The War on Democracy

In the year leading up to the presidential election, there has been a massive effort by Republican legislatures across the United States to implement new laws, ostensibly to combat voter fraud.   The design and implementation of these measures leaves little doubt about their intent.  

Let’s look at what happened. 

The key swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania received particular attention, with a variety of new laws which create hurdles to voting. 

I.  Voter Photo ID and Burdensome Voter ID laws:

In 34 states, Republicans introduced laws requiring photo IDs to vote.   The measures passed in 12 states, but have been subject to court review and challenges.  Twenty-five percent of black voters and sixteen percent of Latino voters do not have drivers’ licenses or other photo ID.   Young, poor and elderly voters are particularly less likely to own their own cars, and are therefore less likely to have drivers’ licenses.    A study by the Brennan Center for Justice estimated that between 250,000 to 750,000 young voters may be disenfranchised by the new voting requirements.  Pennsylvania's Republican Representative Turzai is obviously proud of this accomplishment, as seen in his speech to the Republican State Committee:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87NN5sdqNt8

Texas, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Kansas, Tennessee, and South Carolina tried to invalidate the use of student photo IDs for voting purposes.  Facing opposition, Wisconsin lawmakers cynically amended the law to allow student IDs, but required information on the ID that is not provided by any university in the state. 

If the issue was truly an issue of establishing identity, a university student photo ID should surely suffice.   But disallowing student IDs reveals the intent of the law, which is to impede Democratic voters.  Clearly, the intent of the law is NOT to establish photographic proof of identity, but rather to block voting  by people who do not have a drivers’ license—minorities, youth, senior citizens and the poor. 

Pennsylvania’s law required voters without a drivers’ license to provide both a social security card and a birth certificate to obtain a non-drivers ID card.   However, significant numbers of minorities, youth, senior citizens and the poor are believed not to have such identification.   The Pennsylvania law is still in court, but some version of the law is likely to be implemented by the time of the election.

Something rarely discussed in the articles about this issue are the lines involved in obtaining a voter’s ID for those who do not currently hold a driver’s license.   In a single anecdote, obtaining a voting card in Pennsylvania required a half-day.    (Have you ever been to the DMV office in any state?)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/voto-latino/restrictive-voting-laws-t_b_1120878.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/texans-gun-permits-student-ids-voting_n_1095530.html

II.  Early Voting Restrictions

Interestingly, Democratic voters disproportionally participate in early voting.   Various reasons have been suggested:  university students living away from home; work schedules of lower-income workers; lack of transportation on election day for the poor or elderly; limited alternatives for child care; etc.   But the simple fact is that early voting favors Democrats.   Therefore, the Republican effort in 2012 has been to limit early voting.

In Florida, in 2008, more than half of black voters cast an early ballot, as compared to one-quarter of white voters.   Florida reduced early voting from two weeks to one week, and eliminated voting on the Sunday before the election.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/voto-latino/restrictive-voting-laws-t_b_1120878.html

Ohio attempted to restrict early voting in Democratic districts to only business hours, eliminating after-hours and weekend voting, while simultaneously allowing after-hours and weekend voting in Republican districts.  This attempt was overturned in court.   Ohio also attempted to eliminate early voting in the 3 days prior to the election; a procedure that has been in place since 2005.   This effort was overturned in court, but the state plans to appeal the decision.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/10/670441/ohio-limits-early-voting-hours-in-democratic-counties-expands-in-republican-counties/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/09/1118341/-Ohio-sets-up-one-early-voting-system-for-Republican-counties-another-for-Democratic-counties
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ohio-ordered-to-restore-weekend-early-voting-in-judges-ruling/2012/08/31/c7f3b5d4-f3a6-11e1-892d-bc92fee603a7_story.html

III.  Voter Registration Laws

The effort to suppress Democratic voters in Florida also took the form of changes to the voter registration laws. 

In 2012, Florida required groups and individuals conducting registration drives to submit registration forms within 48 hours of the voter’s signature.   Previously, forms were required to be submitted within ten days of a voter’s signature.  Further, the state imposed a $1000 per day penalty on any group that failed to meet the stricter time deadline. 

