Please help me understand the co-called controversy around the birth control compromise [View all]

[sudopod]

Last edited Mon Feb 13, 2012, 02:48 PM - Edit history (2)

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the new rules would not force the Church, or any employer, to fund insurance coverage for contraception. However, it will require the insurance provider to contact the employee and offer them sidecar coverage independently of the employer.

If I am not mistaken about the above, then why does the employer get to say anything? The Catholic Church, for example, would not have to pay one red cent for those nasty birth control medications. Why the moral panic?

If the church is not being forced to finance something they dislike, and they aren't up in arms on account of a desire to impose their doctrines on free American citizens, then what am I missing?

EDIT: See Post 12 for an excellent synopsis.

EDIT 2: As posters downthread have noted, depending on how many transfers of ownership we follow the money through we are all fourth or fifth order purchasers of nuclear weapons and cluster bombs. No "serious people" worry about the problems Quakers would have with that, though. Clearly, there is a level of "laundering" (for lack of a better term) that makes these purchases acceptable from a "freedom of conscience" perspective. The only question is how many steps will make everyone happy.