squat.

(cont'd) It's your job/work-related benefits... that you earn through your labor. They aren't 'giving' you squat.

It's about like saying that because they 'give' you a salary that they can stipulate that you cannot spend it on birth control. No, they cannot tell you what to do with the fruits of your labor. They don't get to tell me whether I take a flu shot this year. They don't get to tell me whether I go to a dermatologist. And quite frankly, the whole birth control thing is crazy because there are many things besides birth control that it can be used for. When I was placed on birth control as a teen it was to regulate my periods, not because I needed it as birth control at that time. The poor woman that Rush was calling a "prostitute" and a "slut" for testifying to congress, was testifying about a woman who had had to give up her birth control -- prescribed to her to help prevent her ovarian cysts -- because it wasn't covered by health insurance. The cyst then grew so large that she had to have her entire ovary removed. Preventative healthcare was denied to her because someone decided that their abstract "moral stance" was more important. And for this, she was called a "prostitute".

Either we protect the rights of people to refuse to cover particular services that violate their belief systems, or the government will coerce people into performing acts that violate their conscience

That's just it, though,. They aren't protecting people. They're protecting an institution or a corporation as opposed to people. Why are the people screaming about not allowing people control your personal choices all about allowing corporations and institutions... to control your choices? Why in the name of screaming "The government can't make decisions" they defend an increasingly unregulated and monopoly sized insurance companies making the decisions for you? With little to no defense of your rights (preventing them from kicking you out if you're ill or caping your benefits). Again -- the hypocrisy burns.

You work. You earn your salary and your benefits. Why does an institution or a corporation get to stipulate how you then use what you earned? Why does a religious affiliated university or hospital get to tell what secular employees can do with what they've earned? And with the compromise, the employer isn't even required to have anything to do with it. It shouldn't involve the employer. My employer doesn't know whether I took alergy shots last week, why do they get a say as to whether I'm prescribed orthotricycline? I earned my health premium with my labor. So why does a corporation or an institution trump real, actual people?

Then, again, the whole "moral objection" part of the Blunt amendment is pure craziness. What if your 'boss' was Christian Scientest and he insisted that because of his religion you have to go to 'healing centers' rather than a doctor? Why does the 'boss' get to decide what you can do? Because of the power structure? Again, there's no reason they should have any more say over what you do with your health insurance than what you do with your salary... because they are the same thing. They are what you've earned through your labor. And you can decide what you want to do with it just as you can decide whether to spend your salary. It's yours.

There were exemptions for churches. This was about insitututions -- universities and hospitals -- that have secular employees. What's more, this wasn't 'controversial' until it became a political football. 28 States already passed this law. Mitt Romney signed such a law in Massachusetts when he was governor. Huckabee signed such a law when he was governor of Arkansas. Many Republican governors signed identical requirements... so like the ACA, they were 'for it' before they were 'against it'. It's only became anathema to them when they could make political hay because whatever Obama is for, they're against.

Edited 2012-03-06 03:58 (UTC)

Again again what rubs most raw is that the politicians screaming the loudest and hardest about 'freedom' are the exact same ones passing punitive laws like the 'shove a probe up a woman without her consent' law. The very people screaming "the government can't stipulate..." are using the government to stipulate an unnecessary medical procedure for punitive causes. So, excuse me if I don't take their protests as all that legit. They don't apply those same limitatoins on themselves.

And no, I don't think freedom of religion covers freedom to make other people abide by someone else's religious beliefs. Your boss is allowed to attend any church he wishes, he cannot and should not be able to restrict an employees -- YOUR -- healthcare based on his religious convictions. He cannot tell you how the fruits of your labor should be used. He cannot say that he's a Christian Scientist, so your child cannot have a polio vaccine. He cannot say that he's a Scientologist, so if your son is diagnosed as a schizophrenic, he cannot have psychiatric help. A corporation doesn't have the right to tell you that you cannot use invitro fertilization if you want to have a child. That choice is left to an individual, and your employer doesn't have the right to tell you want to spend your salary and benefits on. A corporation or a institution doesn't trump the rights of an individual to make their own choices for themselves. We aren't slaves.

Catholic churches don't have to approve of birth control. They can preach this as loud and as long as they want. They can try to convince as many people as they want. But they don't get to tell secular employees of an affiliated university what to do with their salary and benefits as that's up to the individual who labored for it.

Theocracy is a bad thing. History has consistently shown theocracy to be a bad thing. We don't need to be advocating the advancement of theocracy becauase as I pointed out in the original post, people always naively assume that of course the 'theocracy' will choose their denomination... but what if they don't? We've seen the Catholics the Protestants at war. We've seen the United Methodist and the Southern Methodist separate over the question of slavery. We see what problems the Sunni and the Shiite go through. Being of the 'same' religion doesn't prevent their then being struggles on different types of the same religion. And if you add state authority and an army, bad things happen. (If you read "Game of Thrones" as soon as Cersei allowed the church to have an army... yeah, that's never a good sign.) There's a reason why the church should remain separate from the state.... history has shown us this. Because... what if rather than your religion triumphant, it was decided that you're the heretic? What if the Christians... were treated the way that so many are trying to treat Muslims these days, denying them the opportunities to build a place of worship in Tennessee.

The purpose of the freedom of religion was that it allowed individuals to choose and to practice their own religion without harassment. To be free to worship as they choose. It wasn't the freedom to make other people live by their own religion and to have the state sanctify it. Somehow that's becoming increasingly confused by those speaking about freedom of religion the most.

Sorry. Said my response would be long.

Edited 2012-03-06 04:13 (UTC)

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