POLITICS APRIL 9, 2012
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The Republican Party’s alleged “war” against women is fast emerging as a major trope of the 2012 elections. And the charge is largely true: As the GOP has become increasingly conservative, so too has it become increasingly hostile to feminism and insensitive to women’s issues.
But Democrats have not merely been horrified bystanders wringing their hands as this “war” has unfolded. The Democratic Party has actively encouraged the GOP’s descent into antifeminism. And though Democrats have reaped considerable gains from the fallout, their efforts have often ultimately been to the detriment of the country’s women.
As various accounts have pointed out, the Republican Party for most of its history was broadly supportive of women’s rights and aspirations, at any rate by the standards of the times. A Republican Congress endorsed the amendment giving women the vote in 1919, and 80 percent of the state legislatures that approved it were Republican-controlled. The party instituted gender-based affirmative action in 1940 by requiring the Republican National Committee to have one woman and one man from each state, decades in advance of similar reforms by the Democrats. Margaret Chase Smith, a Maine Republican, was the only woman senator for 24 years, and became the first woman to run for president. Dwight Eisenhower appointed more women to top posts than John F. Kennedy did.
The GOP’s stance shifted in the 1970s: Republicans played to the backlash against Roe v. Wade and feminism in the later part of that decade, and Ronald Reagan gratified the religious right by abandoning the GOP’s long-held support for the Equal Rights Amendment. The bitter struggles by Republican women to combat their party’s rightward tilt and accompanying opposition to women’s rights have been amply chronicled by the historians Tanya Melich and Catherine Rymph, among others. The latest example was Senator Olympia Snowe, who, in choosing not to seek reelection, pointed out that the GOP’s rigid and intolerant image turns off moderate, pro-business women who believe in limited but effective government.
Snowe’s view is shared by quite a few GOP leaders, including Mitt Romney, who are well aware that the “gender gap” could prove fatal to the party’s electoral chances in the fall elections. But efforts to downplay abortion in favor of economic issues have been undone by those Republicans who organized the infamous all-male panel on birth control and the Virginia proposal for transvaginal ultrasound probes (not to mention Rush Limbaugh’s misogynist rants and Rick Santorum’s momentarily surging candidacy).
It’s worth noting, however, that the Democratic Party has had no interest in trying to cool partisan debate over women’s issues, and every interest in making sure that no significant Republican feminist position emerges. The episode that best illustrates the Democratic approach in this regard was the successful effort to end the political career of Maryland Republican Congresswoman Connie Morella.
Morella, a former English professor and state legislator who also managed to raise nine children, was one of the leading feminists in Congress and among the most liberal House Republicans. She sponsored important legislation on domestic violence and women’s health, while opposing conservatives on gun control, gay rights, conservation, and abortion. She was also one of only six Republicans to vote against authorizing George W. Bush’s military action in Iraq. Her ability to work across the aisle made her a key player in bipartisan reform coalitions. But after Republicans took control of the House in 1994, Morella’s representation of some of Washington D.C.’s most affluent and liberal suburbs made her one of the Democrats’ leading targets. The Democratic-controlled Maryland legislature redrew her district to ensure that, as the state senate president gloated, “If she runs, she loses.”
The Congresswoman nonetheless chose to run for a ninth term in 2002. The Republican Party rallied around her: Bush held a fundraiser for her, the conservative Washington Times endorsed her, and the RINO-hunting Club for Growth chose not to challenge her. The reason Morella was so important for the GOP was not only because she was a consistent vote in favor of free trade, economic growth, and the Bush tax cuts, but because she helped counter the charge that the GOP was anti-woman.
It is to the Republican Party’s credit that it recognized how Morella contributed an important element of diversity in the caucus. But the National Organization for Women endorsed her Democratic opponent, on the grounds that “the ascension of right-wing leadership in the House” made Morella irrelevant. Morella narrowly lost the election and never ran for public office again. Democrats gained a seat, while Republicans lost a vital measure of heterogeneity.
