Ah, Argumentum ad Obtuseum.
Very well, I shall rephrase.
There are a lot more religious voters whom Obama needs to court for votes than there are people who despise religious conservatives in general and the Catholic Church in particular. If Obama is pandering to the people who despise religious conservatives in general and the Catholic Church in particular, then he’s going to lose more voters than he’d get.
Or you’re just making stuff up. Which is it?
Also, see the numbers: Catholics favor this policy by a 58-37 margin. The main opposition comes from white evangelicals, who oppose it by 56-38. But Obama’s not going to get the votes of the 56% of white evangelicals who oppose it, no matter what he does.
One group that gave Obama a lot of support in 2008 was young, secular women. The key with young voters is to give them a reason to show up and vote. This surely helps with that demographic.
I sure haven’t. Consider the Catholic Church’s opposition to the death penalty and torture and campaigning for rights for immigrants. Would you care to explain how these are really about sex?
Are you able to quote any passage from Catholic dogma which says this? If not, why not?
This is not quite entirely accurate. Ever since 2000, any health plan that covered prescription drugs of any kind - and that would be the vast majority of them - is also required to cover contraceptives. This was a relatively uncontroversial fact all during the Bush presidency, and yes, institutions run by religious groups were included in this (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, if you’re scoring at home). The reasoning here was gender discrimination - if your plan covers Viagra, it has to cover the pill, too.
mother jones.com/politics/2012/02/controversial-Obama-birth-control-rule-already-law
I don’t recall the Church saying that pro-capital punishment or anti-immigrant politicians should be denied communion, the way that they said pro-choice politicians should be, but I’m sure you’ll correct me if I’m mistaken.
I probably could if I looked for one, but why should I do that, since to dispute it, you have to assert that none of the abortions performed each year involve unwanted pregnancies?
But if you’re really interested, here are a couple:
EvilCaptor started the thread to discuss a certain theory of his explaining Obama’s motivations. It looks like there’s widespread agreement that the theory doesn’t hold water. If you want to discuss yuor theory that all or almost all voters in Obama’s camp don’t hate the Catholic Church, feel free to start a separate thread on that.
Um… Lightnin’ is discussing YOUR theory that he did this to pander to “people who despise religious conservatives in general and the Catholic Church in particular.” Perhaps you should have started a separate thread for that, but since you didn’t, here seems like as good place to discuss it, unless Evil Captor objects.
This is demonstrably false. At least 8 states require coverage without exemptions for religious beliefs.
When come back, bring facts. And pie. Mmmmmm pie.
Please don’t junior moderate. It can be annoying in its own right, but what you’re doing here is particularly irksome. You said in no uncertain terms that Obama made this move to pander to voters in his base who hate religious conservatives and the RCC specifically. It is unquestionably your theory, and one you have not supported with facts even though a few posters (including me) asked you to. You’re entitled to your opinion, but tossing out provocative opinions and refusing to cite them is aggaravating. Couple it with junior modding and it’s very close to trolling. Don’t do it again.
In the meantime, you may cite your comments about Obama’s base or you may drop the theory and not bring it up again in this thread.
I wrote about this last summer, when Obama first issued his executive order mandating that, under his Health Care Act, all insurance plans would be required to provide birth control with no co-pay.
Here’s a link to my post back then:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14087757&postcount=10
And a link to the Huffington Post article I was referenced -
That original executive order was released on August 1 last year - which was the same day that the grueling Debt Crisis bill ended in confusion and a tentative win for the Dems. Obama had taken a lot of crap at the time for not standing up to the Republicans.
I said at the time in a different post that I was starting to think Obama was playing Rope-a-Dope with the Republicans, offering them all sorts of compromises they weren’t going to take. In the end, the Dems got a temporary bill passed and set up the “super-congress” committee, which I initially hated, but ultimately, the super-congress fell through again, leaving Obama free to end the Bush tax cuts next year - if he’s elected.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Obama signed that executive order on the day that the debt crisis bill passed, or that it’s a coincidence that the issue is back in the news right when it’s ginning up the Republican candidates to “run against birth control.” (Oh, they aren’t really, of course. Mostly. That’s not the point. They’re not pig fuckers either. Mostly.)
And I agree with Rachel Maddow. This is about winning the women’s vote. And I absolutely believe Obama knows it.
Obama’s giving Catholics freedom, ITR. With this new rule, Catholics employed by the church have the freedom to choose whether or not to get birth control. They didn’t have that choice before if they worked for the church and couldn’t afford it. So you see, this is a pro-Catholic move
As an atheist, then, I’m horribly offended by this and think its another attack on secularism in this country
Really, what Obama needs to do is to get out the word, through channels sympathetic to him, just what this measure actually does. It’s a challenge, though, since he needs to target this clarification to Catholics (others would probably just be confused at why he’s bringing it up), and I’m not sure how he would accomplish this.
I was thinking along the same lines the other day - that the RCC still takes what we would regard as liberal positions on a goodly number of issues, but it just never seems that they put any weight or force behind their views on those. But abortion or homosexuality or contraception - you’ll hear from them on issues like these.
Catholics employed by the church already have the freedom to choose whether or not to get birth control before this rule goes into effect. Affording it is not an issue, since it’s available for free in many places. But before this rule was created, Catholics who ran an organization had the freedom to choose whether or not to buy an insurance program that covered birth control. Now they no longer have the freedom to make that choice. Therefore the rule in question takes freedom away from Catholics and others.
Can you name those eight states and name the legislation–or better yet, link to the legislation–that takes away the rights of churches to buy the insurance plans that they want in those eight states?
That’s not exactly true. Catholic organization do not have to provide health insurance to their employees. All they have to do is pay the fine and their conscience is clean.
Here’s a quote from the statute in Georgia:
According to the CDC, “Contraceptive use in the United States is virtually universal among women of reproductive age” among women who have had sex. If there’s actually any serious problem getting contraceptives among women, why would the CDC report that? Furthermore, if there’s a serious problem of women employed by the Catholic Church not being able to pay for their birth control pills from the Church’s insurance program, then why can’t they just switch to a different insurance program? Wasn’t the central claim of Obama’s health care program that it would provide good, affordable coverage options to everyone?
You say it’s 29 states, Snowboarder Bo says it’s eight states. Who should I trust?