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So..Obama, health care and Catholics. Did he blow it? - Printable Version +- MacResource (https://forums.macresource.com) +-- Forum: My Category (https://forums.macresource.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: 'Friendly' Political Ranting (https://forums.macresource.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=6) +--- Thread: So..Obama, health care and Catholics. Did he blow it? (/showthread.php?tid=131632) |
Re: So..Obama, health care and Catholics. Did he blow it? - Filliam H. Muffman - 02-07-2012 Acer wrote: Partly this. I think it is partly a battle between the Church getting it's hands into everything and wanting to be able to use "religious freedom" defense as the excuse to control the lives of people who are not Catholic, versus the government trying to get full medical coverage for the non-Catholic that work for those businesses. Re: So..Obama, health care and Catholics. Did he blow it? - haikuman - 02-07-2012 """It's really all about Government being able to force people into doing something they believe is unethical. Is THAT something you agree with ?""" The Catholic Church has bigger fish to fry when it comes to ethics me thinks . Mentioned politely and with "NO" attack on you Sir Cbelt. Once the Church enters the arena of business they should expect to be treated like other businesses. This church in particular has a very nasty record of looking out for parishioner rights imho. Re: So..Obama, health care and Catholics. Did he blow it? - Rolando - 02-07-2012 Pops wrote:I don't think you are alone. http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=anti+abortion+atheist&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 My opinion on abortion is as secular as it is religious. Human life is not a duck or dog or snail. Life is the first right. Without ones life, all other rights are moot. Libertarians for Life Re: So..Obama, health care and Catholics. Did he blow it? - cbelt3 - 02-07-2012 haikuman.. no arguments that the Church does not have clean hands. I'm afraid that the history of any organized religion is quite bloody. And yet... The real argument is not over history, or child abuse, but over the constitutionality of forcing a religious organization to fund medical supplies that it believes unethical, and medical procedures that it finds anathema at its very core. If this can happen, where are the limits ? Can we force Jews to not circumcise ? Can we force Muslims to eat Pork ? Can we force Vegans to eat Meat ? Can we force PETA members to wear Fur ? and so on... Re: So..Obama, health care and Catholics. Did he blow it? - mattkime - 02-07-2012 Unless I've misunderstood something, nobody is forcing catholics to use birth control or have abortions. Coverage under health plans is being forced. i'm not a theologian, but I doubt the Bible specifies what can and can't be covered in insurance policies. Yes, some Catholics are going to be very much against this policy. However, its my experience that most Catholics lean liberal with their politics and openly disagree with their church on a number of topics. This will pass rather quickly. cbelt3 wrote: Re: So..Obama, health care and Catholics. Did he blow it? - $tevie - 02-07-2012 cbelt3 wrote: Why is my question so difficult for people to answer? It's a simple non-agenda-driven question and NOT a set-up for agenda-driven responses. In what sense is the Church "paying" for these services? Do the premiums actually go down or something if they aren't "participating"? Re: So..Obama, health care and Catholics. Did he blow it? - Gutenberg - 02-07-2012 Can Catholics force non-Catholics to return to the Dark Ages? That's the question. The Catholic Church should not interfere with non-Catholics' right to contraception. Period. If the Catholic Church chooses to hire non-Catholics--and it DOES have the right to discriminate, being a religious entity--then it must allow them to follow their own beliefs. Re: So..Obama, health care and Catholics. Did he blow it? - Ted King - 02-07-2012 cbelt3 wrote: A better way of putting that in this context is - can a kosher deli owner be forced to have pork on his menu? But let's flip that around. If religious freedom means that religious institutions and all their affiliated activities cannot be constrained by the government, then - can a hospital run by a religious institution refuse to treat a gay person because doing so went against their religious belief? Or a black person? If we treat religious freedom as an absolute principle, then the answer to those question would be, yes, they can refuse to treat people based only on the person's sexual orientation or race. I suppose some people will say that we should treat religious freedom as an absolute principle, but I don't think most people would agree and I certainly do not. But I do agree that religious freedom is important even though I am an atheist. So, like with so many things, it's not a matter of absolute principles, but where to draw the line. Did the Obama administration draw the line where it imposes overly much on religious freedom. It is a tough call. When it comes to abortion, I can understand that requiring the paying for that is drawing the line too far, but with contraception I'm not so sure. The reality is that in practice the vast majority of people use contraception, and I think that practical reality goes a long way towards trumping religious freedom. Also, most people anymore are paying a significant part of their medical premiums along with the contribution from their employer which mitigates against this being wholly about the religious freedom of the employer. Re: So..Obama, health care and Catholics. Did he blow it? - $tevie - 02-07-2012 Gutenberg wrote: See, that's what I'm thinking too. Why fiddle with federal policy when the Church could have their own policy that you sign an agreement that you won't use contraceptives etc. while you work for them. Re: So..Obama, health care and Catholics. Did he blow it? - Gutenberg - 02-07-2012 The question here is denial of women's health services. The First Amendment guarantees right to worship as an individual right. The individual right trumps the group's. The group--the Catholic Church--cannot force non-Catholics to observe its dogma. Here is the text of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." What it states is that the nation shall not establish a national religion. Then it goes on to guarantee the individual right to worship. It does not grant any church or religion the right to behave however it pleases. The United States prohibits animal and human sacrifice, for instance. It prohibits polygamy. And it prohibits a religious entity from refusing basic care to any specific group of people. |