NOW’s actions at that time were intensely partisan, which was perhaps understandable, since most of the organization’s funds and support came from Democrats. But the organization, by turning its back on Morella, in effect declared that feminism was no longer a bipartisan cause and that Republican women almost by definition could not be good feminists. The blowup over the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s defunding of Planned Parenthood earlier this year provided further confirmation that women’s organizations caught up in partisan quarrels will have to side with the Democrats. The unfortunate upshot is that, as feminism ceases to be advocated by at least some people in both parties, it becomes a narrower cause and loses force in American life.
The Democrats, of course, can hardly be expected to resist concentrating their firepower on moderate Republicans from liberal-leaning districts, much as the Republicans went after moderate Blue Dog Democrats from conservative-leaning Southern districts in the last election. This is the Prisoner’s Dilemma of modern American politics, and both parties will be bound to act this way even though they recognize that the marginalization of moderates leaves everyone worse off. So while Democrats are at pains to remind Americans about the dangers of a sexist Republican Party, they will probably remain unaware that their efforts are making that outcome more likely.
Geoffrey Kabaservice is the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party.
Update: The original published version of this article mistakenly said of Congressman Morella's campaign for re-election that the Club for Growth had been "persuaded to give her a pass." Though the Club for Growth did not challenge Morella's candidacy, TNR is not aware of its deliberations on the matter.
34 comments
This article seems awfully thin on evidence for the headline; that is Democrat complicity in the actual state of affairs of the GOP. And just what would the author have the Democrats do? Assist the GOP to elevate women to, as the author freely admits, counter the charge that the GOP is anti-women? Perhaps a more useful approach might be to suggest how the GOP could change such that it wouldn't need "counters" to such a charge as they would be manifestly absurd? That is certainly not the case today.
- Nari224
April 9, 2012 at 1:19am
So you're asking Democrats to appear less attractive to women in the hopes that Republicans magnanimously decide to re-embrace women's rights and support rising GOP women? (Specifically, rising GOP women with liberal social views to re-constitute the shrinking moderate niche?) I don't think that's how the equation works. It's like saying that since the fight for Hispanics should be more contested, Democrats should definitely even the gap and allow them to swing more Republican. Now, note that while hopelessly fulfilling Republican priorities even while no progress is made on immigration reform Obama has actually been doing this! And yet Republicans have decided to be even more anti-Latino and anti-immigrant. For that reason, La Raza should put its eggs in both baskets rather than force Democrats to take up their positions. In the long term, yes, it makes sense that any particular large and swing-y interest group should always hold out for more and maximize its leverage. But in the long term, no particular demographic group is a lock and to the extent that it is a swing group, it can always decide to swing back in the other direction if one party isn't fulfilling its end of the bargain. Thus, we return to the short term. And in the short term, if not the universe where today's short term becomes the long term, it is not unreasonable for an demographic's interest groups to align with and effect change in a particular political party. We're not talking the Solid South here. And keep in mind that women are half the country. When you're dealing with demographic groups that large, it's misleading to say that women and women's issues are represented by NOW. A decent minority percentage of women definitely see things along the lines of Sarah Palin's Mama Grizzlies. If you can get your persuadable women politicized enough such that they are thinking beyond which candidate is a woman to which candidate and party is going to push harder for women, then your demographic lobby has done its job. Want a good example of this? Look to black people, who reliably support the Democratic Party and reliably exact their pound of flesh from it in terms of platform, political outreach, and representation. And then look to poor people, who have little political organization, vote irregularly, and vote much less reliably for the Democratic Party. It's hard to disentangle party planks and political initiatives targeted at poor people from those targeted at blacks, but it's pretty clear that groups not powerful enough to have lobbies and lobbies not savvy enough to get both parties to support their agendas won't rack up many policy wins. A good policy, then, if you're not the NRA is to get onto the platform of one party and always appear gettable to the other party.
