Because dirty filthy c*nts (sorry, had to!) shouldn’t dare infringe on the right of Hasidic Jews.  And, since it is a Privately Run line…  ((insert typical RW or free-market drivel here))

Plus, I was told Jews run America or something, so…

Very interesting and thanks for pointing this out, Amanda, in the context of that other discussion occurring re gender equality, religious institutions and serving the public.

Here’s a depressing companion to the bus story—what it’s like to be a woman in an American Hasidic community:

http://privateinvesigations.blogspot.com/2012/02/deborah-feldman-i-was-satmar-hasidic.html

Despite all the blathering about “Judeo-Christian” values, Fox News can’t bring itself to get worked up over a Jewish issue. There’s only one book that’s allowed to set policy in Amurica, and that’s the CHRISTIAN BIBLE*.

*“Yeah, but there’s not really one single book you can call the ‘Christian Bible.’ There’s all these different translations and some book that are canonized by some denominations but not by others…”
“Shut up. Amurica.”

Thank you. I was watching Hardball and listening to Chris Matthews and E.J Dionne go on and on about a compromise where they should separate birth control into other insurance you could buy (completely destroying the fucking purpose of having it accessable and without a co-pay). They were also freely admitting that, according to them, 98% of Catholics use birth control but they still couldn’t believe HHS would do this. If 98% of a group can’t be bothered to follow the rules they claim to care so much about, then I have no idea why the fuck they are getting so upset.

Silly Amanda. Christian traditions/preferences/ways —maybe especially the Catholic variety, depending— are innately, authentically Respectable. They *are Western Civilization, after all. Not like those people.

I mean really, anyone can see how much more critical it is to make sure that those people be stopped from deciding where a woman should sit on a bus, rather than interfere with the intrinsic right of Right Thinking Moral Authorities to determine what happens in her womb.

Duh.

Oh, I don’t think it’s Jews vs. Christians in this case. If a small sect of Jews got up in arms about contraception coverage, that would be used as an excuse to concern-troll, too. It’s that female sexuality is an easier political football to kick around than bus seating issues, which bring up troubling if accurate memories of segregation.

@6

Yeah you’ve got a good point. When I made my initial comment, the image in my head was that if Christian leaders were waving their Bibles around proclaiming that the Bible requires that women sit in th back of the bus, and that any just, moral society must therefore do so, Fox News would be right there fighting that fight with them.

But then you reminded me that none of this is about what the Bible actually says. The Bible is just a cover. Constraining female sexuality is the point, and you won’t find that in the New Testament (at least, not until you’ve flipped past all the verses about giving away all your possessions and if you see someone with no coat give them one of yours, etc.)

The Catholic Church isn’t discriminating against women, because if birth control pills were available for men, the Church would be against those, too.

(That’s snark, but just barely. The Supreme Court under Rehnquist once ruled that insurance policies that don’t cover pregnancy were not sex-discriminatory, because if men could get pregnant, they wouldn’t be covered either. This was too ridiculous even for Congress, which promptly wrote mandatory pregnancy coverage into law.)

The thing is if people are worried about an institution’s “religious liberty” in what health care services it must cover or not cover, than the obvious answer is for institutions not to be the supplier of health insurance and for us to get it directly, as individuals, from the government. Barring that, and barring being individually wealthy, you almost *have* to accept whatever insurance your employer offers, you don’t have a choice. So, essentially, a woman who works at Columbia and a woman who works at Fordham are receiving unequal services, in the context of a government mandate, based on their place of employment. Wouldn’t Obama almost be *required* to intervene to apply the new the law equally?

Also, in defense of my tribe, there’s no better place for a woman (in NY anyway) to receive quality reproductive health services, free of a religious agenda, than a Jewish hospital.

Uh, well, it’s the fetuses who really have to ride in the back of the bus!  The Uterus Bus!

Also, see this story, in which Charles Pierce pulls down the relevant quotes from the Supreme Court case stating that Native Americans couldn’t trip out on peyote just because it was a religious sacrament.

Oh, I don’t think it’s Jews vs. Christians in this case. If a small sect of Jews got up in arms about contraception coverage, that would be used as an excuse to concern-troll, too.

I doubt it. If there were any coverage at all, the trolling there would be about how backwards those people are—unlike the enlightened christians/post-christians. Quite possibly with a side of “see how much better we treat our women” (they get to sit *next to us* on the bus—we’ll even give them our seats—just so long as they follow our rules).

if giving Catholic-owned businesses the right to discriminate against women is freedom of religion, then why isn’t it okay when bus companies have signs requiring women to sit in the back to appease a small segment of the Jewish population?

I’m not really thinking in terms of “vs.” here (though there’s clearly an intersectionality thing going on—if ‘women’ aren’t exactly ‘real people’, then how much less are jewish women…). In this sort of argument, “freedom of religion” is for christians, pretty much by definition. It’s also about power: regardless of the beliefs/practices of American catholics, the institutional leadership holds those particular opinions. It’s not a small, relatively powerless segment of the population.

