Thursday, January 26, 2012
The Condom's Cousins
And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks.
— Samuel Butler, Hudibras
Health care coverage is one horse that the Church has chosen to ride in order to protect its belief in the sanctity of its beliefs. Sex, rather than God, is its focus. If God’s perceived commandments on how one deals with one’s fellow man come into conflict with the Church’s opinion on sex, its opinion on sex wins out every time, irrespective of the effect it may have on fellow man. Examples abound but two recent ones make the point and both involve health care, an employee benefit the Church will happily sacrifice in order to protect its notion of appropriate sexual conduct.
In 2010 the Council of the District of Columbia voted 11-1 in favor of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. The ordinance requires that same-sex couples receive the same employment benefits as are given heterosexual couples by their employers. The Catholic Church is not a huge fan of same sex marriage and the ordinance gave pause to Catholic Charities, an organization that, according to Catholic on Line, in the District of Columbia alone, “serves 68,000 people. . . through a range of services, including shelter, nutrition, counseling, employment and job training services, legal and health care assistance, immigration assistance and more.” When the ordinance was enacted Catholic Charities made certain changes to its operation and, among other things, said that beginning March 1, 2010 there would be no health benefits for partners of new hires and partners of those already employed who had not elected to participate in the insurance program, whether heterosexual or homosexual and whether married or not. Thus, its disapproval of the gay community’s sexual behavior caused it to sacrifice the provision of health care coverage for partners of its employees. Now the condom’s cousins have jumped into the fray and once again health care may be placed upon the Church’s altar as the sacrificial lamb.
Prior to the passage of the Obama health care reform, 15% of the U.S. population lacked any form of health insurance. In an attempt to improve the quantity and quality of health care available in the U.S. , the president proposed and Congress passed, legislation known as Obama Care. Among other things, the legislation addresses the plight of those who heretofore have been without health insurance. The legislation requires that insurers include “preventive health services” in their policies and may not charge for including those provisions in their policies.
On August 11, 2011 the Department of Health and Human Services issued an interim final rule stating that insurance plans had to include contraceptive service for women without charging a co-pay, co-insurance or a deductible. The interim rule, however, allowed “non-profit religious organization that offer insurance to their employees the choice of whether or not to cover contraceptive services.” On January 20, 2012 the administration issued the final rule and said all insurance plans must include coverage for contraceptive services. It made no exception for non-profit religious organizations. It concluded that employees of non-profit organizations who are not hostile to the idea that women should be permitted to control their own bodies, should have the same opportunity as employees of for profit organization to decide if and when they will bring children into the world. The only concession made to those hostile to birth control was postponing the effective date of the rule as applied to them to August 1, 2013. Not unexpectedly, the Church was upset. The idea that the government, rather than the Church, should be deciding whether women should have freedom of choice was deeply offensive to assorted prelates (and certain evangelical sects.)
According to the New York Times, “Catholic bishops have said they would fight the ‘edict’ from the government.” Archbishop designate Timothy Dolan of New York is the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He was quoted as saying “In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences.” The conscience to which he is referring is the conscience that enables men of the cloth to tell women what to do with their bodies. He said: “To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable. It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty. We’re unable to live with this.” There is, of course, no reason to think that church employees will be foregoing access to health care if the rule is enforced unless the soon to be Archbishop is suggesting that the Church would be prepared to drop all employer health insurance plans rather than comply with the requirement. Non-church members would find that a shocking way of expressing the church’s disapproval of the rule. Given the precedent set by Catholic Charities, however, that would not be beyond the realm of possibility. After all, when Church doctrine bumps into human’s rights, doctrine must prevail.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Monkeys and Solons
From an evolutionary point of view, man has stopped moving, if he ever did move.
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man
Those who hated to see the primary come to an end in New Hampshire and, with it, the extensive coverage that small state received, can take heart in another development that will for at least some, permit New Hampshire to continue to receive the publicity it so enjoys. The device by which this goal is achieved is New Hampshire House Bill 1148.
HB 1148 was introduced by Jerry Bergevin, a Republican member of the House and is one of several that have cropped up around the country in 2012 that address the problematical issue known as evolution. Although the Republican presidential wannabes who had the strongest opinions about the viability of evolution have left the race, thanks to Mr. Bergevin evolution will continue to command its rightful place in debates in public schools and universities in New Hampshire. The bill adds a new paragraph to the law that describes the duties of the State Board of Education and says that evolution must be “taught in the public schools of this state as a theory, including the theorists’ political and ideological viewpoints and their position on the concept of atheism.” To help the board understand the intent of this bill, House Bill 1457 was introduced by two other Republican members of the New Hampshire House, Gary Hopper and John Burt. Like HB 1148, it adds a new paragraph to the duties of the State Board of Education. Entitled “Scientific Inquiry”, it requires “science teachers to instruct pupils that proper scientific inquire [sic] results from not committing to any one theory or hypothesis, no matter how firmly it appears to be established, and that scientific and technological innovations based on new evidence can challenge accepted scientific theories or modes.” The aim of that language is to keep evolution from becoming too uppity and self-important and reminding it that in the eyes of some, it is no better than the theory that the earth is flat.
As with primaries, New Hampshire’s day in the sun is shared. Other states are anxious to climb into the Looney bin and there is certainly room for them. In Indiana, Dennis Kruse, a Republican legislator, has introduced Senate Bill 89. It is succinct. It simply provides that “The governing body of a school corporation may require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science, within the school corporation.”
