Compromising with the Borgias
by digby
Oh hell. I should have known better than to be even momentarily happy about something in politics:
A key White House adviser on faith issues said Tuesday that several organizations with ties to the administration have approached President Obama’s aides about finding a resolution to fast-growing controversy over a new rule requiring many Catholic institutions to offer birth control and other contraception services as part of employees’ health care coverage.
“There are conversations right now to arrange a meeting to talk with folks about how this policy can be nuanced,” said Pastor Joel C. Hunter, a Florida megachurch pastor who has grown personally close to Obama and advised his White House on religious issues. “This is so fixable, and we just want to get into the conversation.”
Hunter’s comments followed a statement by David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama’s reelection campaign, who indicated on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday that the White House might be open to a compromise on the matter.
“We certainly don’t want to abridge anyone’s religious freedoms, so we’re going to look for a way to move forward that both provides women with the preventive care that they need and respects the prerogatives of religious institutions,” he said.
Oh well. Maybe the “compromise” won’t be anything too substantial. But whatever it is, backtracking means social conservatives will have successfully opened another front in the War on Women. There will be ongoing battles over birth control as long nobody with any power in the political system thinks women’s issues are important enough to fight for. It’s daft. You can’t placate these people. You give them an inch and they’ll knock you down and run all over you. Isn’t it obvious?
This whole flap is surreal. Except for the priests and the nuns, most of the people who are arguing with the administration to give the Church an exemption are using birth control themselves. I guess they are so attached to their own hypocrisy — and some kind of faux religious pride — that they’ve become incoherent: “please let me keep pretending that I’m not using birth control by allowing the church to deny it to someone else.” Whatever gets you through the night, I guess.
.