The HHS Mandate and ‘Hidden Agendas’

[Valin]

NRO/The Corner:

 

Michael Potemra

7/7/12

 

Based on decades’ worth of experience with, and reading about, the U.S. Catholic bishops, I think Cardinal O’Malley is more the rule than the exception among that group. But the readiness with which people accept the idea of the bishops as sex-obsessed GOP partisans shows how much emotional baggage is weighing down this debate (and, sadly, other current debates as well). Every time I hear that some polemicist has labeled a woman a “slut” because she uses or supports contraception, or that some writer thinks this HHS controversy is a terrific opportunity to teach America how bad premarital sex is and that the Sexual Revolution was a big mistake, my heart sinks — not only because I disagree strongly with those particular views, but because I know that others are paying attention, and drawing some very unhelpful conclusions. They are thinking: The people who are against the HHS mandate claim that they’re really concerned about “religious liberty.” But they openly admit what their real agenda is: They think women like me — ordinary women with ordinary sexuality — are sluts, and they believe in rolling back sexual liberty, which they call the Sexual Revolution. I need to be like Reagan was when he was facing down the air-traffic controllers: Stand up to the bullies now, and they won’t be a problem later. Once a person has reached that point, it’s really hard to get him or her to reconsider.

 

But reconsideration can happen. It’s the story about how I became pro-life. I grew up in a feminist, pro-choice environment, in which most of the adult role models I had were feminist and pro-choice. To become pro-life carried the baggage, for me, of a profound act of disloyalty. But I reached the point where I could separate the issue — the humanity of the unborn human being — from all the other emotional baggage. Yes, I believe women are fully equal human beings; no, I don’t “believe men should make decisions about women’s lives” (standard pro-choice phrase, back then); but these beliefs are not inconsistent with my recognition of the biological fact that the human fetus is a human being and thus deserves legal protections. People can suspect me of “really” being pro-life only because I’m secretly anti-feminist or secretly anti–sexual freedom, and all I can do is quietly and patiently say, no. Yes to feminism, yes to sex, no to taking the life of a human being. To quote somebody who was, I cheerfully admit, much braver than myself, and who had to stand up to much fiercer opponents: Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders.

 

Similarly with the HHS mandate. For me, and for many others on this side of the question, opposing the HHS mandate is not about bullying women or putting them down. It is — really — about religious liberty. There are some people on my side of this particular debate who may indeed have agendas that I disagree with, and proponents of the mandate may worry about giving those people a “win.” But I ask the mandate proponents to take a fresh look at the issue, and divide the question before us from all the subsequent “agenda items” they fear. A good way of looking at this is by analogy to another religious-liberty controversy. Should Muslims be allowed to build a mosque in Lower Manhattan? I think the Constitution is pretty clear on the religious-liberty right to build houses of worship. So what would we think of someone who believed that we should oppose the mosque because it would be a “win” for Muslims? What’s more important — the principle of religious liberty, or the fear that someone you don’t like might have a “win”? Here, too, we can draw principled distinctions of the kind I made in the last paragraph: No to terrorism, no to forcing people to live under sharia, yes to the religious liberty to build a house of worship.

 

(Snip)

[Pepper]

http://www.facebook.com/StopHHSMandate

 

https://www.stophhs.com/

 

 

 

And article from five months before SCOTUS by Horace Cooper. Wrong conclusion - but well researched piece:

The Birth Control Mandate is Unconstitutional

 

"But there is good news. Ultimately this new regulation will not stand. This mandate is far removed from the mainstream of First Amendment rulings, and badly misreads the Constitution and the important role that religious liberty plays in this country. It overlooks our founding history and relies on an erroneous view that caring acts by Americans are primarily secular acts, instead of the sacred acts of compassion and ministry that they often truly are. If the Congress doesn't quickly overturn this regulation, the courts will."

 

Horace Cooper is a legal commentator and an adjunct fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research.

[Valin]

@Pepper

 

Thanks!