Have you noticed that not one member of the religious right has even complained that under the ACA, Viagra is free, and available, even via Hobby-Lobby’s insurance provider? One wonders if this were a matter of morality and conscience, why has not one single ‘Christian’ conservative religious type person – of any denomination protested the fact that Viagra is so widely available? Why are so-called ‘Godly’ Christian men only concerned about contraceptives and what goes on with women’s bodies? If this were an issue about morality, should men not be held, by the religious right, by ‘Godly’ Christians to the same standards of so-called morality as women? Why was it a slut moment for Sandra Flack (for whom, BTW, I have little use) to discuss contraceptives, but just a failure in judgement when Rush Limbaugh was caught in customs with enough Viagra to …. oh sell, use your imagination.
This is about dominating women, turning them into second-class citizens. There are those who are even advocating that only baptized ‘Christian’ women be allowed to vote – when their husbands allow it. Women are to be controlled, manipulated, and used for breeding purposes only. This is the true agenda of Steve & David Green of Hobby-Lobby, and the allegedly ‘godly’ christian men of the the religious right. As I have been discussing for weeks, it is an agenda that is finally being exposed. It is a world where women are to be completely silent. It is a world created by R. J. Rushdoony, based on his re-writing of the patriarchal world of the Old Testament, and basically changes the entire Christian faith. This is their world, where democracy is heresy, and anyone who refuses to go along with their version of theocracy will be executed as a heretic.
According to one source, the Southern Baptist Convention, which has officially endorsed complementarian theology has over 16,000,000 members and 46,0000 churches. These numbers are staggering. It is the reason why basic rights for women are now threatened. This is part of the world of David & Steve Green.
“...The concept of male divinity is not new. For centuries it was believed that emperors were divine. That is what is happening today with male headship, but to a greater degree than ever before. Complementarians have decided that it is not just some men who are born to rule over women, but that all men are born to rule over all women.
Not content with ruling over women in the present world, the CBMW has taken male headship into heaven itself, leaving no avenue of equality for women. The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood endorses this heresy that male headship will continue on into Heaven, and that males will eternally rule over their wives, and that wives and children will eternally be submissive to the husband and father in the family….”
If you listen to the left, they will tell you that the Hobby-Lobby case is about a woman’s right to have contraceptives paid for by insurance companies. What they don’t bother adding in their argument, and why they may be losing is that it isn’t about contraceptives or even abortion, it is about the cost of the process of the prescription for said contraceptives. Sure, they can opt for condoms, which aren’t all that expensive. They’re down right cheep. Quite frankly, I think that any woman who is planning on having more than one male partner or doesn’t know the sexual history of her committed partner is a fool if she doesn’t require one to be used. There are just too many diseases out there, and I like the idea of trust but verify.
According to the right, Hobby-Lobby is a corporation, as a corporation they have a right to decide what the insurance they purchase for employees covers. On the surface, as a privately owned corporation they should have that right. It should have nothing to do with religious liberty. It isn’t about religious liberty but about a he-man-woman-hating corporate billionaire who wants to impose his world-view, not only on his company, but the rest of the country. Quite honestly, they have right to select the insurance they use. If the Green family doesn’t believe in contraceptives, and are paying for the insurance for their employees, then they have a right not to provide it. It’s that simple.
“...Recently, my doctor gave me an ultimatum: Come in for a pelvic exam, or I won’t refill your birth control pills. The problem arose after I tried to get my prescription refilled before going on vacation in March, only to be told that the doctor’s office wouldn’t sign off on the refill because it had been a year and one month since I’d had an annual exam and a Pap smear. A nurse grudgingly gave me a monthlong reprieve if I promised to come in for an exam when I returned from my trip….”
And – once again – here is where the left is blowing it. This isn’t about contraceptives. It is about medical costs. Contraceptives are fairly inexpensive. If you check Amazon, and start doing a little calculating, they cost about $0.33/each. Sorry, but even I can afford that. According to Planned Parenthood, an IUD costs anywhere from $500-$1000 and is good for up to 12 years. Birth control pills cost anywhere from $15 – $50 a month. Depending on what part of the country one lives, the costs differ, greatly.
Now – here is where it gets interesting. If a woman purchases her birth control pills without using insurance, it is possibly much cheaper than if using insurance. If using Costco, Walmart, or Target, purchasing them without insurance is cheaper. Some can be had for as little as four bucks a pack! Here is where, once again, I agree with Hobby Lobby. I’ve never had prescription coverage, ever. I don’t like spending money on health care, and don’t believe in taking medications. I opted not to use birth control pills because I don’t believe in taking medication unless I’m down with something so bad they must force-feed me antibiotics.
Once again – this is NOT about contraception. This is about medical costs. For a woman to go to her GYN or family practice physician, for an enforced yearly check-up in order to get a prescription for birth control pills, she is going to shell out a small fortune. They are going to require a Pap Smear, which is not needed yearly. They could cost anywhere from $50/$100 (2008 pricing), but the price has more than doubled. It is also a way for labs to cheat consumers. And – if I were a corporation having to foot the bill for something like this, I’d be screaming about it – because of consumer costs. Planned Parenthood offers them at a much lower price. According to consumer information, the average cost, at the doctor’s office is about $33. The real costs come from the labs.
