White House Flubs Contraception Compromise

“all the administration had to do was sit down with the conference and work out a mutually agreeable compromise”

BHO doesn’t do red wine conferences.

It could be all four: ineptitude, arrogance, polarization, and solidification.

It doesn’t matter what the base thinks of it. This move is to consolidate power and trample the constitution. This move is to separate Americans from their freedom to self-determination. Lilliputians are tying down Gulliver while he wonders if there is some sort of misunderstanding or miscommunication. There is a misunderstanding on Gulliver’s part only.

A diktat like this is pure arrogance and only a hint of what we will see when the sons of the Post Office run the medical system.

It’s a pretty well-known tactic. First, there’s the idea that in getting what you want it’s better to seek forgiveness than to ask permission. Then, when people object, you deflect attention from the act and place it on the apology – “I’m seeking forgiveness, why are you being so unreasonable?”

As for why he should go after the church in the first place, I think arrogance is probably the answer. He really, really believes that the legacy of his health care reform is more important than any other considerations, even Constitutional ones.

The Left is not very good at sharing power with anyone.

While the Via Meadia crew may be right about the political implications of this story; they’ve missed the forest for the trees (again). The real story hiding in plain sight is the Bishop’s anachronistic policy towards contraception.

We might as well call this policy what it is; a continuation of the Catholic Church’s centuries-old
Jihad against recreational sex. That not even most Roman Catholics take their church’s teachings about contraception seriously tells you all you need to know about the increasing irrelevancy of the Church hierarchy.

To be fair to the Church, it’s bizarre views are recapitulated in many of the world’s religions. Muslims believe that the Prophet ascended to heaven from Jerusalem on a flying horse. Tibetan Buddhists believe that they can reduce the number of reincarnations they will need before achieving Nirvana by circumambulating Mount Kailas three times in a counter-clockwise direction. Hindu acolytes of Vishnu believe he has four arms. The Bishop’s distaste for recreational sex and the contraception devices that make it safer and more reasonable isn’t any stranger than these beliefs of other religious groups (although it does tend to make the Bishop’s bigger party poopers).

In fact, the Bishop’s aren’t even the only religious leaders who have strange views of human sexuality; many ultra orthodox Rebbes will tell you that a man shouldn’t even touch a menstruating woman let alone engage in sexual relations with her.

The question that many people including many Roman Catholics are beginning to ask is whether there is a connection between the Bishop’s war on recreational sex and the child abuse scandals that have rocked the Church. Does the Bishop’s obsession with all things sexual from the virginity of Christ’s mother to the celibacy of the priesthood, to the bias against homosexuality (despite it’s prevalence amongst Catholic clergy), to the policy on contraception bear any relationship to the crisis rocking the Church.

It seems to me that this is a far more interesting question for Professor Mead and his colleagues to reflect on than the relatively inconsequential (in the scheme of things) political mistakes that the Obama Administration may have made.

From today’s news, a tidbit that suggests that God (masquerading as evolution) may also be on the side of the jihad against recreational sex: the CDC warns that a new strain of gonorrhea, resistant to the last antibiotic that worked, is poised to wreak havoc. A dose of the clap ain’t herpes, folks.

“Is this a deliberate choice of polarizing tactics to solidify the base, or simple ineptitude and arrogance?”

Yes. That, and the Progressive preference to have the State crowd out all other human institutions, particularly those which answer to a higher power than the almighty State.

Um, WigWag, it seems that you are saying the more important issue is to discuss why are the Catholics Catholic, right? That conversation will not impact voting come November. But the attempt to make Catholic conscience subject to the will of the nation state will only cost Obama come election time. Even “Liberal” Catholics realize this and are upset at the way this has gone down.

Anyone get the feeling that the White House is being chronically mismanaged, not just politically but purely from a business/media relations point of view?

Rahm Emanuel was the only thing ever keeping the Obama Administration afloat, and the only guy smart enough to jump ship soon enough.