I’m just going to say that those men who can get pregnant are probably not facing any kind of protective blanket from a sexist culture. They’re just getting called vicious names.

@9:

Also, in defense of my tribe, there’s no better place for a woman (in NY anyway) to receive quality reproductive health services, free of a religious agenda, than a Jewish hospital.

Yeah, that too. Plus, it’s a relatively sex-positive culture. But to the concern trolls, that’d all be irrelevant in any case.

Honestly I have been confused by the media coverage of Catholicism since I was a small child.  I grew up Catholic and have remained so.  Different churches blocks apart can have very different priests that almost preach oppositional to each other.  They tend to send priests to their appropriate parish by what is obviously a nuanced system where more liberal priests end up in more liberal parishes and conversely conservative ones end up in conservative parishes.  Catholicism in the US is just another branch of Christianity with a better organized hierarchy.  We aren’t an effective voting bloc and never have been unless discriminated against.  By and large Catholics vote more on their socioeconomic lines than anything else.  This is really the issue where the hierarchy who controls the hospitals and such are getting their panties in a bunch and think their flock is going to come bail them out.  Ironically every time the Catholic church writes a check it’s ass can’t cash it tends to put it on a back burner and hope for the best.  I’m honestly hoping the more liberal wing of the cardinals win in the next pope election because that will make being a Catholic much easier to stand by.

Despite all the blathering about “Judeo-Christian” values, Fox News can’t bring itself to get worked up over a Jewish issue.

Except the War on Christmas, but you gotta talk about that in code.

You know what I think would be a great compromise? The insurance company charging the Catholic Church a dollar amount for each policy that allows them to throw on the coverage for the naughty bad *wicked* birth control for free - that’s right, absolutely *free*, they are *not* paying for it.

Alternately, you know what I think would be a humorous end to this?

“Um. Actually, our negotiated rates for birth control are so low, and the administrative costs of carving out a specific exemption are so high, that a policy that did not cover contraception would be more expensive.”

As a former Catholic, I see this as fully covered under “render unto Caesar that which is Caesars”. This is clearly a case where the government is exerting its authority over a purely secular matter, because they are not telling *anyone* to *use* birth control, and there are no Catholic teachings against *paying* for birth control - just using it to prevent conception. Of course, I’m no high falutin biz-hop, so maybe there’s some special hissy-fit power you get from wearing a hair shirt or something.

The Catholic stuff has nothing to do with doctrine; Catholics routinely render onto Ceasar, as noted above.  It has to do with womanhating.

And I, too, don’t comprehend the conservative penchant for touting liberal achievements of our society which they are doing everything in their power to destroy.  It’s like Bush’s “they hate us for our freedoms,” as he busily works to eliminate them.

You know what I think would be a great compromise? The insurance company charging the Catholic Church a dollar amount for each policy that allows them to throw on the coverage for the naughty bad *wicked* birth control for free - that’s right, absolutely *free*, they are *not* paying for it.

Alternately, you know what I think would be a humorous end to this?

“Um. Actually, our negotiated rates for birth control are so low, and the administrative costs of carving out a specific exemption are so high, that a policy that did not cover contraception would be more expensive.”
Comment #17: LongHairedWeirdo on 02/08 at 06:18 AM

In Baltimore the Archbishop has declared that they would drop coverage altogether, rather than include contraception.

So, no.  Not a humorous end to it at all.

I had a couple of friends who worked for the Christian Science Monitor at various stages in their media careers. 

They were offered their choice of full, unrestricted conventional health insurance plans, or the Christian Science praticioner coverage if they were of the faithful.

This wasn’t considered to be any big deal.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t birth control also prescribed for other medical reasons, such as severe cases of PMS?  So, Catholic institutions that don’t want to cover the pill are basically sentencing some of their women employees to endure pain and discomfort.  I guess they’d say “Well, if Jesus could suffer on the cross for you, you can handle PMS.”

While not exactly the topic of this post, but related, there’s also the religious conscience objections, like pharmacists who don’t want to fill birth control prescriptions and so forth.  Taken to its logical absurdity, will postal letter carriers then be permitted to decide what mail they will or will not deliver if the content of the mail offends them?  For example, a Southern Baptist mail carrier refusing to deliver mail to and from Planned Parenthood or gay oriented magazines and so forth? 

Years ago, I used to work at a group home for mentally retarded adults.  I often worked on Sundays, and though I was (and still am) an atheist, because one or two of the residents went to weekly Catholic mass, I often ended up being the one to take them.  For me, it was just part of the job.

oldfeminist: That’s an empty threat, and they know it. It’s illegal to hire full time workers and not cover their health insurance. If they’re that serious about this, they need to sell their universities and hospitals to secularists and get out of the business of serving the public entirely.