This is also about a need to know about cervical cancer. If a woman has had numerous sexual partners or has a partner who is not faithful, but has numerous partners, they are at risk. If a woman is not involved in these activities, or has taken the vaccine against cervical cancer, then, theoretically, she doesn’t need to spend the money on one. Quite frankly, if a woman is not sexually active, why pay for tests that aren’t needed? It’s all about the money. If I were a corporation, providing insurance for anyone, I’d be bitching about the artificially inflated medical costs – for anything. The real problem here is that physicians are holding the American women hostage when it comes to birth control pills. You have your yearly (expensive) check-up – or else!
All of this could be solved by allowing birth control pills to be over the counter. You think this is going to happen? When pigs fly it will. Doctors are making far too much money on the forcing women to have a yearly exam. Yea, if I were Hobby-Lobby, I’d be complaining about that. The whole process needs to be over the counter. But – you aren’t even seeing anything out of the Obama Administration or the ACA about that one. Fact is, this entire battle could have been disarmed, simply by requiring the medication to be over the counter. Let’s be honest. The Obama Administration blew it.
In other countries, birth control pills are over the counter. The mess that we are seeing now, via Hobby-Lobby and the ACA could have been avoided by just letting them be over the counter. Right now, a woman must shell out anywhere from $130 upward, just to have a yearly exam to get a prescription which, in most parts of the world is easier to obtain than my Sudafed is.
It’s that simple. Unfortunately, we are dealing with an incompetent Secretary of Health and Human Services. Rather than take the logical steps and truly do something that might actually help the American consumer, they’ve made it worse. Her heavy-handed tactics, along with the fact that the minions of the far right, in the House and Congress refuse to co-operate, have created a mess. Their hatred of Barack Obama is so insane, they will do just about anything, destroy just about anything, to destroy him. For his part, Obama basically isn’t willing to even begin to compromise. As a result, we the American Consumer, are – once again – screwed.
As for Hobby Lobby, David Green is ‘Christian’. He is a dominionist. He’s patriarchal. He’s also part of Christian Reconstructionism. This nation must be and will be re-molded into their world view, no matter how many people are destroyed in the process. He has also bought into the prevarication that contraceptives, birth control pills basically murder the pre-fetus, before it has a chance to become a fetus. That’s the only way to possibly explain the fake science, pushed by Keven Swanson, that birth control pills litter a woman’s uterus with the bodies of dead babies. They don’t need no stinkin’ science. After all, science, in their increasingly primitive version of Christianity, is a tool of the devil.
They like to say that the Greens like to run their business on Christian principles. Quite honestly, my version of Christian principles doesn’t including using virtual slave labor out of China. Combined with the fact that Kathleen Sebelius is basically a bust-head, and Barack Obama has been pushed into a corner – of his own making – where he was either unwilling or unable to compromise, and we have a mess.
We also need to face the fact that the entire ACA is a total disaster – or it is getting that way, and I originally supported it. I’m saying it is a total disaster because it did not go far enough. Contrary to the lies we’ve been force-fed about socialized medicine in Canada, the UK, and parts of Europe, people who live in countries where they have a progressive revision of socialized medicine have a better quality of life. They are happier. They are healthier. They also have more money to spend. Instead of creating something that could truly benefit the American people, this albatross was hung around our necks. David Green’s mean-spirited version of what he believes is only going to make things worse. Then again, it’s already worse, and going to be a disaster before it’s all said and done.
Here again, I fault Sebelius and the Administration for assuming – ASS U ME – that the health care industry, big pharma, and insurance companies would play fair. They assumed – and have made asses out of us all. They are never going to play fair. It was naive to assume they would. It was heavy-handed and just plain stupid for the Obama Administration to demand that religious institutions violate their basic teachings and theology – if they are not receiving tax-payer funds for upkeep. If they are, then they really don’t have much to say on the issue. The entire contraceptive issue was badly handled by Sebelius. If it were not so offensive in so many ways, it would have been laughable, almost as though she were trying to torpedo the very program she was helping to create. If the way the right responded were no so offensive and over-the-top in so many ways, a compromise might have been achieved. Indeed, there is no compromise on either side. Great statesmen know how to compromise. I’m not seeing either the Administration open to compromise in many things, nor the laughable little tin-plated dictators of the far right.
The great irony here is that the hearing in the Supreme Court was held on the holy feast day of the Annunciation of our Lord to Mary. It is terribly ironic. In a world where the left is assumed to want to abort unwanted babies and the right is assumed to hate women, we celebrate the fact that the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, telling her that she had been chosen above all others – in history – to be the mother of Our Savior.
In choosing a woman, this way, it was the most in your face thing the Lord could have done to men. An unassuming woman was given the greatest gift the world has ever known. She wasn’t important. She wasn’t powerful. She wasn’t wealthy. She was just a woman who loved the Lord with all her heart and soul. People like Steve & David Green are promoting a version of the Arian Heresy. People like Green believe that the Holy Trinity basically does not apply. That the Father is superior to the Son and both are superior to the Holy Spirit. On Monday, a very wise woman emailed, telling me that the Christians who deny the Holy Trinity (the way people like Green do) are completely wrong.
Luke 1:26-38 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ 29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ 34Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ 35The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37For nothing will be impossible with God.’ 38Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.
According to my very wise friend, images of the Angel, Gabriel have him kneeling before Mary. She was purer than he, and becomes the Queen of Angels. In the patriarchal world view where the Greens live, women are not to be held in such esteem. Christ liberated women. This battle is much more than a wealthy man’s determination to force his religious views on everyone else. It is about the heart and soul of a nation. It is also about a great heresy that is engulfing Christians throughout the nation.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; *
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed: *
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him *
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm, *
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers, *
to Abraham and his children for ever.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: *
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