The fact that “modern” Catholics use contraception is irrelevant to this controversy. It is analogous to the story of the woman who was asked if she would sleep with the man for a million dollars. She said yes, for a million dollars. He then asked if she would do it for one hundred. She replied, “What do you think I can ?” He answered, “We’ve established that. Now we are haggling about price.”

The bishops have swallowed a lot of leftist dogma. Now they are being backed into a corner. There are millions of people who oppose abortion and even contraception. The “morning after” pill is an abortion. The Catholic Left is being told that what they are has been established. Now, it’s price is being negotiated.

Recreational sex is certainly a shortened version of the Catholic belief in the dignity of life from conception to death. Strange how the Catholic stance against the death penalty is never viewed with the same derision as their belief regarding conception and I believe they use the same logic and reasoning.
They are consistent.

This is not so much about the church as it is about the church goers. Millions of them own businesses they have convictions too. Its not enough to gain excemptions for the church the President wants to force the business owners to throw in the towell on providing insurance so he can come to the rescue.

“The real story hiding in plain sight is the Bishop’s anachronistic policy towards contraception.” And then follows a long explanation of why the Catholic Church’s official belief about this religious matter is wrong, wrong, wrong, for which reason it should cause no one concern that the federal government is prohibiting them from practicing their religion.

Wow, WigWag. Wow.

You might want to consider whether this concept of religious freedom would mean when the occupant of the White House is someone who disagrees with you.

It isn’t about contraception. It’s about religious freedom. If you don’t get that … wow.

@WigWag:
Congratulations on conflating the following ideas:
1. That intercourse has both biological and emotional/spiritual ramifications.
2. Some people think a particular deity has extra body parts.

The Catholic Church has a lot of dogma. Given. Much of it has a good reason. You are free to not agree with the dogma, or the reason, because we live in a country with religious freedom. And thank God for that.

I could cite specifics from the Concordance, or Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, but this isn’t the forum for it. So I’ll say this instead: may your children, and your children’s children, go easy on the contraceptives: your retirement benefits are counting on them.

What everyone forgets is that Catholics have an emotional attachment to their church that Obama (that shallow man) could never understand. Of course we were disgusted by abuse of childrenand of course we do not always agree on some of the churches doctrines. But you have to remember these priests baptized us, gave us first communion, married us and consoled us when we dealt with death be it ours or someone else. Even those who have left the church (with the notable exception of Bill Keller of the NYT) remember prayers and the ritual of mass. They may bot like organized religion but they do not like to see the government deciding that it is the sole moral dictator of our own personal freedom.

@MarkJ

Is there any proof Obama’s brain has a right side?

Obama’s folks were hoping they could limit the debate to contraception, and that the Catholic leaders would be sidelined by the time everyone realized the HHS order was really the first step towards Federally-funded abortions under Obamacare. I’m still pretty sure that’s where they want to go with this, but they will wait to force us to pay for abortions until 2013.

The people supporting Obama and his thugs are not liberals, they are libertines.

It is estimated that women spend over $100 billion each year on beauty aids. Add in clothes, shoes and weight loss plans, it adds up to real money. A few percent of that would cover this “health need”. If they spent a little less on beauty, there might be less need for the contraceptives. But as Micky Gilley says, the girls all get prettier at closing time.

then “announced” a compromise, but it was a shell game, since everyone will still have to pay for contraceptive and abortive medicine (or did you think that insurance companies will print their own money?).

And actually it makes it worse: those of us who self insure will also be forced to pay for it, since there will be no health insurance that doesn’t include these medications.

