Religious Contraception Mandate Reveals You Can't Have It Both Ways

Oh God a religious issue, for those of you who know me read on at your own discretion. Health & Human Services Director Kathleen Sebelius announced plans this week to push forward with a plan to mandate coverage for contraception, and other related services, that primarily, but not exclusively effect catholic based health care providers. The Obama administration says all religious hospitals, charities, schools must pay for employees' birth control. Roman Catholic bishops and institutions across the country are mounting their defenses against the Obama administration's requirement to include contraception in employees' health benefits, a mandate they have been able to avoid for years. Nonprofit employers, who do not currently provide contraceptive insurance coverage based on religious beliefs, will have until Aug. 1, 2013, to comply with the new regulations. Although the mandate doesn't apply to churches, it does affect affiliated colleges, schools, social service agencies and hospitals. The majority of those effected are Catholic charities, and the narrow caveat for these groups is they can side-step this mandate if they solely employ Catholics, and treat Catholics who cling to what would be considered standard church dogma regarding contraception. However, in the real world scenarios in which these entities function daily, that would prove highly unlikely.

So the question is should these "religious" institutions be forced to operate under the same standards as everybody else? To which my answer is "Yes, absolutely." Why does Any town Hospital USA have to uphold these contraceptive mandates, and Catholic Any town USA Hospital not? Because they put the word "Catholic" before hospital? In houses of worship nationwide, not just Catholic ones, the basic tenants of church beliefs are taught week after week, without interference from the government to their congregations. It's called freedom of religion, and those beliefs remain untouched by this mandate, as they should be. Whatever your religious affiliation you have the freedom to worship, assemble, and teach your religious beliefs until you turn blue, and this is all done in a place we affectionately call "Church". Sanctuaries where you can explore and espouse your individual religions unabated by government.

However, I take issue with those "religious" entities who have for years practiced under the guise of helping the collective "public" good, while being exempt from "public" funded regulation, because they can hide behind the blanket of religious freedom. If you operate in the real world as a hospital, school, or social service, just because you put your religious affiliation before that hospital, school or social service's name doesn't make you a "Church". If you want the protections, tax exceptions, and other benefits religions in this country are afforded on a daily basis, then you must make hospitals, schools, and social services an extension of that "Church". You must serve catholics, with catholics, to provide for catholics. The very concept, is the definition of discrimination. Let's face facts here, the only difference between a bed in a public hospital and a catholic one, is the crucifix. Nobody who works for these institutions should be denied the same opportunities, that everyone else gets, because they add a word to their title that implies a religious affiliation, and if you think the Catholic church, or any other church for that matter, is a non-profit organization, I have some swamp land you may be interested in? You can't have it both ways.

We are all individuals, and no hospital, school, or even church, has the right to dictate how you live, or be given the power to encumber your choices. If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one. If you oppose birth control don't use it, if you hold these beliefs as part of your devotion to the teachings of the catholic church then practice them with all your might. However, organizations cannot continue to hide behind the hypocrisy of bogus religious ties in order to discriminate against individuals who may work for them, in a public context, at any level. If a low income agnostic woman is working for a catholic school as a janitor, should she be denied birth control because she does not believe in the catholic belief to the contrary? If so, then who is discriminating against who? If she had excellent credentials as a hard working professional in her field, but wasn't catholic, should that disqualify her for employment? Again, isn't that religious discrimination? So before we all get on our religious high horses, understand the real world implications of what these organizations are asking for and realize, you can't have it both ways.