Gyzmo-Grim's avatar
If you were the one who'd have to carry the child would you still oppose this? Other than religious beliefs why do you oppose it?
joshthecartoonguy's avatar
Okay, here's a dang good reason for you: because it will actually hurt the people it claims to help. If you say to religious charities, "You must either stop doing charitable activities, or else pay for something you find immoral," a lot of those religious individuals will decide that they can't continue to perform the charitable work. Indeed, I believe the Catholic church has announced that if the government forces them to fund this, they will shut down their hospitals. 1 in 6 hospitals in America is a Catholic hospital. The poor people who rely on charitable health clinics and soup kitchens will be the ones hurt by penalizing religious charities. You can say, "Oh, how dare they threaten that!" but what are they supposed to do? These religious people want to help others because they want to obey what they believe are God's commands. The government is essentially saying, "In order to continue doing good work to help people, you must do something which disobeys what you believe are God's commands." What if it was something like, you operate a soup kitchen, and the federal government says, in order for you to stay in business, you must help pay for our wars, and you are a pacifist who has a moral objection to supporting wars. Are you going to continue your charity work if doing so requires you to fund something you believe to be morally repugnant? The people who are going to feel the pain of this mandate going into effect are not the wealthy liberals who would like contraception, but the poorest of Americans who rely upon charity. If religious liberty really isn't good enough reason to oppose this mandate, then not hurting poor people should be reason aplenty.
Gyzmo-Grim's avatar
Again, you are using religion to try to support your beliefs. I wanted to know why you oppose this without dragging religion or God into this.
joshthecartoonguy's avatar
I did make a secular argument: Because it will hurt poor people. I'm not Catholic. But I sympathize with Catholics who want to follow their conscience. My Vietnam analogy was also a secular argument. If it's wrong to make an anti-war person pay to support a war he believes is immoral, why is it okay to tell an anti-contraception person that they have to pay to support contraception? Why don't we just keep the current law as is? If you like contraception, you can buy it for cheap. If you don't like contraception, no one is forcing to to buy it. Frankly, this mandate is so silly, because it's a one-size-fits-all approach to medicine. You may be the female employee of the Catholic hospital, and not be inclined to buy an abortive drug. But under this one-size-fits-all mandate, you are paying the abortive drug companies whether or not you'll ever use their services. It's like requiring all employers to pay for testicular cancer exams, including all-female companies. If you say, "It's silly to require our female organization to pay for testicular exams in our health coverage" and your response is "But testicular cancer exams save lives! Do you want to people to die of testicular cancer? Do you want to ban testicular exams!" Of course not. Just give me the freedom to pay for what products and services I actually need. Don't assume that all people need the same things and should be covered equally. Here is yet another secular argument: this is supporting Big Business. Whatever happened to the liberal suspicion of corporate greed?

Here's a hypothetical: scientists discover that drinking soda has positive benefits on health. Pepsi then lobbies congress to pass a bill requiring employers to pay for free pepsi products in order to stay in business. I think the Mormons have a religious objection to Pepsi, so let's say they ask for an exception. "What?" you don't want to provide free Pepsi? But Pepsi is good for you! Pepsi would probably wage an ad war extolling the health benefits of soda and asking people to support the Pepsi Mandate. Never mind that you could go to Walmart and buy Pepsi for cheap already, or if you can't afford Pepsi, Sam's Club soda, which tastes just like it and is less expensive. Why should we force the Mormons to pay for Pepsi despite their religious objections, when soda is widely available for cheap? Why should the government make Pepsi the winner rather than Coca-cola, or Sam's club? Even if soda is good for you, does it follow that you have a right to force your employer to pay for free Pepsi for you, regardless of his religious or moral concerns with Pepsi? The reason this is similar to the contraception debate is that certain pharmaceutical companies will be the winners, the ones that have enough money to have political clout.

There are multiple "secular" arguments in that, however, you seem to think that wanting religious liberty is somehow a "religious" argument, not a "secular" argument. But a lot of secular people who care about freedom care about religious liberty. No where in this post have I said we should oppose this because the Bible says so, I'm making an argument about liberty. If a secular person should be free to help other people without funding what he finds morally abhorrent, then the same goes for the religious person. It's a question of conscience. If you disrespect the right of a religious person to follow his conscience, how can you expect religious people to stand up for your right to obey your own conscience? It's like that old saying: the guy didn't object to the Jews losing their rights because we wasn't a Jew, he didn't object to the gypsies losing their rights because he wasn't a gypsy, then the communists, then the catholics, then finally there was no one left to stand up for him because he hadn't stood up for anyone else before him. If today the government has the power to force religious people to go against their conscience, then they have the power to force secular people to go against their conscience. We're all in this together.
Hoenn-Master's avatar
:iconsuperepicwinplz:

You, sir, have just won my absolute respect. :iconclapplz:
Gyzmo-Grim's avatar
I say we agree to disagree; it's clear neither one of us will win or change the other's opinion.
joshthecartoonguy's avatar
Okay. Thank you for staying respectful.

I'd encourage you to consider that men like Martin Luther King have had strong religious motivations for supporting the kinds of laws they supported, but that didn't mean they were trying to "impose their religious views" on people by wanting to change segregation laws. Wanting to advance religious liberty is very different from wanting to advance a particular religion. Advancing a religion is an example of "imposing" religious views on people whereas advancing religious liberty is good for everyone, including non-religious individuals, because religious liberty is incompatible with "imposing" ideas on people against their will.
Gyzmo-Grim's avatar
Whenever I debate things between people I try to keep it respectful and when I can see when neither party's mind can be changed it's best to stop before it gets ugly.
joshthecartoonguy's avatar
I wish you the best.
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