Another competitor for a place in the bin (and the winner if space is limited) is Missouri, the “Show me State.” Missouri is leaving nothing to chance. Its bill has much more specificity than the bills introduced in either of the other two states. House Bill 1227 was introduced on January 10, 2012. It is baptized the “Missouri Standard Science Act.” It includes a series of definitions, among them the definition of “Biological Evolution” that it defines as “a theory of the origin of life and its ascent by naturalistic means.” The section on biological evolution is relatively short. By contrast, “Biological Intelligent Design” takes up most of the discussion in the legislation. Much emphasis is placed on events that took place “previous to written history” which probably includes the times when dinosaurs were roaming the earth they being, by all accounts, unable to read or write. The bill says that “Conjecture concerning an event previous to written history as to the occurrence of the event . . . shall be taught as theory or hypotheses . . . .” In addition, when teaching about such events “the naturalistic process shall be duplicated by an analogous naturalistic process.” An “Analogous naturalistic process” is either a “present-day naturally occurring process similar to a past naturalistic process or the human-directed duplication of a process similar to a past naturalistic process.” Whether an animated cartoon showing something climbing out of the slime and metamorphosing into the form of the legislators who support this bill would qualify as an “analogous naturalistic process” is unclear.
Although it is not stated in the legislation, a careful reading suggests that the book of Genesis that is found in the Bible would constitute “written history” and, therefore, would not be subject to the same kind of rigorous scrutiny that attaches to the period during which illiterate dinosaurs were roaming the earth. Even if it were, presumably the required “physical evidence” would be provided by the presence of the humans in the classroom and no additional evidence would be needed.
The complexity of the Bill means teachers will need retraining in order to understand it. The Missouri legislators thought of that. House Bill 1276 introduced January 11, 2012 says, among other things, that the educational authorities in the state shall “endeavor to assist teachers to find more effective ways to present the science curriculum where it addresses scientific controversies.” Such assistance will surely include interpreting House Bill 1277.
It’s too bad dinosaurs didn’t know how to write. Their written
description of their existence would make all this legislation unnecessary.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The Senate's Holiday
Although the Senate is much given to admiring in its members a superiority less obvious or quite invisible to outsiders, one Senator seldom proclaims his own inferiority to another, and still more seldom likes to be told of it.
— Henry Brooks Adams, The Education of Henry Adams
The Republicans’ newest way of countering criticism that Congress spends more time on recess than it does working occurred when it went home for the Christmas holidays. The criticism occurs because in 2011 Senate and House Members were in session for 112 days, according to the Library of Congress, leaving them 253 days of free time. (These numbers are imprecise. They may have inadvertently worked a few more days than shown.) To counter the impression that they do not work very hard the Republican Senators agreed to pretend they were working when most of them were spending the holidays away from Washington. They agreed that when they were gone they would not be gone.
One explanation for their action could have been a desire to be paid while out on recess but Senators get paid no matter how they spend their time so that was not a plausible explanation. The real reason Republicans pretended to be working when they were vacationing was because they didn’t want other people in Washington to be working when they were vacationing because it made them look bad. By senatorial fiat, they said they would pretend to be at work while they were on vacation but, as when they were formally at work in Washington, they would follow their long established tradition of doing nothing. The only difference between doing nothing when they were in town and doing nothing when they were out of town was the geographical location of where they did nothing. Here is how it worked.
On January 6, 2012 (and other days were similar) the Senate met) at three seconds after 11 A.M. and adjourned 29 seconds later. Since it had a 29 second session that day it was not considered to be out on recess even if assorted Senators around the country were playing on swing sets or teeter-totters the way juveniles do when they are out on recess. By pretending to be working when playing, they hoped to keep two other federal agencies from doing any work, work that would make the Senators look lazy. The two agencies that threatened to embarrass the Senators were the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (C.F.P.B.)
The N.L.R.B. is charged with, among other things, investigating and ruling on cases that involve unfair labor practices and conducting elections for labor union representation. Because of the way it is structured and a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision, the NLRB can only decide cases if at least 3 members of its 5 members are in place. Effective January 1, 2012 the board would only have had 2 members and, thus, would, like the Senate, not have conducted any business. By pretending not to be on recess they hoped to prevent the President from making recess appointments that could only be made when the Senate was not in session. The President was not fooled. He made three recess appointments so that the board could perform its statutorily assigned duties in 2012.
Similarly, the C.F.P.B. was unable to perform all of its statutorily assigned functions because it lacked a director. The agency was created by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. All the Republicans in the Senate opposed the passage of that Act and figured out that by filibustering the appointment of a Director, whose appointment was critical to the functioning of the agency, they could accomplish indirectly what they could not accomplish directly. As a result, the President made another recess appointment in order to get the agency up and running.
Republicans were, of course, furious, since as far as they were concerned the fact that they were not conducting any business during the time they were away from Washington was no different from how they behaved when they were in Washington and they should not, therefore, be considered to be out on recess. Furthermore, by enabling the agencies to perform their assigned tasks, the President thwarted Republican attempts stop the functioning of those agencies.
The Republicans will almost certainly sue to try to invalidate the recess appointments. For them it is a matter of setting a precedent. If every time they do nothing they are deemed to be on recess then a court could easily find that the Senate was on recess all last year except for the occasional petulant outbursts from Mitch McConnell. The President would then be free to get all sorts of things done that the Senate was mindlessly blocking and an enlightened public would soon discover that the Senate was a useless body with which we could, as we have in recent times, easily do without.