The Revenge of Sandra Fluke

[AURaptor 1,137]

Since this has also been about Rush and birth control and spun off into that direction here is a list of 71 other companies besides Hobby Lobby that don't want to pay for birth control....http://www.motherjon...-lawsuits#cases

For religious reasons?

It's my understanding that from a business standpoint, insurers actually want to cover birth control as pregnancies are so much more expensive.

Gee, maybe some companies have other agendas rather than just the bottom line. Especially so called religious ones ?

Something to think about.

[AU_Tiger_88 417]

So you know what is represented in all of those companies plans? Seriously? You are the one bringing up religion in the mix and about contraceptives...I am not parroting a lie. I just stated that there are over 1200 plans that got exempted in some sort or another...we don't know why they were exempted but I bet it was for political reasons.

No that's the explanation. Chevron, Exxon, Visa and Pepsi Co. did their due diligence, LSP did not. Admit you were wrong or lying through your teeth.Where am I wrong? I stated that these companies got an exemption. I didn't say why they got one. I didn't even imply that it was over contraception. I simply stated that others got exemptions while others didn't. I implied it was all political. Take the ideological filter and tinfoil hat off and think. I don't wear a tin foil hat but you sure are touchy on this. Why should the government exempt anyone if their mandated care was so good for everyone? Why stop the taxation if it was such a good thing? It is all political. That is my point and I feel that is unfair to others who are not the favored of the current administration.

In fact, why would these be on your freeper list if the goal was to reject religious organizations? Where did I say it was because of religious reasons. I stated that it was for political reasons. You are on the religious bent.

Adventist Care Centers

Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany

Heritage Christian Services

Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Ogdensburg

Baptist Retirement

Look through it. I'm sure there are more.

Now the Little Sisters of the Poor should have also been exempted due to their religious beliefs. SCOTUS even pointed that out in their passing it back down to the lower courts to work something out. I find it also striking that other peoples plans were not grandfathered in as the same as these companies or unions and even High Schools. People who don't want contraception coverage are now forced to buy it which is now mandated by the government. The Government has no business in my sex life or the lives of others...

The Little Sisters of the Poor weren't exempted because their health plan did not retain its grandfathered status, and these rules were out there for all to see. Those companies did their due diligence, LSP did not. It really is that simple.

Now, had you actually followed the thread, you would find that I have already stated that the SCOTUS did its job!

This sets a precedent for any religious person who owns a corporation or business to refuse to abide by federal laws based on their religion. If it is not birth control, then blood transfusions, organ transplants, fertility treatment, palliative care. What about circumventing antidiscrimination hiring practices? They can refuse service to customers based on religious freedom? What about some type of biblical justification for not paying taxes? It makes it terribly difficult to run a country.

Jews, Hindus, Jains, Muslims, Scientologists, Pagans, Buddhists, Rastafarian, those of you who own businesses, please come forward and make your case for religious freedom. How will this all play out?

As long as the taxpayers provide support for church operated secular organizations involved in providing health care for fees, it is the church, not the government, that has breached the wall of separation. I do not willingly support any entity that denies a segment of the population any right or service that the government specifically supports.

The 1st amendment guarantees freedom from religion as much as it does freedom of religion. Health care, birth control included, must fall into the irreligious protections guaranteed the minority.

A business is not a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or any other place of worship. If a church wants to participate in a secular endeavor, I believe they should be expected to play by the same rules as any other businesses.

Regarding the Little Sisters of the Poor, I happen to believe that the Court did its job here and correctly applied the law as written, but I quite frankly do not like the result. Congress needs to take another look at RFRA and whether it needs to be amended. Until RFRA is addressed in Congress, the Supreme Court has likely opened itself up to years of litigation over how far RFRA actually goes. Some interesting cases will be brought up by minority religions like the Witnesses. One early example: Citing the ruling, a judge excused a FLDS member from testifying in court in a case about child labor who claimed it violated his religious freedom.

https://ecf.utd.usco...c?213cv0281-121

I disagree, of course. See the example I linked above. Also, these other mines in the minefield:

http://samuel-warde....y-lobby-ruling/

http://samuel-warde....y-lobby-ruling/

There is a potential legal quagmire here, Titan.

I'm glad we agree on this. I'm all for ending this "who's going to pay for it?" nonsense.

The end result: I'd much rather be a Christian starting a company than a non-Christian. It'll cost less.

That is the lesson here. However you cut it, it's government playing favorites. And that's exactly what the first amendment was written to prevent. The legal reasoning regarding the ruling as RFRA was written is sound. But it stinks for the businessman who isn't religious.

Also, these companies were exempted for some reason or another, there was never a published list of why (except some were political, i.e. unions). For you to say that it doesn't equate to exempting another organization or company for the contraception issue is nuts and totally unfair to those organizations. Also, no one has been taxed for cadillac plans as of yet....funny how that happens also...to say this crap isn't political is just plain incorrect...

Some were religious too.

