The Catholic Church teaches us that during Lent, we are to abstain from meat on Fridays. I myself do this, but I know not all Catholics follow this teaching.
So, if the Obama administration decided the mandate that all Americans had to eat meat every day of the week, that would be infringing upon our religious freedoms, would it not? There would be an outcry of the government overstepping their bounds and forcing one religion group to go against their Church (not to mention all of the vegetarians and vegans who also would be outraged).
So, why can’t people see that the mandate to force even Catholic institutes to pay for contraception, which is against its teachings and moral beliefs, if the same thing and that it it wrong? It doesn’t matter that some Catholics go against the Church and use contraception, the point is the Church has its beliefs and our government should never infringe upon a Church and its beliefs.
Five Ft. Three 
Thinking about “our government should never infringe upon a Church and its beliefs.”, we ponder the polygamy of some LDS splinter sects, the burkha wearing of followers of Islam, the rejection of blood transfusions by the Jehovah Witnesses, the medical beliefs of the Christian Scientists, etc. All the way to the parents who deny their dying child professional medical assistance because of their belief in the power of prayer. Why should a JW person have to have transfusions covered in their health insurance when they cannot and will not avail of it?
IMO, religious beliefs ARE protected…but when they affect others detrimentally, as for example
when the belief collides with standard medical practice (see thisCatholic Forum , for example)
it can be a problem. Of course, the alternative is to simply avoid the healthcare provisions…
I met a young woman the other day who is absolutely dead set against any form of birth control..
….she was an atheist. !?
BB I get your point but I’m gonna be an old stick-in-the-mud here and when I do I get accused of being anti-sex all the time. If I were looking at it purely abstractly and logically, hell even mathematically I’d say sex is not a medically necessary act. Nobody ever died from not having sex…ok are you with me because whenever I bring this up it seems to go right past people’s heads…so from a purely insurance angle I’m looking at it in terms of breast augmentation and getting your nose fixed…oh hell what’s the point?!
Interesting point, “Nobody ever died from not having sex…ok”. Absolutely true; the complication here is “no one was ever born…from those not having sex”. The biological reason is simple and so the
‘drive’ is inate and powerful…even for the human life form. (dang, sounds like Mr. Spock)
An argument, perhaps THE argument, hinges on God’s intent: biblically, the sole reference
is Genesis 38:9, with the theological interpetation beginning with Talmudic thought, through
St. Jermome et. al. to Casti Cannubii . IMO, historic cultural
factors bore equally..high infant mortality rates, high celibacy among religious groups well
through the middle ages, many cyclical population declines due to plague, famine, war.
Thus sex (if you will) can be viewed from standpoints from basic biology (birds do it, bees do it,
even educated fleas do it), cultural necessity, human nature and theological rigor. We know as well that birth control in various forms has been practiced from before the dawn of civilization.
So rationale for/against is far from simple. (mea culpa, not my field of expertise)
Beth, do all religions have an absolute right to this freedom, or are there limits that can be imposed on these freedoms by government?
If there are limits, how are these decided?
Dave you have an interesting way of framing the issue. BB you’re on another plane but I dig it.
And Z-man, I can’t get an answer… But I’ll keep waiting…
Z, those are the questions for me… because they seem to be at the heart of every issue… are rights absolute, does the state have a right to moderate, or take away those rights in some circumstances, and how do we decide or who gets to decide?
Hmmm…I was thinking about alot of this stuff on my walk today. Logically I can’t quite get it that the Church would oppose artificial contraception and yet religious freedom says that’s their business and it is. You can have religious people or religious bodies opposed to this sex act or that sex act but what if you had a gov’t say ya gotta do it? problem being what we’re discussing is still sex and not say a blood transfusion or colonoscopy and I’d like to think whatever I or you or anybody else is into that I’d foot the bill myself. At any rate I don’t know why Obama is so entrenched on this issue esp. in an election year.
1. “At any rate I don’t know why Obama is so entrenched on this issue esp. in an election year.”
2. ‘ Republicans’ traditional strength among men “won’t be good enough if we’re losing women by nine points or 10 points,” says Sara Taylor Fagen, a Republican strategist and former political adviser to President George W. Bush. “The focus on contraception has not been a good one for us … and Republicans have unfairly taken on water on this issue.”
Honestly, I wish there were more hours in the day or that I didn’t need sleep so I had more time to discuss this, maybe I shouldn’t blog at all since I don’t really have the time or energy that I used to have. But overall I get the impression that everyone here thinks other religions don’t have religious freedom (like if they don’t believe in blood transfusions), and I say do two wrongs make a right? No, of course they don’t, so if the government is making those religious organizations pay for blood transfusions that their religious organization is against, then that is wrong.
Hope that answers all your questions.
But BB why isn’t it also a bad issue for the Democrats?
The Democrats are just using this as a fake war on women issue, too bad many women buy into that load of garbage.
So what, exactly, is wrong with treating women like human beings ?
Seriously, BB? What does that have to do with religious freedom?
I have a different take than BB. I think the Democrats were taking on water on the whole birth control/religious liberty issue until Rush opened up his mouth then it became all about him. I mean before Rush you had many liberals like Mark Shields saying Obama was wrong and religious liberty is a no-brainer but I have to hand it to whatever PR machine spun this as a War on Women but again I think it began with Rush and only then it seems did Repubs take on water too. Just my take:)
I agree with you that the spin machine was working overtime on this one, I’m sure the War on Women notion was in the plans all along and maybe Rush did give them a quicker time to use it. It was really designed to make women hate Santorum, in my opinion, and sadly it worked.
Now Romney is supposed to be anti-woman, it never ends!