By OPHELIA BENSON - BUTTERFLIES AND WHEELS
Added: Sun, 12 Feb 2012 04:09:14 UTC

Brilliant. The Obama admin knows the bishops and the Republicans won’t be mollified but the admin is submitting anyway. Worst of both worlds! Lose-lose! Give way on the principle but gain no actual votes or support. Good thinking!

The Obama administration, seeking to rein in a runaway political furor over birth control and religious liberty, is set to announce a possible compromise on Friday that is meant to calm ire from the right about a new administration rule that would require health insurance plans — including those offered by Roman Catholic hospitals, universities and charities — to offer free birth control to female employees.

Administration officials called the expected announcement an “accommodation” that they said sought to demonstrate respect for religious beliefs.

Well piss on them. It’s not their job to demonstrate respect for religious beliefs. Religious beliefs aren’t respectable as such. Beliefs are respectable if they’re reasonable; the very term “religious beliefs” implies the opposite of reasonability; this sick-making cant about respecting religious beliefs amounts to encouraging people to be unreasonable and dogmatic and stupid – artificially stupid, in the name of religion.

Read more

TAGGED: US POLITICS