I agree, the Obama administration did not think this through. But! I believe he had the best interest for women with this issue. He just wanted equal healthcare for everybody. Which is not a bad thing. but! She did not take into consideration religious views, that is religious views of the church, the religious views of the church and the religious views of its followers, are not the same. National poll, if there was one. would show, the Catholic women, would like the option

How about this: Obama raised the contraception issue to test the depth, breadth and will of opposition to his stated purpose to “transform America”. He has already crammed down Obamacare by talking the Senate Parliamentarian into allowing it to proceed as a budget issue, thus requiring only 51 votes to pass instead of the 60 which would have been required otherwise. Now that his re-election chances don’t look like a lock he has to move more aggressively to advance his desired transformation. What better way to advance his agenda than taking on the Catholic Church, or should I say taking out the Catholic Church. The portion of his base which will support him is large, loud, united and ruthless. The Catholic Church (and its potential supporters such as the Southern Baptist Convention) is large but how united, loud, and ruthless can they be? Will they be? If Obama can prevail in this battle, what stands in the way of him doing whatever else he wants?
I’m a novice in these matters but I’ve always thought Obama’s statement that he wanted to “transform America” was a bad thing, that he wanted (and wants) to turn us into another European social democracy (at best) and a 2nd rate world power (at best). I thought and still think America is fundamentally good, sound, and OK. It can definitely use some tweaking. But transformation? No. A social democracy? No way! A 2nd rate world power? No way!

“So the Church’s teachings that homosexual acts are wrong, sex that is not open to procreation is wrong, and all sex outside of marriage are wrong caused priests to fondle boys? Want to connect the dots for me on that one?” (AK @ February 14, 2012 at 3:38 pm)

Sure, AK, let me connect the dots for you. Many critics, including Catholic critics like Gary Wills, believe that in a church obsessed with all things sexual that men with unresolved sexual issues are drawn to a celibate priesthood. When these men prove unable to conquer their erotic urges, they act out in unhealthy and even illegal ways. While I am happy to stipulate that homosexuality doesn’t increase the proclivity to child abuse, many critics have suggested that a celibate priesthood not only attracts homosexuals looking to sublimate their sexual desires but also men with more destructive sexual inclinations. There is nothing very startling about this theory; it is widely discussed and debated in Catholic circles.

It is worth remembering that the Catholic Church’s bizarre thinking about sexuality is not limited to dogma advanced by the Catholic hierarchy. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Catholic (and also Eastern Orthodox) iconography is often struck by the pseudosexual nature of much Catholic art. The San Damiano Cross in Assisi is one example of this and Michelangelo’s Pieta is another. That homoeroticism is a common feature of much Catholic art is now so routinely accepted that it is no longer even controversial.

So the answer to your question, AK, is that the Church’s long Jihad against recreational sex and the strange inclinations that motivate it just might be related to the sex scandals that have rocked the Church.

About the kindest thing that can be said about the Church’s sexual obsessions is that they are not alone in seeking to control the sexual activities of their congregants. As I said in an earlier post, ultra orthodox Jews frequently hold bizarre views about human sexuality. Perhaps Islam is the worst offender. Remember that in wide swaths of the Muslim world, female genital mutilation is ubiquitous in the form of clitorectomies forced upon young girls shortly after puberty. The whole purpose of this practice is to limit premarital recreational sex, at least by women.

I think we should be grateful that the Catholic Church merely wants to withhold contraception from young women thus threatening them with the prospect of unwanted pregnancy if they engage in premarital recreational sex. This is far better than the all too common practice of some Muslims who mutilate the genitals of young girls to accomplish the same purpose

Obama is forcing the leftists within the Catholic Church to declare their true affiliations. He is purposefully creating schism in order to fracture the voices of the ostensibly religious. He seeks to aggrandize himself, and centralized government, at the expense of another societal entity.

In other words, business as usual for Obama.

“Mother Nature is going to be much more effective in curtailing recreational sex than the Catholic Church will ever.” (Mrs. Davis @ February 14, 2012 at 3:58 pm)

I am afraid not Mrs. Davis. Recreational sex has been enjoyed for thousands of years; long before the invention of antibiotics which stemmed venerial disease. The fact that new drug resistant forms of venerial disease are appearing merely begins to restore the status quo ante that existed for most of human
history. People did not stop having sex for the fun of it as a result of the AIDS epidemic and they won’t stop now. Leaders in the Roman Catholic Church have, throughout history, been like the leaders of other religious movements; profoundly misogynist. The ban on contraception doesn’t insure that there will be no recreational sex, it insures that the social consequences of recreational sex are almost entirely born by women. No doubt that despite their lame protestations to the contrary, this has always been an outcome perfectly acceptable to the Bishops.

