MGB:_What Bishop McElroy is talking about is the difference between religious freedom and religious power. The latter is no longer mandated for Catholics to seek, indeed they should not, under Dignitas Humanae, even if it is in relation to their own employees. Employers can certainly offer information on Natural Family Planning, or it can make such planning unnecessary except for health reasons by giving their employees a $12,000 raise whenever they have another child. Now that would be Christian witness to life.
When Murray was writing, Catholic power was part of the consensus on birth control. It took a Supreme Court case to clip its wings, although there are still those fighting back for dominance and against the Court’s protection of minority rights at state level from such dominance, especially when it is linked to the future of the Republican Party, which forecloses building a consensus on the economic issues that are so important to achieve a just society, issues the GOP would rather not discuss, let alone advance.
The Church can use its weight to stop that, but Republican leaning bishops must be willing to seek concessions from their own side, just as Democrats must be willing to compromise on when personhood begins under the law, which recognizes that the right to abortion is not absolute.
Sadly, the battle over birth control is about sex and who decides these ethics. Since Humanae Vitae, married Catholics have refused to listen to the pious ramblings of celibate/asexual clergy, who frankly have nothing to say on these matters. Arguing with them does no good, we need to OUT them, first to themselves.
Leaving people alone is the common good. Don't bemoan the loss of liberty on one hand and object to it on the other unless you mind being labeled economic libertarian/social conservative. That is just Republicanism and this article is really about the Church throwing in with the GOP.
Because Masterpiece would not sell a generic cake for the wedding, they are wrong and in violation of the Civil Rights Act public accommodations. I had thought they had offered the cake but not the topper, which would have been OK. Bakers don't get to discriminate based on what the cake is for.
I also thought that the couple had been offered a generic cake. News reports of the baker's statements clearly show he had not done so, that he felt he could never bake a wedding cake for a gay couple and that is a violation of law.
We shall soon see where the cake crumbs fall. I doubt that bakers will get a conscience exemption on picking their clients, but will be allowed to no customize the product. On the face of it, the baker acted with discrimination. He was making a political statement rather than a moral one. Can you deny someone business as an act of sour grapes? Does not sound like a valid exemption to me for him or the Church.
The baker was making a class distinction. Not allowed. He can withhold customization that is "gay" but making a political statement about gay weddings in that denial is moral scorn as speech, which is the religios freedom equivalent of yelling fire in a theater.
Lori wants religious power, not freedom. There is a huge difference and we will not go down that road again. One day, in a more libertarian society, the Church may yet provide social services for everyone, but it won't include a right to force people's conduct with force of law.
Lori and the Religious Freedom advocates wanted to give any Catholic employer the right to not only refuse to pay for birth control, but to make sure no one did. When the insurance companies came back with the promise to cover it at no cost to the employer, it took the wind out of their argument and what is left is a pathetic exercise in mis-defining moral culpability for the actions of others.
Little Sisters employees get their birth control, or will, once their lawyer starts dealing in good faith.
In all cases, contraception is provided at no cost to the employer. As for promoting it, the insurer mentions the availability. The employer only need notify that they will not participate in any such coverage. That is not endorsement and under the principle of double effect, it is not participation. This is fetishism and partisanship. The reality is that contraception was provided under their policy since 2001 as the result of EEOC action. The only change in the law was removing co-payments for employees.
Ignorance is not required for double effect questions. They can notify the insurer knowing that their intent is that the coverage not be granted but that it is none of their busienss that is. Actuarily, they do not participate. It truly is free.
Gays are a unique psychosocial identnity and they are identified under law for disparate treatment. That history of persecution entitles them to protected class status. Catholics who don't like that need to realize that their treatment of gays led to their need for special treatment under law. Catholics are a protected class too, but don’t push the issue on overturning the Blaine Amendments.
The Catholics who enforced movie censorship were also very anti-gay. The whole opposition to gay civil marriage and providing benefits to gay spouses who work in the the Church was discriminatory, as was preferring families of origin to spouses in Catholic hospitals, which only changed recently. The whole term same-sex attracted is discriminatory. The term is homosexual. It is separate sexuality and is differently ordered. Until the Church recognizes this and celebrates gay weddings, it is discriminating.
Insurance is based on need. Is it not unfair to deprive gay spouses of benefits they would get if they were heteronormative? You don't get to take advantage of discount based on discrimination.
Yes, bisexuals exist. Indeed, so do asexuals, demisexuals and others. Justice is dealing with them according to their own sexuality, not the least common denominator.
God created gay people as they are and their relationships are as entitled to sexual expression as anyone, as sex is a gift from God, not a means to an end. I would say that we need to banish the neo-platonic idiocy that requires procreation to justify sex from the Church. It is the creation of people who are asexual in the clergy and should not be making rules for desires they don't understand.
Workers can insure themselves alone. themselves and their children, or their entire family, depending on the policy they buy. Under the law, the form of the marriage is no longer at issue, whether a husband or a wife. No one outside the family is eligible (you can't cover a mistress or down-low lover). If you want real justice, support single-payer insurance.
Every worker should have the freedom to pick their plan. Indeed, once the Second US Circuit enacts the Employment Non-Discrimination Act as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because the SCOTUS made gays a protected class under the gay marriage rulings, it won't be a matter of debate. It will be actionable discrimination to not cover gay spouses. Single payer would let the Church dodge that bullet, but anything they disallow for gay civil marrieds that they allow for hetero civil marrieds can only be bigotry (and sour grapes).
Regardless, the Church is denying benefits currently due to sour grapes and the ttype of moral scorn that is the equivalent in freedom religion that yelling fire in a theater is for freedom of speech. A legal spouse getting insurance coverage is simply equal justice under law. There is no justification for not providing it, because if the same employee had a fake wife and a lover on the down-low, the wife would be covered. Gays don't engage in such self-loathing anymore unless they have the misforturne of encountering the Courage Apostlate. Wearing bigot as a badge of honor is perverse for an individual and a movement (let alone a Presidency). That is not freedom. The fact is, the Second Circuit will settle this within weeks and the Supreme Court will either affirm the case or refuse Certiori and nationalize the result. There are eight Justices who will hold this view and there may be nine.
Benefits are not dilluted by expanding them. They are entitlements in that way. The Church must recognize gay marriages if they continue to employ gay staff members who are married. Losing the ability to fire them for that reason (and wanting to do so is clearly bigotry) will be the result of Zarda v. Altitude Express. The Congress may rush to pass ENDA with religious exemptions, but I doubt they would be able to be less generous than the decision. The tragedy for the Church is that there are those who want to be. Any modernization of the Good Samaritan would likely be retold as the Good Drag Queen.
The decision will be to fund everyone as required under the law or no one. Discrimination is not allowed due to budget constraint. That would be like saying that Catholic organizations could deny non-Catholics insurance as a cost saving measure. Nope. Any organization that can't handle adding one gay spouse, maybe two, to their insurance rolls is probably too marginal to stay in business.
Tradition does not overcome law nor does your analysis. All spouses have to be covered or none of them in any ethics that is not discriminatory against gays. After Zarda, it won't be legal either. Insurance companies won't touch such an inclusion then, and probably few will do it now. Your argument has been overcome by events.
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