Over at Daily KOS I see Senator Blunt has gotten a little more…well…blunt about it…
Enter Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and his new amendment to the Affordable Care Act which would allow any employer or insurance company to “exclude any health service, no matter how essential, from coverage if they morally object to it.”
You might be thinking this is a tactical move simply to deny contraceptive coverage without it looking like they’re going after something most Americans believe their health insurance should cover. Think again. This isn’t a smokescreen, it’s the next step down a road they began doggedly dragging the nation when they started bellyaching that pharmacists shouldn’t have to dispense Plan-B if it went against their sincerely held religious beliefs. Some people were asking even then what the limits were to an exemption for sincerely held religious beliefs. Silly them.
So what else goes against their sincerely held religious beliefs? Well…goddamn near everything actually…
Igor Volsky explains:
Under the measure, an insurer or an employer would be able to claim a moral or religious objection to covering HIV/AIDS screenings, Type 2 Diabetes treatments, cancer tests or anything else they deem inappropriate or the result of an “unhealthy” or “immoral” lifestyle. Similarly, a health plan could refuse to cover mental health care on the grounds that the plan believes that psychiatric problems should be treated with prayer.
Individuals can also opt out of any of that coverage they find morally objectionable…
Immoral lifestyles. Immoral lifestyles. Get the picture yet? I know…I know…you think that means someone else. And anyway, they’re just asking for the simple right to live by their own conscience. Except for the part about them getting their hands on enough political power to make sure you by their conscience too.
“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” -Rick Santorum.
Understand this: the religious right isn’t asking for an exemption to anything. They want to take your exemption to God’s Law away because nobody gets one of those. And if this primary season has told us anything, it’s that the old republican establishment has lost control. The kook pews are in charge now, and they’re on a mission from God. They are not asking for exemptions, they are closing a few loopholes. You may have thought of those as your rights.
This is their America…where things we take for granted every day, like the right to marry, hold down a job, have a roof over your head, seek justice in a court of law, get medical care, is permitted only to the righteous. The culture war isn’t about sex or homosexuality, or even about religion. Are you heterosexual? Christian but not fundamentalist? Politically centrist? Conservative but socially liberal? Like to make up your own mind about things and don’t care much for political labels? Think it’s not about you? Think again.
Listen to them talking about us gay folk. Listen to how ugly it gets. Listen to it. If you think they’re not talking about you too you are sadly, profoundly, mistaken.
Rick Santorum said a few days ago that no one has a right to health care. Chris Matthews said tonight: “There’s a new poll out that finds Santorum surging nationally.”
Why do I feel like we’re moving closer and closer to Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” every day?
So I went and looked on the Hardball site and queued up that segment. It’s a Fox News poll. So I guess if Roger couldn’t have Newt Rick will do.
But that Santorum is gaining now would not surprise me at all. In fact it sorta surprises me it took this long for him to get some decent traction. He’s the most purely authentic culture warrior they’ve got in the race at the moment, and while he may be about as loathsome an anti-American theocratic thug as you can think of let’s face it, you just can’t imagine anyone seriously doubting that Rick is authentically Rick. He really believes the claptrap coming out of his mouth. It’s not an act, it’s him. I don’t think anyone knows what Mitt authentically is…not even Mitt.
It’s not his Mormon faith specifically they don’t like about him although that’s bad enough. Mitt is just not one of them and they can tell every time he opens his trap. It’s one thing to look the mainstream press in the face and say that you want to protect the sanctity of marriage as if the sanctity of marriage means jack s**t to you…they’ll just nod their heads and jot it all down…but it’s another thing to make it sound like transparent b******t in front of the kook pews at CPAC. That sort of brutal honestly just won’t win them over.
Rick is the genuine article and that’s why I think they would have had to eventually gravitate to him. They were just meant for each other. Yes Newt’s hatred burns gloriously hotter, but well…you’ve seen the ad right? Newt and the religious right…that marriage just wasn’t meant to last either.
As a born-Missourian, I can’t stand this guy. I met him in person once, along with Jim Talent (I think he’s a Rep now?) and I think they’re both closet cases. I have no proof, though, but if there’s one thing you learn in Missouri it’s how to tune your gay-dar.
Despicable.
But they’re “Pro-Life”, or so they say.
I have often said that gay rights are their first target, and straight rights are their second target.
One can only hope that the mass of Americans can see this. If not, we are in very serious trouble.
Sera, of course Santorum is a closet case, it’s psychology 101. His obsession with us makes it fairly self evident; and they are the most dangerous ones of all. Hitler *might* have had a Jewish grandfather and he knew it, which only fueled his insane antisemitism even more. But it’s like drinking salt water, no matter how many of ‘the other’ they destroy, they will never be satisfied. I don’t think Ricki has a chance of beating Obama, but if he did, they may as well move the oval office to the vatican. Barf!
“gay rights are their first target, and straight rights are their second target.”
This is spot on. When they are finished with LGBT people they will look for another scapegoat to attack. When that target is finshed off, another will be established, on and on, which is the pattern of fascism before it burns itself out.
I’d love to see a health insurer or employer have a moral objection to Christianity. Oh boy, would that turn the tables. Actually, I have a moral objection to Christianity – it’s bad for your brain. It prevents you from using your thinking brain as God intended. It turns you into a machine – no thinking necessary. It sounds like someone wants to return us to Puritan times. Everything about your life monitored and if you walked by the pasture and a cow died, you got tried as a witch. 21st century has been so dumbed-down that such idiocy as this Senator proposes is no longer too ridiculous to speak it. Frankly, insurers will have a moral objection to paying out any money for anything. Talk about brain-dead.
Gianni, I agree with that moral objection. Will this law allow me to deny service to Europeans if I don’t like their lifestyle? What about Republicans? I definitely get to deny service to any one who supports Rick Santorum.
Let’s imagine that a national secular association of economists and their followers all have the sincerely held belief that every phuck should have the potential to produce another human – because that is the best way to grow the economy, and a strong economy benefits everyone. And thus they demand to be exempt from a law requiring their employees to be covered by a health insurance plan that pays for contraception. Would that exemption be granted? No, because only sincerely held beliefs falling under the protective umbrella of religion are granted special rights.
Am I wrong?