Tommy, I don’t like the “but some women who AREN’T dirty sluts use it!” argument. I know it’s never intended that way, but it allows woman-haters an easy out, while reinforcing the notion that using contraception as contraception is an illegitimate use.

This isn’t about religion, it’s about capitalism. Because not only do these hospitals serve patients of all beliefs, they employ similarly. If they were even going to begin making the “catholics don’t use birth control” argument” they would have to be hiring only catholic staff and administrators. Which would be, y’know, illegal. The argument they’re making is “rich catholic men don’t want women to use birth control, and we own the place.” Just the way that any billionaire should be able to decide what health coverage women get at the companies he owns. Oh, wait.

And notice somehow that’s it’s only contraception that these guys care about. Do their cafeterias only serve fish on friday, or do they complain about the fact that individual insurance policies for men cover viagra and cialis?

These arguments share the same form as the good old, “The Civil War was about States’ rights,” bullshit.  It’s the act of referring to some seemingly high minded principle to cloak the awful shit you’re doing.  The States needed their rights to do what, exactly?

Similarly, why do you need this religious freedom?  So you can pray when you want?  Nope, can already do that.  So you don’t have to pay taxes—-no, have that one.  So you can use your dogma to discriminate, humiliate, and deny basic rights to a discrete portion of the population?  Yeah, that one.

You can mumble at the sky and make offerings to what ever magic creature you want, but you can’t use your fairy tales as an excuse to fuck over other people.

That supposedly serious people are treating this like an issue is baffling to me.

Has there ever been a more pithy explanation of so-called liberal media figures like Chris Matthews than “supposedly serious people.” E-fuckin-xactly.

Paul, it’s no meat on Friday during Lent now. And I can answer that question: my Catholic university served meat every day no matter what.

And notice somehow that’s it’s only contraception that these guys care about. Do their cafeterias only serve fish on friday, or do they complain about the fact that individual insurance policies for men cover viagra and cialis?

And what is the theological distinction between paying for an employee’s health insurance, which they use to violate official Catholic doctrine, and paying an employee’s salary, which they use to violate official Catholic doctrine? I can’t see one, but Catholic universities aren’t trying to make sure their comptroller doesn’t buy a steaks on Friday night for her and her husband who’s divorced from a previous marriage and then goes home to the house where they live in sin together, according to the church.

Could the answer rhyme with because they’re a pack of shitty, sexist fools?

Digby has the best post on this topic.  She points out that many states require the church to provide employees with insurance that covers contraception and have done so for years.  Why the big hissy fit now?  The bishops are carrying water for the Republican party, pure and simple.  Every catholic should be ashamed of how the church leadership is behaving.

And what is the theological distinction between paying for an employee’s health insurance, which they use to violate official Catholic doctrine, and paying an employee’s salary, which they use to violate official Catholic doctrine?

I’ve wondered this from the beginning.  The closest to an answer I’ve seen came from Meet the Press where some Republican got into an argument with Rachel Maddow about the issue.  It seems that by covering it with insurance, it makes it easier to obtain contraception.  This is somehow “promoting” its use, but if it’s difficult to get, somehow you sneak one by God, or something.

Lent hasn’t started yet.  Ash Wednesday is 2/22.

This is somehow “promoting” its use, but if it’s difficult to get, somehow you sneak one by God, or something.

I like this formulation. A lot of things in catholicism—the whole “dual effect” stuff for sanctioned abortions and euthanasia, the rhythm method, most of confession and penance—rely at some level on the idea that G*d has no idea what you’re really thinking, and is willing to accept almost any logically possible excuse as long as you give it with a straight face.

Which would explain a lot about the treatment of pedophile priests too.

#9.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say that “Jewish”  culture is sex positive. That is certainly true of secular urban Jewish communities and reform Judaism, but it’s not true of conservative Hasidim and just as some ostensibly liberal Catholics defend the neanderthals who oppose contraception, some in the Jewish community defend the anti-woman, anti-sex ultra-Orthodox communities.

@Comment #25: doubtthat Yeah, spot on.

To answer Amanda’s original question, cause Rosa Parks? Americans were basically all taught in school that she was a hero and making black people sit at the back of the bus was WRONG, like in that clear-cut way that even whiny “that’s not really racist” people think is wrong. Most younger-than-50 people were taught that as children.

In my school we got a Xeroxed handout every February that portrayed her as a sweet little old lady who was just minding her own little business when Racism happened, and the poor dear couldn’t move because she was exhausted (at least that’s how I remember it. It had been Xeroxed from itself every year since about 1979 so she looked elderly in the picture. Her, Wilma Rudolph and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., same handouts every Feb. and that was it). That she’s a woman just makes the NY bus situation that much more obvious.

