Would Republicans be OK with Sharia law being applied to Christians?

Interesting hypothetical:

"Suppose the Muslim owner of a large company that employs Muslims and non- Muslims (or even just Muslims) wants to be exempt from insuring medical stuff except in cases where male employees see male doctors and female employees see female doctors. The owner find it objectionable that 'his money' should pay for anything he finds religiously repugnant, and this is his take on sharia law. Would Republicans have any objection?"

Call me crazy, but something tells me that John Boehner wouldn't exactly be rallying people to support the religious freedom of the Muslim business owner here. Many more hypothetical scenarios here. Again...the real story is that health insurance has no business being tied to employment status. Especially not in the increasingly liquid labor market that we live in. The link causes economic problems, ethical problems, and political problems.

Questions for Catholic Bishops re: health insurance coverage

The Bishops believe that Catholic insurance should not cover contraceptives, because they do not want to encourage what they say is sinful behavior.  There are many other situations where the church would be encouraging vice by paying for medical treatment.  I would be curious to know where the church would come down on a few of these issues:

1.  Sexually-transmitted diseases are a consequence of promiscuous sex.  If the church treats such conditions, people do not live with the consequences of sinful behavior.  This is clear moral hazard which will encourage more vice.  However, if left untreated, STDs can be rapidly fatal, hurt unsuspecting spouses in cases of infidelity, cause birth defects and stillbirth of fetuses, and increase the risk of pregnancy.

2.  On one hand, the Gardasil vaccine gives our daughters carte blanche to have lots of promiscuous, unprotected sex.  On the other hand, it is a simple vaccine that prevents cancer.  Its easy to see where the controversy comes from.  Reducing the risk of a behavior will certainly encourage said behavior.

3.  What to do in cases of cervical cancer caused by HPV?  If we treat our daughters every time they develop cancer after having unprotected sex, aren't we just encouraging their sinful behavior?
 
4.  Gluttony is a grievous sin.  However, bariatric surgical procedures have been shown to be cost effective at increasing the health and quality of life in morbidly obese people.  Should the church be forced to encourage gluttony?

5.  Type II diabetes is, like obesity, very often caused by excess consumption.  Should the church be forced to cover the costs of medications that control the disease, hence promoting sinful behavior?

6.  Many people who smoke will develop lung cancer.  For Catholic insurance to pay for treatment would clearly violate the teachings of the bible; see Corinthians:19-20

"Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body."

7.  If a person develops a parasite or neurocysticercosis after eating Biblically-forbidden pork products, obviously the church would violate their principles if they paid for treatment.

Catholic Bishops and the Laws of Men

Imagine a couple has been in a monogamous marriage for over two decades. They have raised four children. They do not wish to have more. They could be worried about having enough money for retirement,
and can't afford to raise more children. In addition, because the couple is getting older, they are worried that they will lack the energy to raise another child. Finally, they worry about the health of the mother and potential child in such a late pregnancy. This couple wishes to remain intimate, and so use contraceptives to prevent another pregnancy.

The vast majority of Catholics agree that the use of contraception, such as in the case described above, is completely reasonable. In 2005, a poll showed that over 90% of Catholics thought using contraception in some circumstances was not a sin. Also important is the central role that contraception plays in preventing great sins: a sure-fire way to prevent abortion is to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Catholic Bishops stand in stark contrast to their flock. They believe that anyone who uses condoms is a sinner, no matter what. Not content to merely pass their antiquated judgments, the Bishops are now demanding the power to deprive American Catholics the right to purchase condoms & other family planning products with their health insurance.

Growing up a Catholic, I remember a church that tried to serve as a guide. The church gave recommendations and advice to its flock, but never dictats. The recent change is really bizarre to me. What does it say about the Bishops' mindset that they would even try to use legal means, to use man's laws, to restrict the freedoms of their flock? At any rate, the Vatican should not have the right to impose their religious laws on Americans from Europe. Americans have economic freedom, religious freedom, and behavioral freedom that should not be infringed upon by anyone, even Catholic Bishops.  I am glad that President Obama stood up for the freedom of Americans in this case and told the Bishops that they can preach, but they cannot rule. Any Catholic who believes that family planning is smart, and that abortion is terrible and should be avoided, should call their Bishop and tell them as much.

The Tragedy of the Komen Foundation

Public health has taken another blow.  They say these things come in threes.  We have leading conservative presidential candidates telling people that vaccines cause autism.  A conservative senator in Tennessee just told his constituents that it is "virtually impossible" to spread HIV through heterosexual contact.  And now, we are politicizing the screening and treatment of breast cancer.  I can't stop thinking about the cultural damage here.  Has anyone else considered what we just lost as a nation?  We disagree on just about everything these days. The notion that breast cancer is a disease worth fighting is one of the few remaining things everybody could agree on.  That has now been destroyed; and for what? At the end of the day, this was over $700,000 dollars. To destroy such a cherished and unitary cultural icon for such a petty trifle, for such a cheap political victory.  It must take an exceptionally vindictive person to want to make that trade.

