The Bishops are wrong

And its really sad-because I admire the Catholic Church on so many things. But I won't go with them on this.  Especially since the church's teachings on sex are totally screwed up.

The President offered up a rhetorical solution in response to their rhetorical freak-out over language in a new health insurance rule and the fiction that their objection was about religious freedom was exposed as bullshit. They could walk away, but instead they are pumping up the volume to keep the issue alive. It is a political play that has more to do with Republican politics than almost anything else.

The Bishops are demanding an end to any rule that requires any insurance company to cover any contraception or family planning as basic health issues for women. This is just the latest iteration of a centuries old objection to women having control of their bodies, their lives, their happiness and their liberty by the conservative power-focused elites running the Roman Catholic Church. This objection manifests itself in screeds against anything that treats sex as an activity separate from breeding and/or free from the dictates of Church Law.

And yet, I don’t think this latest play is about sex or even the Church trying to control the lives of women—I think it is about power and that sex, women, gay marriage and a host of other culture warrior issues are the pathway that they see as the golden road.

For anybody who has looked at the history of the Catholic Church (and any organized religion for that matter) a key part of their activities over time becomes how to maintain power, privilege and influence—and all the goodies that come with it. Eventually that is all that matters for the institution. The greatest success in this effort always comes when political leaders bow to the dictates of the Holy Roman Church and agree to make State Law subservient to Church Law. Back in the days of Kings and Queens you only had a handful of elites you had to work with and the mutual pursuit of power inspired many of them to treat Church Law as State Law. It worked for a long while and then came the Reformation, Protestantism, King Henry, the Enlightenment, Democracy and eventually a desire by more and more people to make their laws free of religion and the dictates of any Church.

The United States of America was founded on the belief that Church and State are separate and that the Laws of this Nation trump the laws of any religion—including the Roman Catholic Church. As you can imagine, this has made the conservative wing of the Catholic Church quite sad. For over a century they have been on the losing end of many political fights—especially when it comes to women in America. The Church opposed suffrage for women and any effort over the years that might free women from the Church sanctioned role of breeder. The Church has fought every form of contraception and lost most battles. They also have lost the battle of finding any American politician who was willing to embrace the idea that US Law should be subservient to Church Law—until now.

Living here in Europe where they have national health insurance-and thus what is covered or not is none of the church's business-the issue seems even more ludicrous. If the US had a national health insurance program this would be a non-issue. But don't kid yourself, this is just the beginning, the moral lunatics will extend the rules to other venues, end of life care being the one that most readily comes to mind. Fuck that.

 

I don’t watch Meet the Republicans, This Week with the GOP or any of the other Sunday shows, but reliable sources report that Jack Lew went on Face the Conservatives and State of the Right Wing with Candy Crowley yesterday and told the bishops that clowntime is over:

 

Mr. Lew said the president put out a solid plan, and when asked whether there is more room for compromising said, “No. This is our plan.”

 

In an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Mr. Lew said, “We’re going to go ahead and implement it.” He said the White House has “broad consensus – not universal consensus – that this is an approach that’s right.”

 

Rick Santorum was on next, and his face got red as he cried, bunched up his little fists and pounded the table saying that in his ideal world women would be constantly pregnant, but until he can raise up his new caliphate, he’ll accept that sluts can take their shame to a pharmacy and get the pill, but those roundheels should have to pay for it. Or words to that effect.

And is it just me, or do any of you detect a bit of a post-coital flush coloring Mitch McConnell’s pronouncement on Bob Scheiffer’s Old Man Show that not only Catholics, but any employer, should be able to decide not to pay for contraception as long as they dispense Viagra like a holy sacrament? My guess is that Mitch just renewed his Rx for the little blue pill for free on his Congressional health plan.

Insurance companies are supposed to be bill payers-nothing more. When you empower them to make value judgments on peoples lives-you are doing nothing but giving them yet another excuse to fuck people over. The religious conservatives are advocating a  fantastically broad standard – including the "toll on others" who have nothing to do with the Catholic organizations at all but who might just infer that contraception is OK – essentially ending any idea of the law as a neutral means for citizens with radically different moral views to choose for themselves what is good or bad. The law must reflect morality and that morality must be based on Catholic "natural law" . The stupidity and basic immorality of that position should be plainly evident to anyone with a brain.

Of course by that standard-just about all tea party supporters are not included. Since they lost the ability to think cognitively a long time ago-as evidenced by their support for Santorum and this stupid position.