Plus, riding the bus is like the least sexy thing ever. There’s no such thing as “below-the-belt” bus-riding (yet). But no one was taught in school that women have reproductive rights. You can’t acknowledge genitals! Hell, in the state where I went to public school, today you can’t even say, “gay.”

Relatively (which is what I originally said) sex positive, within marriage? Absolutely. By halacha. Even (possibly especially, depending) in the ultra-halachic communities (which the ultra-‘orthodox’ may not actually be—usually aren’t, IMO).  Judaism is very much a balance of “this is how the actual people in the real world work’ with ‘God Sez’. Sex is a Good Thing which people want, which is why you get kids married early—they’re going to want it anyway, so you get them set up in an approved situation, where they then get to have mutual fun just like the talmud tells you.

Controlling womens actions in the public sphere doesn’t have to be about ‘dirty vagina/evil clit’. It can also be about ‘so amazing that men must be protected from unauthorized vagina-carriers.’

I’ve been saying this elsewhere, but there are a lot of Catholic hospitals in Canada, all of whose employees are part of a provincial-run single-payer system that covers (oh noes!) abortions.

If it chafes their American equivalents’ fucking chops so much that they have to sign on a dotted line for their employees’ insurance coverage, then they should be made to hand over the money instead and let someone else do the signing.

“Um. Actually, our negotiated rates for birth control are so low, and the administrative costs of carving out a specific exemption are so high, that a policy that did not cover contraception would be more expensive.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true. Standard terms are, y’know, standard. There’s a bill for running the actuarial numbers on a pick-your-plan to calculate the potential knock-on in treatment.

The question is, why the fuck is Obama wavering on this? Can’t he or his people read polls, for fuck’s sake? Catholics (about 1% or so of whom actually follow the official teaching about birth control) approve this rule at a HIGHER % than Protestants. There is zero political upside and plenty of downside in compromising on this.

You know what I think would be a great compromise? The insurance company charging the Catholic Church a dollar amount for each policy that allows them to throw on the coverage for the naughty bad *wicked* birth control for free - that’s right, absolutely *free*, they are *not* paying for it.

I heard on NPR this morning that that’s exactly what the state of Hawaii does—they created an arrangement whereby the insurance companies didn’t technically charge for contraceptive coverage, so the religious organizations weren’t paying anything for it.  I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t cost anything anyway—insurance companies know it makes sense to include contraception because it’s way cheaper than a pregnancy. 

I just get annoyed at the argument that the church shouldn’t have to pay for things it disapproves of.  I have to pay for things I disapprove of on moral grounds all the time—like the war in Iraq.  Why should a religiously-affiliated hospital get a pass on a fundamental part of living in a democracy?

I guess they’d say “Well, if Jesus could suffer on the cross for you, you can handle PMS.” - TommyKey

Actually yes.  A right wing Catholic of my acquaintance once defended his (interestingly, of course, his) belief that a woman ideally shouldn’t have an abortion even if her life was at stake by noting that “since Jesus endured painful torture on the cross and the early saints endured horrific martyrdom, certainly people can be willing to die from an abortion rather than kill an innocent fetus”, although for the case where a woman’s life was at stake he was willing to grant that abortion should be legal as we can’t use the force of law to make people saints.  He would also have said that charity is saintly but wealth redistribution through welfare and progressive taxation is wrong because you can’t force people to be saints.

the anti-woman, anti-sex ultra-Orthodox communities

I think anti-woman is pretty accurate for some of these communities, but anti-sex is not. In Christianity, according to Paul, sex is always bad - it’s just less bad if you’re married, so if you absolutely can’t help yourself, at least get married. In Judaism, even the most conservative versions, sex within marriage is good and marriage is good. Not the lesser evil but a positive good. There’s plenty of anti-woman stuff - from the way over-the-top modesty stuff to the menstruation stuff - but there is a core distrust of the body and its pleasures in Christianity that is simply not there in Judaism.

Steve LaBonne @ 38: your argument about no political downside assumes that people actually vote for politicians who support the same views that they support, which in my experience is not necessarily true.  People, including many Catholics, may agree that non-Catholic employees of Catholic hospitals should have their b/c covered by insurance.  However, if Obama pushes too hard and refuses to compromise, then many of those same people would vote against Obama provided this is the decisive issue for them.

Why the difference?  It’s one thing to support access to b/c.  However, after weeks of “even the liberal media” saying that Obama’s actions “interfere with freedom of religion” (and with a heavy dose of slut-shaming besides), people will feel differently about any politician who “wants government to interfere with the freedom of Catholics to promote a high moral standard amongst employees according to the Catholic view of morality” and not support such a politician even if those same people otherwise disagree with the Catholic Church on birth control per se.

As some of you know, though, it’s my hypothesis that there are many people (I know some personally) who take relatively liberal positions but would denounce a politician who takes similarly liberal (or even merely centrist) positions as being “way too liberal”.

However, if Obama pushes too hard and refuses to compromise, then many of those same people would vote against Obama provided this is the decisive issue for them.

