Awesome post.  Way to tell it like it is in the starkest possible terms.  Now, if only, I had the courage to circulate this among my anti-contraception Catholic co-workers.  Sadly, I am way too much of a wuss.

I am super curious as to how you (Amanda) came to attend a Catholic college, what that experience was like, and whether that experience had an influence on your views.  You talk a lot about how your experiences in small town Texas shaped you, but you never mention the college experience.

At a pro-choice protest some years back, I saw a sign that I thought explained the entire situation as about as clearly as possible:

“Keep Your Religion Out of My Health Care”

It really is that simple, isn’t it?  You have religious beliefs, you feel strongly about abortion, contraception, whatever.  Fine.  You go have those beliefs over there, while me and my doctor figure out what’s best for me over here.

One of the best analogies I saw was the first comment on a Daily Telegraph article (yes really!).  Which asked whether Jehovah’s Witnesses should be allowed to only provide health insurance to employees that doesn’t cover blood transfusions.

“In fact, Catholics support this new contraception policy at higher rates than the public at large. “

That this continues to be widely ignored in this “debate” tells you everything you need to know about the true motivations of its participants.  This is a campaign by religion officials (con men) and their political allies (male bullies) to intimidate the government into backing down on an issue of women’s health.  That it’s being undertaken during campaign season is likely not coincidental.

The American rank and file Catholics have always been in a kind of cold war with the Church itself.  My liberal mother used to rant about the lack of female priests and totally ignored the birth control restrictions but she still went because of the community and because the priest we had wasn’t a big culture warrior.  She finally quit going a few years ago, saying “it’s always been a right-wing organization.”

I was driving home last night, listening to ATC on NPR, and there was a story on this issue saying that the polls were in Obama’s/contraception favor. I remember thinking - “Well, at least Obama is doing the right thing on this - yeah he sold us down the river on the December 2010 capitulation to extend Bush Tax cuts (and what is this election going to be about? Repealing the darn thing! Y’know, the thing that would’ve happened automatically a year ago!) but if nothing else, just because it’s popular and the female vote has to heavily favor Dems for Dems to win, he’ll actually stick to his guns - just ONCE.”

Then I saw this… http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/is-the-white-house-caving-on-contraception.php?ref=fpb

Welcome to my world ladies. Backstab Barry’s up to his old tricks. But hey, whadya gonna vote for the guy *slightly* to his right?

To the issue itself, the puzzling question for me is why the conscience of devout Catholics isn’t going to prevent them from doing the wrong thing. If Catholics don’t want the naughty pill, they won’t choose to have it. Right? And if non-Catholics working in Catholic institutions choose it - well I mean technically they are going to hell anyway just for not belonging to precisely the right Christian sect…right?

Welcome to my world ladies. Backstab Barry’s up to his old tricks. But hey, whadya gonna vote for the guy *slightly* to his right?

You don’t really see Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum - who have questioned whether contraception should be legal in any circumstances - as “slightly to the right” of a President who mandated contraception coverage for all employers because of one (admittedly frustrating) exemption?

I went to a Catholic university for a very simple reason: Because they aren’t any different from regular universities. The bishops are trying to paint Catholic schools as places of devotion in order to get their woman-hating bullshit in, but most of the students and staff were not Catholic or only nominally Catholic. Our campus life was indistinguishable from a secular university. We had co-ed dorms. The school showed R-rated movies during student programming. We had a gay rights club, and the theater put on a production of “The Rocky Horror Show”.

Welcome to my world ladies. Backstab Barry’s up to his old tricks.

I’m still voting left in the next election, KingElvis, so tell whichever organization is paying you a pittance to discourage voting that they’re not spending their money effectively.  Seriously, you come off like a not-clever-enough Republican goon with comments like this.

Thank you though, for welcoming the ladies to your world.

Amanda @8,

That makes sense.  The church can’t have it both ways.  It can’t create institutions that are very much of and in the world, while insisting that it be entitled to special rules.

The difference between the rhetoric of white leftists who hate Obama and racist conservatives who do has collapsed completely.