- chaitless
April 9, 2012 at 1:23am
The author describes how politics operate. Sometime you go against someone from the other side who can be of help to you and your party's causes. Today's Republicans have ferociously attacked many of their own proposals, once Obama supported them. And Democrats aren't going to be consistent either, with different groups pulling them in different directions. That's politics. Democrats are simply pumping up the rhetoric about anti-women Republicans to influence the election in their favor. If Republicans want to join them, all the better for women. But the anti-women talk among Republicans is not really a political matter--it's a religious one. Religions throughout history have disdained and sometimes despised women. The GOP is simply in the grip of religion more than Democrats. Nikki Haley, the conservative governor of South Carolina, tells us that the GOP has a secret weapon to turn the tide among women voters towards Republicans in November--Ann Romney. Righto.
- magboy47.
April 9, 2012 at 2:06am
This article is either a belated April fools gag, the product of deeply irrational writer. How could any rational person blame the Democrats for the extremism that has become dominant in the Republican party? Truly a bizarre notion of historical causation and moral responsibility ...
- NateG
April 9, 2012 at 2:27am
A decision by the Democratic Party in 2002 to try to win a House seat held by a female Republican is a cause of the GOP's turn to misogynist tub-thumping in 2011? Hm. Really? Oh, ok. So, as we know, despite the defeat of one of its progressive female House members a decade ago, the GOP nonetheless refined its support for various womens' issues over the 2000s and in 2012 is poised to pick up a considerable slice of the female vote. Or not?
- ironyroad
April 9, 2012 at 3:02am
Kabaservice, I get your point, but if it's going to carry any weight, I need to know about the Democrat who defeated Morella. Was that person a good liberal who supported all the usual liberal causes? If so, and all things being equal, why on earth would the Democratic Party NOT support that person over Morella? But if the Democrat was a jerk, yes, then why not support Morella? As several commentators have already pointed out, it's too bad there's only ONE example of Republican sanity here. I'm not going to shoot my party in the foot and support Morella for the elusive cause of bi-partisanship. (Olympia Snowe was not exactly Obama's number one supporter during the health care debate.) But I will vote my "issue," once again, all things being equal. Years ago in my home state, we had an anti-choice Democratic governor, whom I supported. His opponent was a moderate pro-choice Republican. (Those were the days when there was such a thing as a moderate Republican.) I'm not a Republican, but I'm strongly pro-choice. I figured I could live with the Republican and voted for him. (He won the election.) The Republicans have to carry their own water. That's how you build long-term, broad-based consensus and support. You don't ask Democrats to do it for you. And if Republicans are not willing to do the work themselves, any bennies from Democrats will not be of lasting value anyway. We currently have stalemate and entrenchment. But if this is what has to happen, that is what has to happen. We're at a watershed and it's time for realignment and something has to give. It's up to voters now, and it's not often the choices are so clear.
- Claris
April 9, 2012 at 7:02am
As someone who lives in an area known for electing "moderate" Republicans to both state and federal legislative bodies (Bucks County), I have no time for them anymore. Their votes against the party line on educational, social or environmental issues come only when their own party does not need them get its way on legislation on those issues. So called Republican moderates do nothing meaningful to fight their leaders who set the aggressive trope and offensive tone of the battles they wage, driving Democrats who would otherwise refrain from opposing and even vote for moderate candidates to do everything they can to drive an electoral fist through the noses of Republican leaders. Republican leaders do the minimal to help moderates, thinking that throwing money at their elections is enough. Lincoln Chafee is the last true Republican moderate of any stature that I can remember who I could vote for in a year such as this. I know of no other sitting Republican legislator today with his courage. The fecklessness of Pennsylvania Republicans on the probing sonogram issue in Pennsylvania as that matter wends its way to passage between electoral cycles is particularly disgusting. It's going to pass here unless some of these men and woman— including moderates— are dragged out of Harrisburg by the scruffs of their necks. Out of Republicans "moderates" here (with one notable exception— a state senator) you hear not a peep. Republicans picked this fight and threw out the rule book. We will not come to a knife fight without a knife.