Sorry, not buying it. Nobody but wingnuts and Village idiots cares about this nontroversy. On the other hand, lots of probable Obama voters will be pissed if he backtracks.

It’s like Bush’s “they hate us for our freedoms,” as he busily works to eliminate them. - from Comment #18: Punditus Maximus

If they hate us for our freedoms, then it only makes sense to curtail our freedoms so they hate us less.  Isn’t that the line of thinking?

Sorry, not buying it. Nobody but wingnuts and Village idiots cares about this nontroversy. On the other hand, lots of probable Obama voters will be pissed if he backtracks. - Comment #43: Steve LaBonne

Certainly us most probable Obama voters (“the base”) will be pissed if he backtracks.  Also, some voters will see backtracking as a sign of weakness.  And to a large degree this is a nontroversy (I like that word—thanks ).  But from what I know a lot of people get their ideas about “what liberals think” from what the Village idiots think (because too many people still take the Village idiots to be prototypical liberals)—and if the Village idiots persist in making this a controversy, people who might otherwise vote for Obama may begin to swing the other way because “even the liberals think Obama is going to far” if he doesn’t “compromise”.

Also, I am afraid you cannot underestimate the sex-negativity and sexism of many Americans: many Americans might take many socially liberal positions, but when liberals are perceived as fighting too hard for “the rights of icky people to do icky things”, many Americans start just using their reptile brains.

That being said, pissing off your base is, as you point out, politically stupid.  And this is a nontroversy that Obama may very well be prolonging rather than making go away by “compromising”.  Not to mention the issue of compromising with bullies only enables them—which concept Team Obama doesn’t seem to get.

Still, I suspect Team Obama does have some very real political concerns about what may happen if Obama is seen as pushing too hard, even if what Obama’s pushing does, at this moment, poll well.

Still, I suspect Team Obama does have some very real political concerns about what may happen if Obama is seen as pushing too hard, even if what Obama’s pushing does, at this moment, poll well.

In other words, they are displaying their usual weakness at the knees. For even less reason than usual.

#36 and #41:

Read the link that I provided in #2 and see if you still think that ultra-Orthodox communities don’t have some of the same pathologies about sex (as well as women) that fundamentalist Christians and Muslims do. Seriously, a woman in a Hasidic community was ordered not to have premarital sex, to marry a guy in an arranged marriage, to pull up her nightgown just enough so that he could have vaginal intercourse with her with no foreplay or touching of any other parts, to not have any intercourse for two weeks after her wedding night, to be interrogated by her religious leaders about the sex that she had, and to never look at her genitals or her husband’s in any situation.

You are going to tell me that this is a sex-positive culture? Sorry, the problem here is Bronze Age sexist religions, not something specific to Christian doctrine, and when more liberal Jews and Gentiles defend these communities’ practices, they are just as bad as the liberal Catholics making excuses for the church leaders.

Also, I totally disagree with this:

Controlling womens actions in the public sphere doesn’t have to be about ‘dirty vagina/evil clit’. It can also be about ‘so amazing that men must be protected from unauthorized vagina-carriers.’

This is what second wave feminists used to call the “protection racket”—where women are “protected” by ostensibly chivalrous actions that actually undermine their freedom and their opportunities to define their own lives and achievements.

Dilan: Many other jews, including orthodox think the Hasidim are crazy too. And other ultra-“orthodox” groups. It’s not so much that everyone in orthodox judaism is sex-positive so much as that there’s not a clear proportionality between orthodoxy and sex-negativity the way there is for christian sects.

I’m trying to think about how to make a public accommodation be gendered and not discriminatory.  When you’re dealing with a whole pile of people, you’re going to get a few that aren’t going to fit into the pie - and then there’s that easy chance that separate isn’t equal; like when you have the same sqft of men and women’s restroom but the women’s restroom has one stall and the men’s has a stall and a urinal which serve far more men than it does women.

They could have two busses or separated cabins, but what do they do with goyim who don’t care or don’t fit into their boxes?  That’s still discriminatory. 

Maybe if they ran a bus with micro-cabins, where each set of four or so seats was reached by a door on the outside. Then it would have the required separation without preset occupation levels so if they have 40 men and 60 women there’s still enough of the 100 seats.  And then non-conforming or non-compliant would be sectioned off and not discriminated against.

This is one reason I don’t like changing at the public pool.  *sigh*

I’m trying to think about how to make a public accommodation be gendered and not discriminatory.  When you’re dealing with a whole pile of people, you’re going to get a few that aren’t going to fit into the pie - and then there’s that easy chance that separate isn’t equal; like when you have the same sqft of men and women’s restroom but the women’s restroom has one stall and the men’s has a stall and a urinal which serve far more men than it does women.

They could have two busses or separated cabins, but what do they do with goyim who don’t care or don’t fit into their boxes?  That’s still discriminatory.