Have you emailed this challenge to specific journalists/bloggers? I am curious to hear their responses. Just what kind of misogynistic garbage can they spew to justify literally making someone sit at the back of the bus?

Your comment at #12—Amen!

It is looking more and more like the White House is going to drop the ball on this one and allow an exemption for hospitals and schools. That is the word coming from folks working on Capitol Hill. I hope they are wrong and this is just people bullshitting in the hallway, but I’m not optimistic. So once again, the votes of women who think we’re smart enough to control our bodies are being taken for granted because they know we will never, ever allow a Romney/Santorum/Gingrich to become president.

Most of the time, the currency is praying and maybe good works (since the majority of Catholics don’t actually bother with the sin and redemption stuff, but just use the church as a marriage-and-baptism center, I’m a little hazy on this, since I’ve never heard any of the bazillion Catholics I’ve known talk once about repenting for sins in the real world

As a former practicing Catholic (as in church twice a week practicing), I can speak to this. When you’ve sinned, you participate in the sacrament of confession/reconciliation (terminology varies from church to church). The ones I participated in were like mini therapy sessions, where you’d talk about what you’d done that was bothering you, you and the priest would have a short discussion on why you’d done those things or why they were bothering you, and then he’d suggest things that you could do to make up for what you’d done or to help you get over them (if it wasn’t really a sin - like my first confession, wherein my big sin was “I never want to practice piano”).

Some priests would just give out your nine Hail Marys and an Our Father or whatever, but the good ones would give you actual “apologize to the person you wronged and take them out to dinner” or “spend some time volunteering for this organization that supports people less fortunate than you” (for greed type sins). So it does vary, but there are definitely priests (and practitioners) in the Catholic Church who are in line with the whole “contributing positively to your community through actions is a pretty damn good idea” thing.

bette, the people spreading “the word” aren’t reflecting the administration; they’re trying to pressure them. They don’t have info that the administration is changing their mind. They’re spreading the rumor in hopes that the administration caves. They need to be resisted at every turn. Most of the people spreading that rumor know that “free contraception” is just plain good news for voters, and they’re trying to get Obama to roll that back in hopes that it hurts him in the election.

This may be slightly off topic, but I know this is a crowd that appreciates batshit crazy.  So I thought I would point y’all in the direction of the Thinking Housewife, a very conservative misogynist lady who has been running a whole series on the evils of contraception this week.  Here’s a gem from today’s post:

THE IDEA that public discouragement of contraception forces people to have children does not stand up to reason. No society in history has ever forced its citizens to engage in intimate relations. Public discouragement of “birth control” does, however, inevitably force a people to remain conscious of its procreative power and, thus, its destiny as a people. Furthermore, it encourages the individual in the habit of self control, which is the basis of all advanced cultures and of any society worth living in. Without self control, there is little of civilized beauty. Interior illuminations, great art, arresting architecture, monuments of philosophical or literary thought, revelations of divine wisdom –  these come from societies that prize self control.

Romney is slightly to the right of Obama, Santorum is to the right of the Pope. I’m not saying to vote for Romney either, I just get a little bit sick of this game where he positions everything he does as slightly better than the GOP moderate wing. It’s gone to such an extent that now we ‘progressives’ are essentially arguing for a flat tax (Cap gains and income should be taxed the same darnit!).

And consider that the ‘cave’ on this issue is being framed *precisely* like the cave on sunset of the Bush tax cuts “Hey were going to do this - sometime - just wait for a ‘lil while - like a year, or two, or three.” Boy howdy, in the future things will finally turn around!

The only thing progressives need during the Obama reign is a time machine to get to that pot ‘o gold that is continually being pushed over the rainbow. That would be a real salve wouldn’t it?

Interior illuminations, great art, arresting architecture, monuments of philosophical or literary thought, revelations of divine wisdom –  these come from societies that prize self control.

Art and literature are known for the remarkable lack of drinking, smoking, and screwing among their ranks.

I’m still voting left in the next election, KingElvis, so tell whichever organization is paying you a pittance to discourage voting that they’re not spending their money effectively.  Seriously, you come off like a not-clever-enough Republican goon with comments like this.
Comment #9: Eileen

Eileen…c’mon. I get the Big Bux from the Superpacs, not a ‘pittance.’ :—D

@Smikey at 18,

I knew I’d come to the right place!  That was just what I needed to hear after reading something so aggravatingly batshit.