How many Bishops and Popes down through history do you suppose have fathered children secretly while their lovers were forced to accept the consequences?

One other comment, directed towards WigWag:

WigWag, with respect, on topics related to religion, you are speaking in a deeply uninformed way. I know you don’t see it, but some of the comments you’ve made (re: the presumably twisted sexuality of Catholics) are absolute howlers. I’m reminded of some of Stephen Hawking’s remarks about God, or, for that matter, some of Pat Robertson’s.

It’s no great shame to be uninformed on a topic — nobody can be an expert on everything — but for one’s own sake, one ought to try to keep one’s public commentary confined to topics in which one can avoid making amateur mistakes.

This is not a “shut up” (I have no authority to issue such a command) and of course I would never violate your freedom of speech by using force to compel silence.

It is merely a suggestion, which I am offering it in lieu of trying to address what you’ve said directly and specifically to correct the errors.

This is admittedly the “easy way out.”

My only excuse is that doing it the hard way would really be a huge time-investment. The closest analogy I can think of is a complex word-problem requiring calculus being attempted by a kid who knows nothing past 5th grade math. Of course the kid gets the answer wrong. And if you know the calculus, even in a shaky way, you can see that the kid got it wrong. But does that mean you’re gung-ho about taking him aside and explaining why? Probably not. You first would have to teach him calculus, assuming he’s willing to learn. And if his pride is already tied up in thinking he had it right the first time, it’s probably hopeless.

I tried, just now, to retain a respectful and reasonably friendly tone, while still being accurate. I’m not sure how well I’ve succeeded. Perhaps you could go to a Catholic friend you respect, who really knows Christopher West and Alice von Hildebrand and Dawn Eden quite well, and get a bit of a primer from them? That’s as you see fit. But it’d be better if you didn’t comment on these matters again until you did.

WigWag and Tom Holsinger -

You make some interesting charges about the Catholic Church. It may surprise you that in his defense of the US Bishops rejection of the ObamaCare mandate, Paul Rahe — author, professor of history at Hillsdale College, etc. — agrees with you to some extent. The Catholic Bishops are by no means innocent in this case.

But he does defend their position, not only from the Roman Catholic tradition, but also quite convincingly from the American position. The Founders had several items that they believed in quite strongly, and one was religious freedom. I highly recommend his ”American Catholicism’s Pact With the Devil”.

I also urge you to recognize that Obama’s HHS’s heavy-handed move is just the start. Let’s see what the reaction is as GOP candidates begin speculating about what else is in store as ObamaCare kicks in. If the US Postal Service can end Saturday delivery of mail to save a couple of bucks, ObamaCare can end hip and knee transplants for those over 72, heroic efforts to save the lives of infants born prematurely (probably termed “sudden fetal ejection” in HHS lingo), regular pediatric care for Down’s syndrome kids, and on and on. The IPAB is empowered to do all this and more, so please stand by.

The more I look at this the more troubling it is. Obama has used this issue to energize his leftist base which has convinced itself that objection to this mandate is tantamount to looming theocracy. If Obama loses the election it will mean a temporary reprieve for religious freedom. But in asymmetric fashion, if he wins it will be seen as a mandate for the dismantling of religious freedom on any grounds the state or the will-to-power left sees fit.

The “compromise” was never intended to solve the issue, or to satisfy the bishops, or even most catholics. It was only intended to provide political cover for leftist catholics to defect from their opposition, allow the media to hail him on his great compromise, and even allow some leftists to make him look moderate by criticising the “compsomise”, while at the same time giving away absolutely nothing.

I read Walter Mead’s post and the 60 responses. I leafed through the statements of the bishops, the Presidential candidates, and the Senate leaders. Nowhere have I seen any description of what is in Obama’s compromise and why is it wrong. Mead is concentrating on how the compromise is presented, but, from my experience, this is the first sign of not being able to argue about the essence. Before I come to the conclusion that I am being had, maybe someone can explain what is in the Friday compromise, and what is wrong with it? Thanks.