Maybe if they ran a bus with micro-cabins, where each set of four or so seats was reached by a door on the outside. Then it would have the required separation without preset occupation levels so if they have 40 men and 60 women there’s still enough of the 100 seats.  And then non-conforming or non-compliant would be sectioned off and not discriminated against.

This is one reason I don’t like changing at the public pool.  *sigh*

This is totally off the post’s topic so I hope I won’t derail the thread for this, but I think probably the way to really dig into this question is to consider the separate train cars for women that some countries such as Japan have instituted because of rampant sexual harassment and assault by men on the trains. Definitely gendered—but is it discriminatory?

Seriously, a woman in a Hasidic community was ordered [a] not to have premarital sex, to marry a guy in an arranged marriage, [c] to pull up her nightgown just enough so that he could have vaginal intercourse with her with no foreplay or touching of any other parts, [d] to not have any intercourse for two weeks after her wedding night, [e] to be interrogated by her religious leaders about the sex that she had, and [f] to never look at her genitals or her husband’s in any situation. (letters added for clarity)

Let’s try again

I am not familiar with the Satmar Hasidim and all of their particular practices, but while I know a, b and d still happen (although arranged marriages have largely been replaced by “arranged dating” with omnipresent chaperones) and are consistent with a particular “ultra-orthodox” version of Jewish law (as is even the “it must be completely dark” thing), c and f are not at all part of Jewish law (in fact the Talmud very explicitly permits oral sex and touching, although with the caveat that a man shouldn’t reach orgasm that way ... and Talmudic sources, from what I remember, indicate a preference for both the man and the woman to be completely naked during sex—which is, if I remember correctly, part of the reason why ultra-orthodox Jews frown on condom use ... so where is this nightgown thing coming from?), which makes me wonder how true this account is (although if the account is true, it wouldn’t be the first time in Judaism or in general that the supposed champions of “tradition” actually have nothing to do with the tradition supposedly being championed).

I am quite convinced that the account is true. And I would urge caution with respect to the temptation of letting religions off the hook by declaring that this or that bad practice is an apostasy and not truly required by the religion.

The reality is except for some very explicit things in scriptures, you can make that argument with respect to just about any religious practice. You can always say, for instance, that the religious right in the US is not comprised of “true” Christians, because they are ignoring all sorts of teachings attributed Jesus about caring for the poor, nonviolence, etc.

The problem is, that misses part of the point, which is that when a religion imposes any set of restrictive rules on consensual human sexuality, it tends to create a climate of repression where all sorts of bad conduct flourishes. One reason why the Catholic sex abuse scandal festered so long is because of the sexual repression that the Church fostered through its various moral strictures. In an organization that was more open with respect to human sexuality, the police would have been called far quicker.

Similarly, in traditional, patriarchal societies, there tends to be a lot of unreported rape and sexual abuse and harassment, whether or not such conduct is endorsed by the religious authorities.

In this case, you have a community that by your own admission banned premarital sex, arranged marriages, and declared women “unclean” for two weeks after their wedding night because of the purported presence of blood in the vagina. That’s a climate where all sorts of other restrictions on female sexuality are likely to flourish. In particular, I can see how the “don’t look at each other’s genitals” restriction could EASILY arise in that culture. After all, if naturally occurring blood in the vagina makes a woman unclean, that suggests that genitals in their natural state are unclean and shameful.

I don’t think its actually possible to be sex positive and to maintain all sorts of traditions regarding the restriction of sexuality. It may be possible to be sex positive and maintain some symbolic traditions—I don’t think much of patriarchal customs at American weddings, for instance, but it’s surely possible for a couple to have a healthy attitude about sex and yet have the woman wear white and be “given away” by her father at her marriage ceremony. But when you are talking about substantive and substantial restrictions, once you start down that road, it’s a slippery slope, and at the bottom is a jumble of repressive, anti-sex, patriarchal, anti-feminist attitudes and practices. This is one reason why I think the sexual revolution and second wave feminism happened at roughly the same time—feminism and the advancement of women goes hand in hand with the elimination of sexual repression, even though some of the leaders in the sexual revolution (e.g., Hugh Hefner) weren’t exactly feminists.

Everything I have ever read about what the Satmar practice would indicate that it is not in line with normative, rabbinic Judaism, even of the more traditional/conservative/even reactionary type.

Please do not misunderstand me as defending Judaism, though I am Jewish. Judaism is not sex positive in the way that modern, secular, feminist people understand that word. Feminists would prioritize bodily autonomy and enthusiastic consent. Traditional Judaism is a religion of obligations. Those two world-views are at cross-purposes. There are ultra-Orthodox communities in which women will ask their rabbi if it’s okay to use birth control and usually will only be given permission if they have a medical condition that makes pregnancy dangerous or already have several children. I would consider this a much lesser evil than the Catholic position of no birth control even if your life depends on it, but it is a far cry from the feminist values of bodily autonomy that I employ in my own life. I’m not defending that practice and wouldn’t defend that, nor would I argue that it’s outside normative Jewish practice or not “real” Judaism. It’s plenty real and plenty normative.