On Tuesday, however, the White House appeared to buckle under the Republican pressure. “In a shift, the White House to seek to allay concerns of religious employers on birth control order,” the AP reported. “White House Signals Willingness to Compromise On Contraception Controversy,” said ABC. The gist, from both organizations: The White House was planning to use a built-in one year waiting period on the new rules for religious groups to strike a new deal that could allow them an out from the new rules.

They don’t have info that the administration is changing their mind. They’re spreading the rumor in hopes that the administration caves. They need to be resisted at every turn. Most of the people spreading that rumor know that “free contraception” is just plain good news for voters, and they’re trying to get Obama to roll that back in hopes that it hurts him in the election.
Comment #15: Amanda Marcotte

Lets hope you are right and that Obama’s game of multi dimensional chess - (all of which occurs…in the *future* where we finally win!) doesn’t end up selling a popular and mainstream measure down the river for the sake of people (devout Catholics are always told to vote ‘life’) who would never consider voting for him in the first place.

One part of this discussion that makes me crazy is the complete overlooking of the fact that birth control pills are used to treat conditions unrelated to fucking.  Someone who has deblilitatingly heavy periods, cramps that keep her home from work, PMS, fibroids, polycystic ovary syndrome, all those people should have to explain that they’re not dirty girls to the pharmacist and insurance company?  Or do without treatment because they might get up to some trouble when they’re on meds?  That’s the problem with having celibate old men make policy with regards to women’s health.  They have no, and I mean no, idea what they’re talking about.  If they were intellectually consistent, they would be ok with contraceptives treating non-fucking-related problems, but since they don’t know any women, they don’t know there are non-fucking-related problems that can be treated with birth control, so it’s not a problem for them.
My dear old mother (born in 1913) used to say: “If the Pope were a woman, things would be different”.  She was a believer in birth control back in the pre-pill days.  I’m really trying to figure out where all these Catholics are who would totally vote for Obama, until they heard about this, despite the fact that they use birth control themselves.  I’m just really having a hard time believing that there are many of these people.  And I grew up Catholic, my whole family including in-laws is Catholic, and I’m still having trouble imagining these people.
I saw a video of Kathy Griffin recently, which referred to her Catholic girlhood, and the fact that her mother complained that she was embarassed by Kathy’s behavior when going to the parish.  My first thought was, “this makes perfect sense!”.  I knew that irreverent, rebellious, question-everything girl in high school.  Think George Carlin and Bill Maher.  That’s a substantial subset of what Catholic educaiton turns out.  I think it’s much more common that the prudish Bill Donohue of the Catholic League (or as Kathy says, “one dude with a computer”.

We had a gay rights club, and the theater put on a production of “The Rocky Horror Show”.

My husband went to a Catholic school, and it had a gay rights club. But it did not have a pro-choice women’s group/women’s center. I’m curious if your school did ... or is that the line in the sand for them at all such institutions?

@22, that is true, but the main use of birth control is so that people don’t have to have a kid every time they fuck. I think that’s how we ought to be framing it. People are gonna fuck each other and have a good ol’ jolly time doing it, and they don’t have to do it for procreative purposes, and all the prudery and popery in the world shouldn’t have any goddamn say in the affair.

By the way, what’s with the censored post title?

Taxing capital gains and earned income at the same rate is not in any way the same as a flat tax. 
Anyone got any idea why King Elvis thinks he’s the one politicians been throwing under the bus but not us “ladies”?  Or why he thinks everyone here is an unswerving Obamabot?
(Ladies? Fuck you, asshole.)

It absolutely targets men who want vasectomies—the bishops object to the fact that insurance policies are required to cover sterilization.

I’ll be happy to point out where Amanda flew off the rails in making the Catholic hospitals are like NYC public buses argument. It’s right here:

Catholic hospitals and universities are public institutions

Nope. They are most certainly private institutions. They serve the public, but they are built on private land with private dollars by private citizens. A bus service which also serves the public is initiated by the public, owned by the public, funded by the public, and run by government workers of some level. See the difference here?