No, the why is quite obvious. That you favor some tinfoil hat nonsense shocks me not at all.The point that you are agenda driven doesn't shock me. You also have only been stuck on the religious parts of the exemptions vice the exemptions themselves. Where if you were truly for the "little People" you would know why some of these unions sought exemptions. The reason some wanted it was to protect their money coming in as in some cases the same insurance could have been provided for a lesser cost and in some cases better for the individuals involved. This was all dragged through the mud back when ocare came out. Therefore again, I ask why not rail against all exemptions? but that must not fall in your agenda...

[AUDub 11,784]

The point that you are agenda driven doesn't shock me.

Okay. Dub is done being nice.

Duly noted on your "I know you are but what am I?" attempt.

Where am I wrong? I stated that these companies got an exemption. I didn't say why they got one. I didn't even imply that it was over contraception. I simply stated that others got exemptions while others didn't. I implied it was all political.

Wrong on the facts. The reason is very clear. You "bet" it's political while the reason is actually quite clear to anyone who has actually even the tiniest modicum of research and given this issue any thought. If you had actually bothered to check the link for your Free Republic cite, you would have noticed that archive.org has the HHS explanation for the waiver linked right there on the page. And here I was thinking it was my generation that couldn't do research.

There is no favoritism. There are companies that paid attention and those that did not. It really is that simple.

Yeah, and horse hockey on your "I didn't say it was over contraceptives!" claim. Here's how you lead off your first post in the thread:

What is interesting on here is the attack against the Catholic church for not wanting to pay for contraception...

...So to me folks want to rail against religion for not conforming to their views but will exempt contempt at the corporations or the government who gave out those exemptions.

So you either can't keep track of your own arguments, are stupid, or you think everyone else is and you're so full of s*** that you're eyes are turning brown.

I don't wear a tin foil hat but you sure are touchy on this.

Oh, you think I'm angry. No, the truth is that I'm exasperated. Note the argument with Titan earlier. He and I disagree on a great many things, but I can respect him because he can keep his facts straight and doesn't wander into nutcase territory like many of my ideological others here.

You do not warrant such respect. Your arguments make as much sense as baseball in Italian.

Why should the government exempt anyone if their mandated care was so good for everyone? Why stop the taxation if it was such a good thing? It is all political. That is my point and I feel that is unfair to others who are not the favored of the current administration.

The government made exemptions based on grandfathered plans and a waiver. That the Little Sisters of the Poor did not take advantage of that opportunity is nobody's fault but their own. Pointing at companies that actually did their due diligence and claiming persecution is ridiculous. At worst, it's inherently dishonest and the Sisters should know better. No corporation received anything the Little Sisters of the Poor could not have also taken advantage of.

Where did I say it was because of religious reasons. I stated that it was for political reasons. You are on the religious bent.

You're the one that claimed this was an attack in the Catholic Church. Once again, here's how you opened your contribution to the thread:

What is interesting on here is the attack against the Catholic church for not wanting to pay for contraception...

...So to me folks want to rail against religion for not conforming to their views but will exempt contempt at the corporations or the government who gave out those exemptions.

Once again, you either can't keep track of your own arguments, are stupid, or you think everyone else is and you're so full of s*** that you're eyes are turning brown.

You also have only been stuck on the religious parts of the exemptions vice the exemptions themselves. Where if you were truly for the "little People" you would know why some of these unions sought exemptions. The reason some wanted it was to protect their money coming in as in some cases the same insurance could have been provided for a lesser cost and in some cases better for the individuals involved. This was all dragged through the mud back when ocare came out. Therefore again, I ask why not rail against all exemptions? but that must not fall in your agenda...

I rail against them for the reasoning behind them. The exemptions allowed under O-care are granted for hardship waivers and grandfathered plans, I'm OK with those because, whether it be a Catholic, Adventist, Mormon, Witness etc. corporation applying, they are getting the same fair shake as everyone else. There is no constitutional violation there. The exemptions sought under RFRA make a mockery of the first amendment.

Bring back Titan. I may never change his mind on some things but I get some intellectual stimulation and valuable insight from our debates. All I get from yours are feelings of "Deere lowered, not this idiocy again" and overall dumbing down of the quality of discourse on this forum. Do better in the future or buzz off.

Or don't. Hang around and keep spouting idiocy for all I care. But I know you're not an idiot and can be better. Try it.

[TitanTiger 21,068]

It was dissent from the laity that prevented that heresy from becoming doctrine.

His Eminence Cardinal John Henry Newman, as a result of taking a dissenting position by elevating the laity, faced some hardship, but like Fr. Murray was ultimately vindicated. Cardinal Newman was the foremost expert on the Arian heresy of his era: <snip>

Dissent has its place.

Indeed, and I have not argued otherwise. But the point still stands...the popularity of a position is not the determining factor on whether it is sound doctrine, nor predictive of whether the church's position will or should change on a matter.

In other words, anecdotes and evidence are not synonyms.

I would argue they're being realistic, which is an approach I can appreciate.

Virtually everyone that wishes to change doctrine to suit modern whims believes they are being "realistic."