There is a common mistake - common to both Jews and non-Jews - to think that the more “ultra” the ultra-Orthodox - and the Satmar are among the most ultra - the more “authentic” and “traditional” they are, but that’s actually not true. If I have my sects rights ... the rabbi who was the founder of the Satmar sect believed that the Holocaust was punishment for Jews modernizing and they’ve basically become borderline pathological in their rejections of everything they deem “modern” and are constantly looking for new stringencies to adopt to ensure there won’t be another Holocaust. People who have left that sect have described it as an entire community of people with PTSD. So when I say they aren’t normative, I’m not making a “no true Scotsman” argument. I’m stating a historical fact.

Judaism is a religion of obligations. In traditional Judaism, there are circumstances in which sex is acceptable, and outside of those circumstances, it is not, and individual preferences don’t carry a ton of weight.

But Judaism is not Christianity without Jesus. There is nothing in Judaism that is the equivalent of Paul’s disgust with sex and the body. There are stories in the Talmud that chastise scholars for spending too much time studying and not going home to attend to their wives’ needs. You are supposed to be completely naked when you have sex with your spouse. You are supposed to have sex with your spouse on the sabbath because it’s a joyous thing.

I don’t even really disagree with your underlying premise - that restricting consensual sex leads to repression that leads to other bad things. I’m a freedom-loving modern lady myself. It just bugs the crap out of me to see “Judeo-Christian” treated as some sort of valid descriptive category. We are our own thing!!!! Dammit!

Could this maybe be used as a “Fuck it!  If you are going to be in the business of businesses that serve the public, you can pay taxes like everyone else” moment? 
If that Catholic hospital is really a non-profit, they can still be non-taxed under something other than the religious exemption, right? 
How is this not an opertunity to snap back a complaint of being forced to support religion, with our tax dollars since church institutions and businesses don’t pay taxes despite getting government services and protections?  And to advocate to get rid of tax breaks for donations to religious organizations not otherwise proven to be non-profit for the same reason?

Crissa - the bathroom thing.  It is supposed to be equitable, which most people misread as equal.  There are supposed to be as many facilities for each, not the same square footage. The fact that a toilet takes up slightly more space than a urinal, and adding a stall even more space, does not negate the need to provide equal facilities.  Basically, people are sloppy and do not properly apply the spirit of law, thus we all suffer with longer lines for the women’s restroom - women by having to wait to go and men by having to wait for women they are out with.  The fact more women’s restrooms than men’s steal space for a baby changing area just makes the problem worse as extra space isn’t usually added and it re-enforces the social convention of baby care being women’s work (by making it hard for men with kids).

Dilan Esper - I am completely against separate accomidations.  Having a women only car, always not enough for all women, tacitly gives permission to harrass those women who dare to not use it (or who can’t because it is already full.  It is doubly descriminator as it restricts men from a public vehicle and it makes it more difficult for women to use the general use public vehicle.  The correct action is to enforce decent behavior, vigorously, not to separate.

Dilan:

This is what second wave feminists used to call the “protection racket”

That was kind of my point. Someone out there was writing recently about ‘benevolent sexism’—I think it’s important to recognize that there are different reasons behind limiting womens potential, and simply targeting the ugly, hateful ones (like “you have to sit in the front of the bus’) leaves the less ugly options wide open.

And: regardless of what they themselves say (or the fact that they dress ‘funny’, like the stereotypical images), the hasidim are not ‘authentic’ ‘real’ or even in many ways ‘traditional’ judaism. Most jews, including rabbis, disagree with them—not just because of ‘secular’ influences/reasons, but because of a reasoned understanding of jewish traditions, cultures, and laws. 

I stand by what I originally wrote, but here’s some expansion: compared to much of the christian (and post-christian/blandly christian/secularized-but-used-to-be-christian/mainly christian-influenced world)—jewish culture in its entirety is relatively sex-positive.

#55 and #59:

I get that there’s a difference between Hasidic Judaism and any notion of “authentic” Judaism. Indeed, I don’t like the concept of “authenticity” with respect to any religion. Is authentic Catholicism found in the tiny minority of Catholics who actually support the hierarchy’s position on birth control or the vast majority who do not?

But I also think you two are trying too hard to make it sound like the practices of Hasidic communities have nothing to do with Judaism or religion in general and that they’re some really strange offshoot with the same relationship to Judaism that, say, the Branch Davidians had to Christianity. And that is not the case.