If a Catholic hospital is a public institution because it serves the public, then so is a Catholic parish church. We don’t check ID at the door and we don’t turn away strangers.

Nope. They are most certainly private institutions. They serve the public, but they are built on private land with private dollars by private citizens.

They serve the public, they receive public tax exemptions as non-profit entities, and they receive public funds.  There is not as much difference as you think. 

If a religiously affiliated institution can deny insurance coverage for procedures or drugs that offend its* conscience, why can’t any business do so?  What makes the conscience of Georgetown University more special than the conscience of George Mason University?

*how the hell does an organization have a conscience, anyway?

Nope. They are most certainly private institutions. They serve the public, but they are built on private land with private dollars by private citizens.

And how much tax dollars do they take?  Oh right, a shit ton.  Thanks for playing.

but the main use of birth control is so that people don’t have to have a kid every time they fuck.

And really, so fucking what? Framing it in the ‘but people use it for non-contraceptive reasons’ just reinforces the idea that fucking is bad. And it’s not. It’s a fundamental human act that has many purposes besides procreation. So those fucking bishops can keep their fucking dongs in their fucking pants and leave me the fuck alone with my fucking contraception because I’m going to keep fucking fucking.

http://www.thegrio.com/politics/cornel-west-and-ralph-nader-join-forces-to-beat-obama.php

The difference between the rhetoric of white leftists who hate Obama and racist conservatives who do has collapsed completely.
Comment #12: Amanda Marcotte

@31 - that was my argument exactly.

“If a Catholic hospital is a public institution because it serves the public, then so is a Catholic parish church.”

...huh?  I may be allowed in the door of your parish church, but if I ask for Holy Communion as a non-Catholic, I would be lawfully denied.  Your church, your rules.  (...and if I tried to sneak out a communion wafer - well, things could get quite ugly…)

If you ran a Catholic hospital that accepted no non-Catholic patients, and accepted no federal dollars, then it really would be a “private” institution.  Under those circumstances, feel free to deny any of your patients whatever the Pope says they should be denied.  (...even then, I believe the physicians would still be required to hold a valid medical license, as well as the hospital meeting other regulations meant to protect patients.  In California they probably would be required to meet earthquake safety regs, for example…)

If your Catholic hospital accepts all patients, accepts Medicare/Medicaid, etc., it’s no longer a “private” institution as you’re trying to use the term.  It must comply with state and federal regulations.  Period.  See the difference there?...

@31&33;: I get the idea that it’s none of their business that someone is using BC to fuck.  But I also think it’s relevant that they don’t even know that someone is using it to fuck, or is a complete virgin. It’s so far outside their knowledge, they don’t know why someone needs this, or what they’re doing with it, or what their life is like, or anything at all about them, and it’s just not any of their business to regulate the life of someone they know absolutely nothing about.

I want to have a hospital that receives public funds and gets tax breaks, ‘cause tax breaks are cool…(along with bow-ties and nerdy clothes…)

But I also want to be able to only serve white, married, protestant patients, who must above the age of 20 and below the age of 50, and who live outside big cities.  And no gays either.  Or left-handed people.  Would that be okay?...

”...and it’s just not any of their business to regulate the life of someone they know absolutely nothing about.”

...agreed, but somebody forgot to tell the religious nuts.  All your naughty parts are belong to them…

Great post! I can’t believe the “leaders”, who were so morally bankrupt that they covered-up an international sex abuse ring, think they have any right to lecture and control the healthy sexuality of 50% of all Americans. Not that they’d have any right to do it anyway, but the sheer lack of shame is infuriating to me.

By the way, is there a second note on this post to go with the double asterisk?