At any rate, this was an unforced error of staggering proportions on the part of the Komen Foundation itself. Before this story broke, I suspect that very few people knew that Komen gave money to Planned Parenthood. Even if people knew Komen was providing breast cancer care at Planned Parenthood clinics, what kind of person would possibly care? One would think self-interest alone would have led Komen to stay out of this debate.  Now that they have taken sides, its probably too late. If they stand firm and abandon low-income women, they will alienate at least the 75% of Americans who support abortion rights in some form or another.  Arguably they will lose more than that, since obviously not everyone who is anti-choice thinks depriving poor women of breast cancer screening is worth a political point. Alternatively, Komen could do the right thing and reverse course. In doing so they would become a perpetual target for religious bullies who are always looking for another battle to fight.  Either way, what used to be a non-controversial, unitary force, the fight against breast cancer, will be reduced into another yearly battle in our incessant culture wars.

I do think there is a way out.  Komen needs to stand with low-income women and support breast cancer services, and provide concrete data that show that donors' money is being used only for breast services.  Conservative women should stand with them when they do - because they should recognize that this isn't worth it, and that there are better and less destructive venues in which to have the abortion fight.  People should remember why they supported the Komen Foundation in the first place and leave politics aside for once.

Stick this one in the "I told you so" file =)

Vatican changes position on condoms and AIDs.

Epidemiologists are physicians who have spent their entire careers studying the science behind disease transmission and infection. Any epidemiologist who suggested that condoms could worsen the spread of AIDs would have their license revoked immediately.

What the Pope finally realized is that it is morally indefensible to take a position that is in opposition to such unanimous scientific opinion solely because that position is more consistent with existing church dogma. Fair enough. He is only human, after all.

This could be a useful learning point. I've heard representatives of the Vatican on more than one occasion complain about how the "liberal media" is out to smear Benedict and the Catholic Church. If I was in the Catholic hierarchy, the lesson I would take away from this is "pick my battles" and "think before I speak".

When the Catholic church makes wildly unsubstantiated and frankly destructive claims such as "condoms makes AIDs worse" it has the unintended consequence of alienating a lot of reasonable people. And it is these people who, the next time, may not be as willing to give the church the benefit of the doubt when it does stake some morally defensible position.

A lot of these people might work in the "liberal media" or be consumers of it. They might be more accommodating to Church positions on issues that result from lots of debate, soul searching, and serious consideration instead of positions that almost seem like they came out of nowhere from a sort of "because I said so" dogmatic attitude.

Dealing with the sexual abuse crisis

Pope Benedict shows that he gets it:

"This we have always known, but today we see it in a really terrifying
way, that the greatest persecution of the church does not come from
the enemies outside but is born from the sin in the church," he added.
"The church has a profound need to relearn penance, to accept
purification, to learn on the one hand forgiveness but also the
necessity of justice. And forgiveness does not substitute justice."

The rest of the Catholic hierarchy needs to follow Benedict's example.

Nobody likes an apostate

A Catholic theologian named Hans Kung was with Ratzinger at the Vatican II Council. They were the youngest two there. Read his open letter to Catholic bishops worldwide.

I expect he will be called a traitor or an apostate by just the sort of "Catholic" who got the church into this crisis.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0416/1224268443283.html?via=rel
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Deputy Pope on priest pedophilia

According to a Reuters story, the Deputy Pope has blamed
homosexuality, not celibacy, as the cause for the priest pedophilia
cases. I guess I have two comments.

1. Homosexuality is the cause of priests raping young boys? By that
logic, we cannot let the rest of the heterosexual priesthood anywhere
near young girls.

2. Personally, I really feel like the Catholic Church should not be
wading into the realm of the psychological sciences, and it especially
shouldn't be making controversial claims that aren't substantiated by
data.

The thing about science is there are things that might make sense to
some people, and perhaps given political orientations it would be
convenient if those things were true, but they still may not be true.
A while back I criticized the Pope, who said that using condoms
increases HIV transmission in Africa. Yes, I can sort of see the flow
of logic that would bring someone to that conjecture; and it would be
really convenient for Catholics if it was true, since Catholics don't
want people to use birth control. But the problem is that there
really isn't any scientific evidence that would support the Pope's
condom assertion. Furthermore, that assertion might very well be
wrong. And if it is wrong, then many people might become infected
with AIDs as a direct result of what the Pope said. So I mean, when
the stakes are so high, why not just err on the side of caution until
we know more? Why not leave moral leadership to the church, and leave
public health leadership to the thousands of scientists who have spent
years on top of years studying disease transmission, epidemiology,
patient compliance, barrier effectiveness, et cetera?

The recent proclamation about homosexuality causing pedophilia by the
Pope's deputy is another good example. There is really very little
data that would support this assertion made by the deputy Pope,
however convenient of a scapegoat homosexuals might be for the church
at this time. And it is a very damning assertion that shouldn't be
taken lightly, because it is trying to blur the line between
homosexuality and pedophilia, which will lead to even further hatred
of homosexuals in this country, maybe more executions of homosexuals
in Uganda, et cetera. I guess I'm just sort of thinking that a group
of spiritual leaders should stick to spiritual leadership, and leave
the psychological sciences for someone else to sort through.
Ultimately, I really don't care why priests were raping children. I
just want priests to stop molesting children and I want there to be
accountability. The Catholic Church needs to stop the reactionary
scapegoating of homosexuals or lashing out at the liberal media -
because that is not what Jesus Christ would do. The church needs to
focus on reforming the church in a transparent, inclusive, and honest
way.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63B4TR20100412