Homo Economicus

Thoughts on Slutgate

I’ve been debating my Catholic friend about what exactly constitutes an infringement of his religious liberty. Where is the line?

I’ve got him to admit that it’s not an infringement for an employee of a Catholic institution to use their salary to buy birth control. In that case, the choice is squarely on the conscience of the employee. But when you start making the Catholic org buy a group health plan that covers contraception, the sin of the employee’s use of the contraception somehow travels back to the Catholic org. 

But to the Catholic org’s accountant, there is no difference between the health plan and the salary. Those costs appear in the same column on his ledger — employee compensation. So the real problem is that we rely upon our employers or universities or (insert large organization here) to buy our health insurance who somehow become morally culpable for everything one chooses to do with said coverage.

But Sandra Fluke isn’t an employee of Georgetown. She’s a student. She actually pays them. Part of her tuition goes towards her health plan and she has no control over which health plan the university offers. And since it was her money to begin with and sin apparently follows the money (unless it’s salary), all the sin of using the birth control eventually falls on her shoulders anyway.

So what the hell are we talking about?

We’re talking about politics, plain and simple. Some republican thought he could paint President Obama as anti-religion. Thank gawd it has backfired.