[Buddha-l] Check out The Right's Stupidity Spreads

[Jo]

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Let's see. First, the Catholic Church won't fund the insurance  that covers
birth control. Catholic Churches are exempt. It applies only  to Catholic
institutions that offer services to non Catholics as well as  Catholics. 
Think a Catholic hospital set in a poor area of town. State laws at  least
here in Illinois prevent another hospital from opening up nearby and
competing with them. It receives enormous amounts of federal cash both
directly and indirectly through not having to pay taxes. Plus birth control
is  not forced on anyone; they can refuse. Add to all this the fact that
surveys  have shown that 98% of Catholic women have used birth control
sometime in  their lives. How is all this stomping on people's religious
convictions?  It seems to me to offset a Catholic hierarchy's forcing their
beliefs on  others.
 
jack

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Well put, Jack. 
Back in the early fifties, the Catholic hierarchy in this country was so
powerful in some states, like the one I was living in at the time (Conn.),
that a married woman in need of birth control couldn't get it in that state.
Condoms were "available" but illegal, sold under the counter. There no
constitutional separation of church and state then.  My husband and I had to
go to a Massachusett's town across the border, to the much reviled Planned
Parenthood office, to take care of my requirements.  As a no income grad
student, I was provided for free. 
Thank the Catholics' god that we no longer have had to put up with such
nonsense. But the evengeos and the fundos are trying to start another war on
the exercise of women's health rights; the Catholic hierarchy is only too
pleased to go along with this move, as we have already seen, even as their
hospitals never refuse the perqs offered by government that excuses them
from paying property taxes. 

Joanna