Historically, registration drives (by groups such as the League of Women Voters) have been the primary means of registering minorities and students.   The new registration law has been successful in suppressing Democratic registrations.   In 2012, only 11,365 Democrats were registered in July.   By contrast, about 160,000 Democrats were registered in that period in 2004, and 260,000 Democrats were registered in 2008.   On August 30, a judge blocked Florida’s implementation of the new law, but the damage was already done.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/29/us-usa-voting-florida-idUSBRE87S1AK20120829
http://jurist.org/paperchase/2012/08/federal-judge-partially-blocks-florida-voter-registration-law.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/us/judge-to-block-changes-in-florida-voter-registration.html

IV.  Selectively Purging Voter Registration Rolls

In 2012, Florida conducted a long campaign to investigate and purge non-citizens from voting rolls.  The effort targeted Latino and minority voters.

The story is long and convoluted, and the state’s efforts were stymied through a cascade of errors and bad data.   But from an initial list of 182,000 voters believed to be non-citizens, 40 were identified as non-citizens.  A group of 2700 was selected for further scrutiny, containing 87.5 percent minorities.  The overwhelming majority (500 to 40) were proved to be citizens before that effort was discontinued.

Despite the flawed processes of previous attempts, the state is continuing in the attempt to purge voter rolls.  The state recently produced a new list of 198 potentially ineligible voters, who now have 30 days to prove their citizenship.   The new list contains names of people who voted in error, and also those who sent proof of citizenship during previous attempts to remove them from the rolls.
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Nearly-200000-Florida-Voters-May-Not-Be-Citizens-151212725.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/floridas-voter-purge-explained/2012/06/18/gJQAhvcNlV_blog.html
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/florida-sends-election-departments-list-of-198-potential-noncitizens-8212/1253538

V.  Voter Intimidation

There is a long history of using “poll watchers” to suppress minority voting.   

Various tactics were used to challenge the voters, sometimes using law enforcement officials to intimidate voters.   These tactics were discredited and abandoned by Republicans in the 1970’s, but have been revived for recent elections.   In Houston, an organization of white, suburban conservatives marched into downtown minority neighborhoods to harass voters and election workers.   The group’s founder has laid out plans to recruit and train a million “poll watchers” for the 2012 election.  

If this trend continues, our elections will become something like we read about in third world countries, marked by intimidation and violence at the polls.   Whoever organizes the biggest mob at the polling precinct wins. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/10/the-ballot-cops/309085/

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Conclusion

Individually, any of these efforts might be excused, under the pretext of reducing voter fraud.   But it should be noted that there is no positive evidence that a problem with voter fraud exists.   A Department of Justice review under the Bush administration produced only 86 cases of voter fraud out of 200 million votes.   In Florida, the attempt to find ineligible, non-citizen voters found 40 cases out of 182,000.  The avalanche of new laws and regulations leave little doubt that the intent is to deny the votes of legitimate voters.  In this post, I did not even address other issues, including redistricting, and deliberate misconduct by election officials.  

If this is the way Republicans run a campaign, just imagine how they will govern.

Robert Heinlein and the Election of 2012

The presidential election of 2012 is a key event in history, which will fundamentally change the United States for the next 100 years.   The winner of the 2012 presidential election is….Nehemiah Scudder.

This election occurs in Robert Heinlein’s “Future History” series of novels, mostly written between 1939 and 1950.   Scudder is a televangelist, backed by extremely wealthy interests, political connections and a wickedly effective propaganda campaign.  In Heinlein’s future history, Scudder establishes a conservative religious theocracy.   The next election does not occur for 100 years. 

The following is an excerpt of an interview with Robert Heinlein, from October 1952.   

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"As for the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a wave of religious hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible.  I hope that it is not probable.  But there is a latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and it has broken out many times in the past.  It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian. 

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.  This is equally true whether the faith is Communism or Holy-Rollerism; indeed it is the bounden duty of the faithful to do so.  The custodians of the True Faith cannot logically admit tolerance of heresy to be a virtue.