- SFergessen
April 9, 2012 at 7:14am
This reminds me of the time about 25-30 years ago when Marty Dykman, the political reporter for the St. Petersburg Times (n/k/a the Tampa Bay Times), Florida's liberal (by Florida standards) newspaper, announced with great fanfare that he was changing his party registration to Republican from Democrat and urged others to do the same in order to make the Republican Party more moderate. This sparked a number of letters to the editor from some guy named Sancho Panza. Somebody at TNR should introduce Kabaservice to Mr. Panza.
- rayward
April 9, 2012 at 7:23am
So let me get this straight: it is the Democrats fault for not staying true to their boot-licking roots by supporting the one lone gender beard for the Republican's incessent woman-hating agenda. Yeah right.
- WandreyCer
April 9, 2012 at 8:11am
I sure as hell hope TNR didn't pay Kabaservice for this drivel. It wouldn't get a passing grade in Political Science 101 at the worst diploma mill in town. Of course Democrats want to defeat Republicans, regardless of their sex and regardless of whether they are centrist or further right. First, that's what political parties do; second, Republicans in Congress vote consistently against any Democratic initiative as a block, so it matters precious little whether a Republican representative or senator is centrist or female in most important issues. Consider the fate of those centrist women from Maine, if you need evidence. Ditto NOW. When Republicans start acting like independent, thoughtful members of the body politic, NOW can support the more progressive (on women's issues) of the lot. Given the way the behave however, every Republican in Congress is one more threat to NOW's agenda - and, I might add, to the health of the Republic.
- IowaBeauty
April 9, 2012 at 8:32am
Coalition-building happens on specific issues, not abstractions likes rights or bi-partisanship, something Obama is finally learning.(?)
- Claris
April 9, 2012 at 9:10am
Kabaservice is a usually a smart guy, but this is a really stupid column. Morella voted with the GOP majority in the House on most issues and made clear she would continue to do so. And the Democrat who defeated her in 2002 is Chris Van Hollen, a solid progressive on all issues and a rising figure in his party. If feminism is defined as electing women over men, whatever their political views and impact, then I guess Kabaservice would say that all feminists should have backed Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, and Marine Le Pen.
- mkazin
April 9, 2012 at 9:25am
Sorry for another "me too" post but what a thinly-thought-out article. I was beginning to develop a liking for GK but this is a real setback. Connie Morella played for the wrong team; if she was as liberal as all that she could have switched teams at any time, but as long as she's playing for team R then team D has the right, not to say the obligation, to go after her. And if you want the system to work differently, you're a socialist!
- boyski
April 9, 2012 at 10:39am
This article is clearly part of the author's lament of the decline of Eisenhower's modern Republicanism, so I understand it in that respect. But commenters are right in noting that moderate politics have to be nurtured by the party itself. If you want moderation, you have to build it and institutionalize it. The Democrats did this by having a significant "Blue dog" caucus and making the DLC. The result was the ascension of people like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, etc. You might not like the results, but there were results. The GOP has done the exact opposite. It has radicalized itself by institutionalizing hard-right politics. See the efforts of Gingrich, Armey, DeLay, and the entire class of '94. DeLay's "Committee" in the House, the Club for Growth, the Christian Coalition/Focus on the Family: all these groups have served to kill moderation in the GOP. The one-off stand for Morella hardly compares to these efforts.
- propjoe
April 9, 2012 at 12:13pm
What a crock to bring up Connie Morella as an example here. I live in the Congressional district that she so ably served and voted for her on several occasions (one of my rare votes for a Republican; I also voted for Senator Mathias in his last election run). I even gave Congresswoman Morella campaign funds and appeared with her on several programs. What changed my mind? Simple, she signed onto the Gingrich Contract for America and the shallowness that it embodied. She didn't need to do this given her district. I sent her a nice letter indicating that she would no longer receive my support and that I would actively work towards her electoral defeat. It took a couple of election cycles but finally happened. If moderate Republicans are going to behave cynically, they deserve to be defeated. This is just a bogus example.