Has anyone here been close enough to the world of top-level pundits to know where they get their information and views?  I know people have pointed out that the most famous pundits are all rich and so should be expected to see the world as the 1% sees it, and are mostly males and so should be expected to see the world through men’s eyes, but I’m wondering what they DO all day?  I’m sure they actually spend a lot of time on their jobs, but I worry that it’s time spent talking to sources who are spinning them.  I suspect the Right is better organized at having their people call reporters and pundits to get them to start thinking in certain ways (e.g., how badly is this very popular move going to hurt Obama?).  I don’t really know that, though.

bexley @ #3:

In for a penny, in for a pound: a business owned by christian scientists should be able to offer insurance that covers only the cost of transporting a reader and a copy of the bible to your bedside or accident site. (Yes, I know the CSM and other CS-owned enterprises aren’t actually that batsh*t crazy, but this argument suggests they should be able to be.) Oh, and wait till you see the health insurance policies that could plausibly be offered by certain casinos…

Has anyone here been close enough to the world of top-level pundits to know where they get their information and views?

Observation suggests David Brooks gets his information from his anus.  Tom Friedman seems to get all his information from taxi drivers taking him either to or from an airport as he jets around this flat earth.

They are most certainly private institutions. They serve the public, but they are built on private land with private dollars by private citizens.

And their bills are paid by…? Medicare and Medicaid. But that’s beside the point, and the issue here is a definitional one. They may not be publicly-owned/run institutions, but they offer a public service that is not intrinsically tied to religion, and you do not have to show your Papist Pass to be admitted. ‘Public’ here applies in the same way that water service is a public utility, whether it’s provided by a municipality or a private entity.

I’m annoyed because the polls I’ve seen show that Catholics are pro-insurance covering contraception at a higher rate than Protestants are.

It’s a funny reversal of the “Every Sperm Is Sacred” scene.

If most Americans are happy with this law, then why are the Bill Donohues and George Wills getting so much airplay on what a controversy it is?

Oh yeah.  Facts are boring and have a liberal bias.  Lies and controversy make for good TV.

I’m still voting left in the next election, KingElvis, so tell whichever organization is paying you a pittance to discourage voting that they’re not spending their money effectively.  Seriously, you come off like a not-clever-enough Republican goon with comments like this.
Comment #9: Eileen

Dear Willard,

Thanks for letting me call you by your given name. Operation “Trick the Women By Reporting What Obama Did” has run into a really serious snag. In my zeal to sell out every principle I’ve ever held dear, I think my ‘left brain’ sorta ‘left out’ an important fact about female intuition. These gals have a kinda ‘extra sensory perception’ that I guess you and I know as a “bullshit detector” and this Eileen chick totally figured out the fact that I’m billing you $1000 per keystroke to throw a wet blanket on hardcore feminist voter turnout in 2012.

Thanks for the 40 pieces of silver. God knows that’l come in handy after the apocalypse.

Signed

Thug Stoogeman.

Hey…Ummmm.

Hey you guys

Somehow it seems like some frickin’ hacker got into my Pandagon account.

I will never rest till this man - or woman - whatever the case may be, is brought to justice.

Signed,

Kingelvis.

That’s the problem with having celibate old men make policy with regards to women’s health.  They have no, and I mean no, idea what they’re talking about.

If they had any clue what they were talking about they wouldn’t have a problem with hormonal birth control to begin with because the dogma explicitly bans barriers between sperm and egg, not shifting your biology so their is no egg. The objective is women (and some non-women) need to have babies because women need to have babies. No argument based in physical realities will ever override that desire.

“The objective is women (and some non-women) need to have babies because women need to have babies.”

...and if there’s one thing this old earth needs more of, it’s babies — who grow into children, who grow into adults, who live miserable lives, who have more babies, and who then die, only to get recycled back into Soylent Green to feed the next generations of people. 

After all, its not like the earth is already groaning under the immense numbers of human beings already here.  We Must Have More Babies!  More!  More!  More!

Awesome!...

Scrumby, I believe the dude who invented the birth control pill was a practicing Catholic who was kind of floored that the church didn’t go along with it.

Anyone?

Scrumby, I believe the dude who invented the birth control pill was a practicing Catholic who was kind of floored that the church didn’t go along with it.

Not to mention, the church was poised to go along with it (the working group had approved it), and the pope stepped in and rejected it.  So the good doctor wasn’t the only one who was floored.

“But they will get you to pay a monthly $50 fine for it.**”

Where’s the endnote that goes to this?