Nevertheless this business of legislating religious beliefs into law has never been more than sporadically successful in this country—Sunday closing laws here and there, birth control legislation in spots, the Prohibition experiment, temporary enclaves of theocracy such as Voliva’s Zion, Smith’s Nauvoo, a few others.  The country is split up into such a variety of faiths and sects that a degree of uneasy tolerance now exists from expedient oppositions against each other.

Could it be otherwise here?  Could any one sect obtain a working majority at the polls and take over the country?  Perhaps not—but a combination of a dynamic evangelist, television, enough money, and modern techniques of advertising and propaganda might make Billy Sunday’s efforts look like a corner store compared to Sears Roebuck.  Throw in a depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Negroism, and a good large dose of anti-“furriners” [anti-foreigners] in general and anti-intellectuals here at home and the result might be something quite frightening—particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington. "

Robert Heinlein (1907 - 1988)--------
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Addendum 1)

Mitt Romney expressed his views on Mormonism and abortion in this radio interview, available on YouTube:  Romney dispels any illusions that he actually held "pro-choice" views in the past, or would govern from a "pro-choice" point of view.   His belief in the literal prophecies of his church is also clear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TxMD02zU9SE

Addendum 2) 
The modern relevance of Heinlein's interview is seen in the following speech by Paul Broun, a high-ranking Republican member of the U.S. House Committee on Space, Science and Technology:

“God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior. There’s a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I believe that the Earth is about 9,000 years old. I believe that it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says. And what I’ve come to learn is that it’s the manufacturer’s handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually. How to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all our public policy and everything in society.  And that’s the reason, as your congressman, I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.”

Representative Paul Broun (R., Georgia), Sept. 27, 2012

Emphasis is mine.  Heinlein could not have written better dialog for one of his characters, but it seems that Representative Broun thought of these words all by himself.  

Addendum 3)

I find Heinlein’s fears similar in many ways to the sentiments of David Souter, retired Supreme Court Justice, in an interview on September 17, 2012.   Souter is concerned about the "pervasive civic ignorance" of today.

"What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible.  And when the problems get bad enough - another serious terrorist attack, another financial meltdown - some one person will come forward and say, 'Give me total power, and I will solve this problem.' That is how the Roman Republic fell....That is how democracy dies.  And if something is not done to improve the level of civic knowledge, that is what you should worry about at night….I am not a pessimist, but I am not an optimist about the future of American democracy.”

See my earlier post:  http://debatablypolitical.blogspot.com/2012/09/rome-didnt-fall-in-day.html.
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References:
The interview with Robert Heinlein was published in a volume containing the novellas "Revolt in 2100" and "Methuselah's Children", published by Baen Publishing Enterprises, PO Box 1403, NY, NY in 1999.

Paul Broun speech:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/06/paul-broun-evolution-big-bang_n_1944808.html

An Opinion about Abortion Rights

A long time ago, my wife and I sat on the carpet with another young married couple to play a game.  The game was called “Scruples”.   The game posed challenging hypothetical ethical situations for the players to answer.  Our answers were sometimes simple and direct, sometimes with embarrassed laughter, and sometimes after considerable squirming.

I remember one question very well.  I drew my card, and the question read “If you knew that a pregnancy would result in a highly disabled child, would you have an abortion?”    My answer was simple and direct.   

I would not knowingly bring a highly disabled child into the world.

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About two years later, the hypothetical question became an anguished reality.  A sonogram of my wife’s growing belly showed a cyst developing in the brain of the fetus.  Water pressure was building up in the brain.  The pressure was slowly splitting the brain apart from within.  

We had three options.   The first option: do nothing.  Let nature take its course, and allow the pregnancy to go to term.  The second option: attempt an experimental, invasive brain surgery on the fetus in utero, to install a stent to release the fluid pressure.  Third: end the pregnancy by abortion.

We chose the abortion.   The pregnancy was still early, before the formation of the higher functions of the brain.  We had certainty that we were doing the right thing.  After a few years, we tried again for a baby, and had a healthy, normal girl.

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A few years earlier, I had seen the results of the first option.  A baby with such a condition, left untreated, is doomed at birth.   I saw grief-stricken young parents holding a baby whose head was the size of a small melon, filled with fluid.  I cannot image the pain of having the brain torn apart from within.  The baby died within hours.

