The hits just keep on coming
by digby
A divided Supreme Court has agreed to allow an evangelical college in Illinois that objects to paying for contraceptives in its health plan to avoid filling out a government document that the college says would violate its religious beliefs.
The justices said Thursday that Wheaton College does not have to fill out the contested form while its case is on appeal but can instead write the Department of Health and Human Services declaring that it is a religious nonprofit organization and making its objection to birth control.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor said they would have denied Wheaton’s request and made the college fill out a form that enables their insurers or third-party administrators to take on the responsibility of paying for the birth control.
Right. Filling out a form is right up there with the Spanish Inquisition.
Is there anyone left who doesn’t understand that the social conservatives are really, truly, cross their hearts, seriously opposed to birth control (also known as women having sex for pleasure?)
Here, let me have Rick Santorum explain for you what these people are really all about:
One of the things I will talk about that no president has talked about before is what I think is the danger of contraception. The whole sexual libertine idea that many in the Christian faith have said, well, it’s ok, contraception’s ok. But it’s not ok.
It’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. It is supposed to be within marriage. It is supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal and also unitive but also procreative and that’s the perfect way that sexual union should happen. When you take any part of that out, we diminish the act.
If you can take one part out, if it’s not for the purpose of procreation, that’s not one of the reasons you diminish this very special bond between men and women. So why can’t you take other parts of it out? It becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure…
I’m not runnning for preacher, I’m not running for pastor. But these are important public policy issues. These have profound impact on the health of our society. I’m not talking about moral health, although clearly moral health, but I’m talking economic health, I’m talking about out of wedlock birth rates, sexually transmitted diseases.
These are profound issues that we only like to talk about from a scientific point of view. Well that’s one point of view, but we also need to have the courage to talk about the moral aspects of it and the purpose and rationale for why we do what we do.
If you work for someone who believes what Rick Santorum believes, you’re just screwed (and not in the good way.) His beliefs are more important than yours, that’s all there is to it. They’re so important he cannot even be asked to fill out a form telling the government how important they are.
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