If we can combine a fidelity to difficult teachings with a generous pastoral mercy then we will do well.

The problem comes when this "generous pastoral mercy" amounts to gutting the difficult teachings of any real "difficulty." When you basically turn a dogma into merely a suggestion or ideal in the way that you handle it pastorally, you imply to the laity that it's really not a dogma at all.

This approach has applications to other controversial and difficult areas of moral theology. The clergy made headlines by debating controversial topics such as admitting remarried Catholics to Communion and acknowledging the positives of same-sex relationships at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, but there was little discussion on contraception. The bishops simply called on the church to do a better job of relaying the message of Humanae Vitae. That is, the rejection of the birth control ban is a messaging problem, which isn't really true. The church's unwillingness to address this gap between official teaching and practice is not an encouraging sign for Catholics regarding the moral authority of the church. At worst, it might encourage Catholics to disregard all manner of other teachings, including those on marriage and abortion.

I really don't think that one determines the truth of a matter by looking at gaps between teaching and practice. If you truly believe that a doctrine is correct, but people insist on doing their own thing, then of course you need to re-examine how you are communicating and teaching a matter. This certainly isn't the first time in history that people chose to imbibe the beliefs of a culture over the Scriptures and historical Christian teaching. In fact, the Scriptures themselves warn us this will increasingly become a problem:

(1 Timothy 4:3-4) For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

I'll admit my belief is heterodox, but Humanae Vitae left that door wide open by being, in my opinion, logically incoherent. The encyclical bypassed appeals to Scripture and Tradition while attempting to establish its teachings on a natural law basis, yet it did not offer cogent natural law argument from either a liberal or traditionalist point of view.

Humanae Vitae is honest in paragraph 11 by pointing out the obvious, which is that, most of the time, sex is not procreative. But then there is this sentence at the end that says, "The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life." It's difficult to reconcile this contradiction.

It left unaddressed the reason why, if contraception is immoral, natural family planning and other methods approved by the Church are not. If it is immoral to take steps to avoid procreation, then it must be immoral to take steps to avoid procreation with natural family planning. His Beatitude Franz Konig, the retired Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, noted this "irritating distinction between artificial and natural contraception." in a debate with His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger. Cardinal Konig stated: "Here we have ended up in a bottleneck above all because of the distinction (cast into doubt even by medicine) between artificial and natural, as if even from the moral viewpoint what is important is the trick of cheating nature."

I don't see natural law as being a contradictory to Scripture and Tradition. Nor do I see that last sentence as contradicting anything prior to it. And the natural law argument is part of the reason why.

While natural family planning and artificial contraception such as the Pill or a condom both can result in the prevention of a pregnancy, the differences in terms of how each is achieved is quite different. In Catholic teaching, natural law impacts this issue in the sense of treating something in a way that aligns with it's 'nature.' It's an outgrowth of the idea that we treat people as people and things as things, and when the two are confused, we get into trouble.

The difference in NFP vs the Pill/IUDs/condoms/vasectomies/tubal ligation/etc for deciding when to get pregnant (in the orthodox Catholic view) is akin to deciding to get lose weight by better diet and exercise vs bulimia. Yes, both will help you lose weight, but one treats the body in a way that it is intended to be treated. It is using the natural function of the body in how it stores or burns calories. The other is breaking or misusing the function of the body (inducing vomiting) to prevent calories from being absorbed. One utilizes means of discipline and self-control to treat the body with proper respect and the other is circumventing the way the body works to essentially indulge gluttony while attempting to avoid the natural consequences of it (getting fat).

And even NFP isn't something that is meant to be used indefinitely the way many people use artificial means. It's a temporary delaying of having children to space them out rather than a permanent decision to say "we only want 2 kids and no more."

No contraceptive method is perfect, thus any mode of contraception allows for the possibility of pregnancy. If, as is asserted in Humanae Vitae, the probability doesn't matter, then a contraceptive method with a failure rate of 5% or 1% is just as moral or immoral as one that fails 25% of the time, or at the same rate as no contraception at all.

So, the way I see it, by natural law, this is not a logically consistent position. The Church should do one of two things : Either ban all forms of contraception not used for licit medical reason (the traditional stance, which can also be taken to an extreme by banning them in their entirety) or accept all contraceptive methods as they do natural family planning now (the liberal stance, but consistent with Humanae Vitae).

Because the morality of the mode of contraception in question doesn't hinge on probabilities in the first place. Natural law in this regard isn't arguing from a place of statistical probabilities.

Also of note, unlike your example using the Arians, the teachings within Humanae Vitae fall into another category. They are presented as "non-infallible" teaching, in which the Magisterium does not give us any absolute guarantee that the teaching is immutably true and therefore forever irreformable. It is not error to disagree with this level of authoritative teaching. One may dissent from a particular teaching if reasons are serious and well founded.

One may disagree, but Humanae Vitae did not introduce the ban on artificial contraception. So to dissent from it does not therefore give a Catholic who wishes to remain orthodox and out of mortal sin permission to use artificial contraception.