- agoldhammer@yahoo.com-old
April 9, 2012 at 1:08pm
Not only is the evidence weak compared to the headline about the Democrats, it's weak about the supposed "war on women". It's all pretty contrived. Abortion is still the law of the land, and the restrictions here and there are overcome by driving to the next state. The edge cases being hollered about regarding Catholic hospitals are pretty unconvincing, as only 15 percent of America's hospitals are Catholic, and you don't *have* to use Catholic hospitals. Contraceptions are cheap and readily available. Planned Parenthood, which is federally funded and also has ample private donations, is everywhere available to provide contraceptions and abortion referrals. Court orders against domestic violence are readily available. Nowhere are the achievements of the last 25 years really being turned back, and anywhere they might be perceived to be threatened, i.e. with a vaginal sonogram, they are readily defeated with the help of a powerful and vocal social media and its related influencers like Jon Stewart. The real threat to separation of church and state and to freedom of conscience has come from Obama and the HHS decision imposing purchase of insurance that would pay for birth control and abortion inducers. There is absolutely no need for that in a free and pluralistic society where there are plenty of options for obtaining even free contraception and abortions without the state getting into people's consciences. And no, the answer is not to discriminate against some organizations by not giving them federal funds which would further involve state-supported religion in violation of the First Amendment. Leave it alone, it's working, and this isn't the issue that will turn the elections. It's one Obama will pathetically milk, and still lose, as the wreckage of his other policies will be too obvious.
- catfitz
April 9, 2012 at 2:03pm
Sorry, but the extreme rightward tilt of the party leadership and the party overall has made the election of more progressive Republicans from progressive districts an irrelevant and useless exercise. I live in a blue state, and while I would like to see a useful challenger to my long serving Democratic representative, I know it will have to come from inside the party. Once upon a time I proudly voted for liberal and moderate (which the party would certainly consider liberal now) Republicans. But, the modern Republican party is so bent on ideological purity, and punitive toward those who stray, that anyone who could win the majority of the vote in my district would be powerless and useless once they got to DC.
- esmense
April 9, 2012 at 2:15pm
I'm assuming that Kabaservice didn't come up with the headline for this article, but it sets up an unrealistic expectation for what comes next--a thinly supported thesis that Democrats should have let Connie Morella stay in office because she was a woman. No, the Republicans are fully to blame for their war against women; at most, the Democrats handed them the bullet with which they shot themselves in the foot. Now I'm wondering: does Mr. Kabaservice know Ms. Morella? Was he one of her constituents, and was sad to see her go? He seems to gone to great lengths to make this forgotten moderate Republican woman some kind of martyr to modern party politics.
- benjamin81
April 9, 2012 at 2:31pm
Sure. Before the Depression, the Republicans were the Progressive party, while the Democrats were anti-Republican Dixie-crats refighting the Civil-War. However, that quickly changed, such that by 1930 or so the Republicans were the anti-Communist anti-Socialist anti-New Deal luddites, while the Democrats took on the Progressive mantle. Then in the 1960's, the Goldwater Republicans assumed the mantle of the John Birch society, while the Democrats deserted their Dixie-crats to put in place Civil-Rights legislation -- whereupon the Dixie-crats became Republicans. Reagan then courted the Religious Right, which the current crop of Republican and Tea-Party candidates wear on their sleeve. So it ill serves your argument to point back to the Republican's shining moment in Progressivism in 1919, when they've been the party of "barefoot and pregnant" ever since. Besides, the Republicans haven't "declared war" on Women. They've simply pushed policies against feminism and abortion rights. Now THAT is a fight worth having, and one the Democrats have been defending since the 1970's.
- AllanL5
April 9, 2012 at 2:43pm
Ummmm. "Thin" this is. Sorry but supporting Democratic candidates, who are broadly supportive of many issues besides feminism, doesn't make the Democrats or the feminists complicit in the War on Women. Rewrite?
- Sophia
April 9, 2012 at 3:49pm
Oh ps. I am getting damn sick and tired of people misusing the First Amendment to support theocracies. Look. The rights in the US belong to the PEOPLE not to religious ideologies, churches, or priesthoods. Attacks on contraception and abortion rights are absolutely an attack on personal liberty and this includes religious freedom. We are free to be free of religious dogma, including that which attempts to get up inside our bodies and tell us what to do with our private parts.