In Israel, there are many non-Hasidic Orthodox Jewish communities that engage in massive discrimination against women and which are not in any way sex-positive—indeed, they are responsible for some very oppressive rules about sexual expression as well as gender segregation in parts of that country. From my understanding, it’s pretty nice to be a woman in Tel Aviv and absolutely abominable to be a woman in various parts of Jerusalem.

And the fact is, while Judaism is definitely distinct from Christianity, there are plenty of parts of the Hebrew Bible that are extremely sex negative. It isn’t as though Saul of Tarsus was the only religious person in history to have an aversion to female sexuality.

What I would say is if people are saying that traditional Judaism is just like Christianity and that’s why it’s sex-negative and anti-feminist, fine, that’s wrong. But if people say instead that traditional Judaism, like other major Bronze Age monotheistic religions, has significant sex-negative and anti-feminist elements, that seems correct to me.

And more generally, my problem with these sorts of arguments is that often times it’s the less devout and more liberal elements that keep the sexists in business. For instance, EJ Dionne and Chris Matthews are currently giving aid and comfort to the anti-sex crowd that runs their Church. Similarly, when liberal American Jews defend traditional communities, and minimize their sexist practices, and make excuses for them, and continue to fund them, that prevents reform. If many of these traditional communities were forced to face the modern world, if they were told in no uncertain terms that if they want assistance than they have to reform and stop treating women as property and sex as shameful, it would be much, much more difficult for them to resist change. Certainly the remnants of those communities would be much smaller.

Once again:

Judaism, as a cultural/historical whole, is relatively sex-positive compared to christian and christian-derived societies.

Attempts to approach any problems re: sexism in jewish societies must keep in mind that these problems are not identical to those in christian societies—and having different causes and characteristics, arguments which treat these communities as stereotypical ‘just like the worst of those other guys’ are worse than useless. Also not helpful: an outsider who, having heard of A Problem within some community, insists on jumping up & down and saying, “You guys fix this! It’s the Worst Thing Ever! And it’s Your Fault for not making The Worst Thing Ever not exist!”

I’m really not concerned with your obsession with certain of the haredim (though I am struck by the ease with which it fits into some very traditional cultural prejudices). 

If you are *really interested in these issues, I suggest you seek out varied sources in the jewish cultural and intellectual world—not just the ones easily found via mainstream american/english-speaking media. And not just the ones which confirm your existing prejudices. Also, just as with any cross-cultural investigation, I suggest you constrain any man-splaining tendencies until you’ve learned enough to comprehend multiple dimensions of the issues in question.

It’s funny that no matter how many times I say I’m not defending those practices, Dilan just keeps saying what a problem it is when liberals defend extremist religious positions. Why, it’s almost like you’re not reading my post!

Ultra-Orthodox communities don’t get support from liberal Jews. They are not dependent on liberal Jews. Many of them don’t even think we’re Jews. We have no influence on them, and if anything, they become more extreme in an effort to further distinguish themselves from us.

But thanks for your concern.

#62:

In fact, when the claim is made that this isn’t “real” Judaism, that Judaism is “sex positive”, et cetera, that DOES give aid and comfort to these people.

Indeed, my central point—which is an ideological objection, NOT concern trolling, is precisely that liberal Jews soft-pedal their criticism of these groups AND continue to fund causes that contribute to these groups for various reasons, and this leads to a lot more sex-negative misogyny. The same way that liberal Catholic males are carrying water for the bishops they supposedly disagree with on contraception.

You say: “Ultra-Orthodox communities don’t get support from liberal Jews. They are not dependent on liberal Jews.” Are you sure about this? Because I could have sworn that the ultra-Orthodox in Israel receive huge government subsidies, as do the settler community, and that many liberal Jews, just like politically conservative ones, are key players in opposing attempts to cut off US aid to Israel. And further that many Jewish charities, funded in part by American liberal Jews, as well as groups like the Anti-Defamation League,, also funded in part by American liberal Jews, aid the ultra-Orthodox in various ways.

Further, here in this country, the Hasidic Jews in communities like Kyrias Joel have received direct aid, legal assistance, and rhetorical defenses from more liberal Jewish communities.

And what I am seeing IN THIS THREAD from you and from Rachel is excuses. Well, they aren’t as bad as Christians. The culture’s traditional and based on obligations, rather than being sex-negative. Et cetera. You two are just incredibly resistant to any sort of attempt to say that traditional Jews, just like traditional Christians, have a big problem with sex and women. When it’s obvious they do.

As far as I’m concerned, while there are definitely different cultural factors and valences involved, and nobody should say that traditional Jewish misogyny and traditional Christian misogyny are the same phenomenon, they should still be met with the same response. The goal should be to make it very hard for people who want to oppress women and engage in sexual repression to do so. No money. no help. Strong, generally applicable rules that they are expected to follow. It should be very, very hard, to force women to go through what Deborah Feldman went through, and it’s easier than it should be in part because liberals in the Jewish community don’t do enough to force the traditionalists to stop oppressing women.

Thank you for your concern.