Column — Another Red Herring in the Culture War

By Marcia Meoli
Holland Sentinel
March 20, 2012

http://www.hollandsentinel.com/opinions/x872948344/COLUMN-Another-red-herring-in-the-culture-war

Holland — The controversy surrounding regulations mandating coverage of birth control in health insurance demonstrates once again the persistence our culture wars and the manipulation of women's issues. No one challenged the fact that the vast majority of American women, including Catholic women, use birth control. No one challenged the fact that birth control has become a matter of public health for women. No one claimed that any employer would have to pay directly for any birth control — it would only be paid by insurance companies.

When it comes to women, and specifically the independence of women to make decisions about their lives, our society cannot seem to act rationally.

There are any number of uses of health insurance to which an employer might have religious objections. How about an objection to all extramarital sexual activity or drug use? Should an employer be able to exclude coverage from sexually transmitted diseases by claiming that most of these come from promiscuous sexual activity? There are any number of issues that could arise, including restrictions on end-of-life decisions.

No one objected when insurance companies paid for Viagra to enable men to increase their sexual prowess. Only when we finally decide that women need coverage for birth control do we get such a debate.

Who started the debate? America's Catholic bishops, with conservative enemies of President Obama only too happy to oblige in supporting them. The argument was really one of purity. The bishops did not want any of their money going to support birth control, over which they have a moral objection. Where was that purity when the bishops were faced with the horrible sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests? Pedophiles were kept on by American bishops for years, sometimes allowing further contact with children.

I was a Catholic for a majority of my life. I went through Catholic education as a child. I attended Catholic school from the fifth grade to high school. I also attended a Catholic law school, which, by the way, had more Jewish professors (and students) than Catholics. I know quite well the marginalization of females, girls and women, by the Catholic Church. I also know how the church disregards many other practical realities of American life in the name of hierarchical doctrine.

The Obama administration insurance regulations in question apply only to religious organizations that are engaged in non-church activities. It seems to me that, if the church wants to run a hospital or a college and serve the public (and also accept public funds for this) it should accept some of the realities of public life. In our society, health insurance coverage is a form of compensation to a worker. Just as an employer should not be able to tell a worker what to do with their paycheck, they should also not be able to dictate the terms of insurance coverage supplied to the worker.

This issue is another red herring in the culture wars waged against President Obama. President Obama, in his usual intelligent fashion, crafted a compromise which seemed to satisfy the more reasonable groups in the Catholic community. And, as usual, conservatives said it was not enough and continued to criticize it; some now raise the specter of turning back the clock on lessons that we learned long ago about women's health.

Conservatives and the American bishops may continue to try to keep this issue alive. Republicans may not want to get too close to a group of bishops who were as tone-deaf on other issues which did a lot of damage to many people over many years.