- Sophia
April 9, 2012 at 3:53pm
Allan: Before the depression, the Republicans were briefly the party of progressivism but retreated from that position relatively quickly--to such an extent that TR came out of retirement to reclaim the party. He failed and had to lead a 3rd party. Wilson and the Democrats, before World War I, enacted a deep set of progressive reforms; in fact, his first term represents the high-tide of progressivism before the New Deal. Race, of course, was a giant exception, as you rightly note. Still, the Republican flirtation with progressivism was relatively short, as the GOP quickly became the party of laissez-faire "normalcy" throughout the 20s, as they had been during the Gilded Age. Eisenhower attempted to moderate the party's positions during the 1950s, but he could not do it in a lasting way.
- propjoe
April 9, 2012 at 5:38pm
As sure as I am that I am right on every principle, issue, and controversy -- aren't each of you reading this comment also equally sure? -- and as much as I would want anyone I vote for to agree with and vote my preference in every regard -- we are not all the same. Even here at TNR, where the most brilliant, correct, and insightful people in the world gather on a daily basis -- we have a few occasional difference of opinion. I am sorry. (No, I'm not, actually.) I don't vote your party line. I don't vote my wife's party line. I don't even vote my own part line all the time. Anyway, my vote is up for sale. What do you bid?
- skahn
April 9, 2012 at 6:22pm
An insightful article. Much the same dynamic has occurred in the environmental arena. There was a time when Democrats and Republicans competed to see who could claim the strongest environmental credentials (consider that some of our major environmental laws and agencies stem from the Nixon era). Today a Republican pays no cost (think "drill baby drill") for being anti-environmental and may gain some immunity against being targeted as a RINO. I find it frustrating that many environmental groups seem to have no interest in broadening their reach.
- brthompson
April 9, 2012 at 11:14pm
Ummmmm: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/04/09/460917/wisconsin-state-senator-money-less-important-wome/?mobile=nc How on earth are the Democrats responsible for this stuff? Or complicit with it? At this point the GOP seems to have isolated itself from women's issues, human rights issues, environmental issues, and economic issues that don't favor rich people and corporate "people," and of course, women. So, how are we supposed to broaden our reach to include them exactly?
- Sophia
April 10, 2012 at 2:05am
Re Sophia's link: I love the language in these things. Women take "time off" to raise kids (It's a break! It's a vacation! It's a holiday!) and don't prioritize "work" over child-bearing. (We all know having and raising children is not "real" work!) The fact that only women can bear children is irrelevant. It's still a "choice," and if women make choices that harm their "careers," too bad for them. Until we recognize parenting as the important, unpaid labor it is - and pay parents, with pension rights, to do this job - women are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
- Claris
April 10, 2012 at 5:49am
Right on the comments--this is a Republican problem, Democrats need to win when they can. But full agreement with catfitz above: Obama's appalling unforced error in simultaneously dissing not only Catholics but everyone concerned about freedom of religion and conscience; and reinforcing in an extremely powerful way the Repubs' main, and best, campaign issue--Obamacare is proof of the Dems plan to put government expansion back on a ratchet that will only grow tighter and more comprehensive over time. He'll probably win anyway given Repub incompetence, but this White House fiasco amounts to political malpractice.
- Robert Powell
April 10, 2012 at 12:03pm
Oh for pete's sake. How on earth is the contraception issue an error by Obama? It's standing up for what's right for the vast majority of Americans. The far right and the religious right and the bishops have decided to MAKE an issue of it when it really hadn't been, and, churches themselves aren't affected; the majority of Catholic women use birth control; other institutions like hospitals receive Federal funding and their employees aren't all Catholic. This comment by Robert Powell is a prime example of people attacking Obama for doing the right thing, plus, instead of challenging Catholic and other "Christian" dogma on contraception and women's rights he reinforces it. What's wrong with this picture? The fact that women want and need to be able to control our own bodies, our futures, the shape of our lives - or the cruel, misogynist doctrines that seek to prevent that basic freedom, and also equal access to medical care by both sexes? The fact is, there is no substantial difference between clipping women's wages and denying us equal access to health care in the work place. Either way we lose.