Harasan:

What Craig just said is correct.

It’s pretty simple, and we can see it quite clearly through a non-religious analogy which still involves a matter of conscience.

Say that you’re a Vegan, and you decide to start a not-for-profit community organization offering free school lunches for poor kids and tutoring at-risk kids in the afternoons. You “brand” it as a “Vegan” charity; with signage associating it with Veganism. As part of that, you have a cafeteria in your headquarters…though of course it doesn’t serve meat. And all the school lunches you pack and after-school snacks you offer to the kids being tutored are vegetarian.

In comes the Federal Government. They say, “Guess what? We’re instituting a program which says that, since all employees have to eat, all employers must provide a cafeteria to employees.”

No problem, you think: You already do.

Later, the Federal Government revises the policy a bit: “Because all employees have to eat, but some of them lack the money to buy a good meal, we’re requiring that all company cafeterias must serve meals for free.”

Annoying, but still no problem, you reason. You can just lower your employee salaries by whatever it takes to cover compliance costs. You’re not a libertarian free-marketer so you see no reason to oppose the mandate on love-of-liberty principles. Or, maybe you are a liberty-lover, but it’s too much hassle to fight city hall over something that really doesn’t bug you all that much.

Then the Federal Government comes in and says, “Because all employees have to have protein in their diet, and because the human body is clearly omnivorous not purely herbivorous, if your organization has a cafeteria it must serve meals which include meat in quantities compliant with the FDA food pyramid guidelines.”

At this point, you balk. “Hey,” you think, “the Federal Government is forcing me to provide for my employees’ needs in a way which I think is immoral!”

So, you ask for an exception to be made for Vegan organizations, as a matter of conscience.

The Federal Government replies, “Understood. We value your liberty to follow your conscience, so we will offer an exception for Vegan organizations on the meat requirement.”

Excellent, you think. And it stays that way for fifty years.

Then one day, out of the blue, the Federal Government radically tightens the exemption, not even through a law, but through executive-branch regulation.

Now, all of a sudden, the only Vegan organizations that are exempt from the meat requirement are those which (a.) are staffed only by Vegans, with no non-Vegan volunteers or employees, and (b.) only serve Vegans as part of their organizational mission, and do not attempt to serve non-Vegans.

Any Vegan organization not falling within that narrow exemption is required to serve meat lunches and snacks, or pay a crushing fine annually.

Suddenly, your organization is screwed. You have mostly Vegan employees, but you’ve never minded non-Vegans working there as secretaries and whatnot. You like and respect your non-Vegan employees. Furthermore, you’ve always served disadvantaged kids whether they’re Vegan or not.

But now, it’s either serve steak and hot dogs, or pay a couple of million dollars in fines every year.

Since you refuse to do the former as a matter of conscience, and since the latter will destroy your whole budget for charitable work in months, there’s no option: You must close down. You’re screwed. Probably your offices and gear will be bought at fire-sale prices by non-Vegan charities doing the same kind of work.

That is what the Federal Government is doing to Catholics, some Eastern Orthodox and Conservative Evangelicals, and some Conservative/Orthodox Jews and Muslims, with the new HHS requirements.

It is driving them out of charitable work in education and health care and pretty much anything that involves them doing good works for persons who aren’t necessarily members of their faith. That’s because ministering to folk outside their faith takes them outside the exemption. And, it’ll likewise force them to fire any employees that aren’t members, for the same reason.

That was the Obama policy prior to the “compromise.”

Then came the “compromise”: Instead of the Vegans having to serve the steaks themselves, they are forced by law to hire a caterer, and all caterers are forced by law to provide steaks as a “free,” non-optional add-on to all meals. Of course the employee or kid doesn’t have to eat the steak, but it’ll be on the tray regardless, and since the caterers have to provide it with all meals for no extra charge, they way they pay for it is by rolling the cost into what their customers pay for catering…including the Vegan customers.

That’s the “compromise.” Har, har.

All clear, now?