Catholics Are Pissed About Obamacare

[Conan71]

The Catlicks are up in arms on coverage mandates which include contraception.  I'm curious how much of this is outrage at the top rather than through the rank and file, considering studies show that 98% of Catholics are or have used contraception as a means to their family planning.

The letter prompted E.J. Dionne, who is anything but a conservative, to chide the Obama Administration for what he called a breach of faith:
Speaking as a Catholic, I wish the Church would be more open on the contraception question. But speaking as an American liberal who believes that religious pluralism imposes certain obligations on government, I think the Church's leaders had a right to ask for broader relief from a contraception mandate that would require it to act against its own teachings. The administration should have done more to balance the competing liberty interests here.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/obamacare-the-catholic-church-and-religious-liberty/

Here's the Church's take:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced last week that almost all employers, including Catholic employers, will be forced to offer their employees' health coverage that includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception. Almost all health insurers will be forced to include those "services" in the health policies they write. And almost all individuals will be forced to buy that coverage as a part of their policies.

In so ruling, the Obama Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation's first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so). The Obama Administration's sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply.

We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom. Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America's cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights. In generations past, the Church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her sacred rights and duties. I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same. Our children and grandchildren deserve nothing less.

Here's another take:

I guess I'm tired of religious groups operating secular enterprises (hospitals, schools), hiring people of multiple faiths, serving the general public, taking taxpayer dollars — and then claiming that deeply held religious beliefs should exempt them from public policy. Contra Dionne, it's precisely religious pluralism that makes this impractical. There are simply too many religions with too many religious beliefs to make this a reasonable approach. If we'd been talking about, say, an Islamic hospital insisting that its employees bind themselves to sharia law, I imagine the "religious community" in the United States would be a wee bit more understanding if the Obama administration refused to condone the practice.

There is a good point to be made that the various Catholic enterprises accept and benefit from government funds like Medicare and Medicaid.

So what does the church do?  Only serve and employ Catholics and cease to accept healthcare payments from the government?

[Teatownclown]

Ahem.... Has TTC gone on record for years now about those double dipping welfare 5013Cer's .... ?

[Teatownclown]

Is this off limits?

MSNBC host hammers Catholic church over 'masturbation' statement
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/13/msnbc-host-hammers-catholic-church-over-masturbation-statement/

During a segment broadcast Tuesday night, MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell repeated the word "masturbation" over and over again during a lengthy condemnation of the Catholic church's antiquated views on human sexuality.

Coming to the defense of Sister Margaret Farley's 2006 book "Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics," O'Donnell displayed an image of a crucifix and the Bible with the word "rewrite" just below them, then thanked the Vatican for bringing Farley's book to his attention before launching into his tirade.

As it would happen, he said, the church's office that "spends its time deciding which books to hate" was, until 1908, called "The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition." O'Donnell was speaking, of course, about "The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith," which took issue with Farley's book and singled out her positions on three specific things: masturbation, same sex relationships and divorce.

And in particular, they called self-pleasuring "an intrinsically and gravely disordered action" that poses "grave harm" to Christians — whereas Farley suggested that no harm has ever come of it.

Instead of bowing to Vatican pressure to shut up and obey, Farley has gone on a book tour, appearing earlier this week on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report. Some of her fellow nuns are also hopping on a bus and driving around the country to raise awareness of what Republicans in Congress are trying to do with the budget.

"What [Catholics] know is that the most behaviorally contradicted rules of Catholicism on masturbation, on homosexuality, on sex and marriage and procreation in general, are all man-made rules," O'Donnell explained. "And the men who made those rules are the men who gave you the inquisition. And those men didn't have the basic human decency to get the word 'inquisition' out of the Vatican until 1908."

"The inquisition guys aren't going to stop the nuns on a bus," he concluded. "And no, they're not going to have much luck stopping masturbation."

This video was broadcast by MSNBC on Tuesday, June 12, 2012.

I guess it would be if O'Donnell or Farley were running for office?  

[heironymouspasparagus]

p

[AquaMan]

p

Okay, I'll bite. What do your letters stand for? M and P so far. Is it shorthand for something? An engineer's inside joke?

[heironymouspasparagus]

Okay, I'll bite. What do your letters stand for? M and P so far. Is it shorthand for something? An engineer's inside joke?

Nothing.  Just a place keeper, so I get the updates in the 'new replies' to posts - makes it easier to see the updates for things I am particularly interested.  (I think I said that once before..??)  If I knew a less intrusive way to 'bookmark', I would probably use it, but this is easy.

I guess I have subconsciously defined P for 'post'.  M was just a random letter that happened to be closest to my finger when I was making the keystroke.

[Townsend]

Nothing.  Just a place keeper, so I get the updates in the 'new replies' to posts - makes it easier to see the updates for things I am particularly interested.  (I think I said that once before..??)  If I knew a less intrusive way to 'bookmark', I would probably use it, but this is easy.

I guess I have subconsciously defined P for 'post'.  M was just a random letter that happened to be closest to my finger when I was making the keystroke.

You could click on "show unread posts since last visit" on top right of page.

[heironymouspasparagus]

You could click on "show unread posts since last visit" on top right of page.

I eventually do, but not as often as ones that I reply to and have particular interest in.  I get in a hurry and sometimes don't have enough time for more than a quick cursory look, so don't want to sort through everything all at once.  It would be lazy, if it didn't help my efficiency so much.

[guido911]

Had to bump this thread. Lawrence O'Donnell's meltdown is classic. Obviously language is NSFW.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=112&v=Zg0KB0vR2d4

And the inevitable mash up of O'Donnell and O'Reilly.

https://twitter.com/DavidRutz/status/910631632507428866

[heironymouspasparagus]

Had to bump this thread. Lawrence O'Donnell's meltdown is classic. Obviously language is NSFW.

And the inevitable mash up of O'Donnell and O'Reilly.

Birthers...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB3W5NTAAAo


Orly Taitz should be deported.