- Sophia
April 10, 2012 at 1:08pm
Further as to Claris' observation about unpaid work: this doesn't just include child rearing. It continues long after the kiddies are gone. It occurred to me the other day that I work my tuchas off for absolutely no pay, just keeping things neat and clean around here, shopping, getting food on the table, taking care of the animals, the laundry, moving whole rooms full of stuff if/when the landlord has a whim to cut holes in the ceiling for various reasons, being a good neighbor: it's a full time, unpaid job, which nobody sees as being of any value. Also, the repeal of the fair wages act by Governor Walker doesn't just affect women. It affects people of ANY group, minorities for example, or gay/bi/transgender people who can now be legally discriminated against in the work place. So the argument that women are on the "mommy track" doesn't even necessarily apply here! It's anybody the boss deems inferior.
- Sophia
April 10, 2012 at 1:13pm
I'm thinking that if the Republicans are stupid enough to go into November with a line that says "Horror! Horror! Obama is against religious freedom for employers to dick around with employees' health care provisions!" then all we need is one controversial case where a Muslim employer uses Sharia Law to deny (female) employees a particular right for all heck to break loose.
- ironyroad
April 10, 2012 at 2:47pm
Oh speaking of freedom, The Jerk of The North as he is called by Jezebel, has repealed a law ensuring the rights of same sex couples to visit each other in the hospital. Make no mistake, a war on women is also a war on anybody "inferior." If this doesn't make you nervous it should. http://jezebel.com/5900470/worst-governor-ever-stripped-same-sex-couples-of-right-to-visit-each-other-in-the-hospital
- Sophia
April 10, 2012 at 3:46pm
I suppose it's possible that a few True Believers honestly think the controversy under discussion has anything to do with birthcontrol, but most folks who have taken the trouble to go beyond the administration's slight-of-hand attempt to change the subject know better. To state the obvious, NO ONE is suggesting that anything be done to restrict women's right to access birth control, not even the Catholic bishops. The problem is that the administration has decided that it's worth reinforcing the Republicans' most potent campaign meme by using executive fiat to order the Church to violate its doctrine. Apparently the horror of a 30-year old law student having to pay for her own contraception is a greater concern than the Constitutionally guaranteed right of freedom of religion and conscience. This problem was created entirely by the administration, and could have been finessed in a number of ways. Going with the straight Big Government diktat was a huge, and telling, error.
- Robert Powell
April 11, 2012 at 4:47am
Robert, you're obfuscating the issue. Churches aren't being forced to violate their doctrine. Churches are exempt from the requirement. But if churches insist on engaging in non-religious activities like education and medicine, they should have to play by the same rules as non-religious institutions providing the same. You do not have to take religious vows to work for a Catholic hospital or university. You don't even have to be Catholic. How is denying coverage to non-Catholic employees not an enfringement on their beliefs? And what I find most damning is that over half of the states already had that requirement on their books before ACA. If this was such a "violation of religious liberty", where was the outrage? The actions of the Catholic bishops and their fellow travelers do not pass the smell test.
- zardoz67
April 11, 2012 at 11:03am
With all due respect zardoz, the only "obfusticating" going on is being performed by the administration, in a desperate effort to change the subject from their ham-handed attempt to tell the Church what its doctrine and mission is to the subject of access to birth control. Providing services to the poor and sick is part of the mission of the Church. If someone feels that they must have birthcontrol coverage as part of their compensation package, they can work somewhere else, or simply pay the nominal cost themselves. This mandate is fundamentally different from the arrangements worked out between the church and states already involved. Don't get me wrong, I'm an Obama supporter, voter, and contributor. I just think that, politically, this is an incredibly bad move because it tends to reinforce the impression of a O's signature program as a Trojan horse for a massive, unconstitutional intrusion by government into the private sphere. That just happens to be the Republicans' most resonant and potentially effective campaign issue. And it doesn't do a damned thing to substantively increase access to contraception.
- Robert Powell
April 12, 2012 at 5:39am