I find myself wondering
kalamazu:
mrsbadcrumble:
how many people would be vigorously nodding their heads in agreement if the government declared that all Jewish institutions/schools had to serve pork and would say it’s not a big deal because “a lot of them eat pork anyway.”
We need to disentangle insurance from employment. We need to get back to thinking of it as a safety net for catastrophic things, not for free doctor visits and $4 prescriptions. Of course, that’s a whole ‘nother can of fucked up worms.
That’s not the same thing at all.
I don’t understand why it’s supposed to be ok to deny necessary medical services to 50% of the population based on a religious argument. No one wants to mandate that all individuals must take part in something that goes against their religious beliefs.
The idea that services could be denied to everyone based on the religious leanings of a few? That’s screwed up.
Seconding what Kally said.
Also, the original analogy about forcing Jewish people to serve/eat pork is so incredibly off-base. It’s absolutely crap and not comparable and I just need to break this down. SO here we go with the original poster’s analogy, in order to make it work comparably to the birth control issue, this is what would have to be happening -
First need to assume that several hospitals, universities and charities in our country were already Jewish and already receiving taxpayer money, and were ALREADY privileged above every other religion’s organizations and secular organizations in our society, in that they don’t have to follow the same rules.
(Hard to imagine for anything but Christian-based organizations, but just go with it, I’m trying to make the original analogy work.)
Let’s say these organizations provided food vouchers as part of compensation for employment, and this was the only source of food many people had so they really need these vouchers to survive. Let’s pretend that that pork was a critical aspect of a person’s diet, necessary for health, mental, health, lifeplanning, family planning, hormone regulation - pork is necessary for all kinds of reasons, pork is really important in this analogy.
Now let’s say the government mandated that Jewish organizations have to offer a voucher for pork. No one on staff has the eat the pork if they don’t choose to or don’t believe in it. The organization isn’t being forced to say “Pork is completely ok, pork is amazing, you must use pork”. They aren’t even being forced to say “We support the pork industry.” No… they can be clear that they don’t think it’s ok.
All they have to do is offer their employees, who earned compensation for their work, the option to use the pork vouchers.
Because these organizations, see, they accept government funding. They accept taxpayer money and they CANNOT privilege their religious belief over the health and wellbeing of people who work for them who don’t ascribe to their beliefs.
To do so would be like withholding pay for a staff member that doesn’t go to services at your place of worship, or refuses to raise their children with your faith. Unnacceptable. Already illegal.
That’s what the original poster is equating. That’s the analogy they are attempting to use. Doesn’t work, does it? All kinds of holes. Not to mention I don’t think I’ve ever said the word “pork” so many times in one paragraph and I’m not going to lie, I feel a little squigged out about that for some reason.