Years later, I read a review of the stent procedure.  The procedure proved ineffective, and resulted only in severely disabled children.  The value of such a life is debatable.  I know that some disabled individuals lead rewarding lives.   But some disabled children suffer greatly and die young, and others live long, empty and lonely lives.   I have seen both, and known those who cared for both.

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In modern medicine we define death as the cessation of higher brain functions.   When such a death occurs, we often take organs from the deceased to give life and health to the living.   Responsible people carry donor cards to give the gift of their bodies when they die.  The higher function of the brain is accepted as the definition of human life, and its cessation is accepted as death.  

So, to me, a fetus cannot be considered a living person before the brain is fully formed.  There can be no higher brain function without the higher parts of the brain.  Beyond that, after the physical form of the brain is complete, it seems to me that humanity does not exist until the brain is illuminated by the experience of living. 
We cannot have a different definition of human death and human life. 

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The Religious Right holds that life begins at conception, that the human soul is formed at the moment sperm meets egg.   I do not know by what authority they make such a claim.  It is certainly not through word of the Scripture. 

The Republican Party would outlaw all abortions.  The 2012 Republican Platform calls for a ban on all abortions, regardless of rape, incest, or threat to the life of the mother.  They are attempting to move the center of the debate, so that by compromise on these issues, most abortions in the USA will become illegal.  The landmark Supreme Court ruling “Roe v. Wade”, which granted the right to abortion nationwide, is in danger of being repealed, and hangs by a single vote in the Supreme Court.  If the Republicans win the presidency in 2012, the right to choose abortion in the United States will disappear, probably for decades.  

If such a ban had been in place 23 years ago, my wife and I would have been faced with the choice of carrying a doomed baby for nine months, or to undergo ineffective brain surgery on the fetus, resulting in a severely disabled child.   Instead, today we have our healthy daughter.   She is now a college student.  She laughs, she talks (and talks, and talks), gets grouchy, loves deeply, and lives a fulfilling and normal life.

I agree that abortion should be avoided.  There are many reasons for abortion.  The health of the baby, or the health of the mother; perhaps a mother is unable to care for a baby; perhaps a couple is not ready for a baby.  Every abortion is a possibility for life that has gone wrong.  But not every possibility can or should be realized.

In my opinion, in a free society, the choice to carry a pregnancy, or have an abortion belongs to the woman carrying the child and her husband or partner, after consultation with their doctor and spiritual advisor.

The decision to have a child should not be dictated by the government.

Who are the Middle Class?

Who are the middle class in America?

A cornerstone of both Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns has been a pledge to not raise taxes on the middle class.   It is one of the most common themes of speeches by the candidates. But who are the middle class?   The middle third of household incomes?  One standard deviation, or the middle two-thirds?   Or two standard deviations, meaning the middle 95%?   

Mitt Romney and Barrack Obama agree on the third definition.  Mitt Romney recently stated that “middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less”, and promised to lower taxes for this group.  He stated further that the top 5% would pay the same amount as they pay today.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/09/14/mitt-romney-thinks-250000-a-year-is-middle-class-and-so-does-obama/

 Barrack Obama also drew his line at this point, promising to extend Bush-era tax cuts to the 98% of Americans making less than $250,000, and to increase tax rates on those with higher incomes.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/taxes/tax-cuts

Let’s look at a chart of household income.  The 2% of households making more than $250,000 are vanishingly small on the chart. 

 http://visualizingeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2005_income_distribution.gif

It seems to me that both parties have defined the “middle class” pragmatically, including almost everybody.  Both sides are careful to broaden the definition of the protected middle class up to $250,000, to include those with enough discretionary income to make political contributions.   They are heeding the advice of Quintus Cicero to promise everything to everybody. 

The U.S. Federal Budget and the Collapse of the Roman Republic

Rome Didn't Fall in a Day

Marcus Cicero was a philosopher, orator and statesman of the ancient Roman Republic.  It is said that Cicero had the greatest influence by any individual on European language, literacy and ideas.  Marcus Cicero rose through Roman society to become Consul, the highest position of the Roman Republic.  Cicero’s younger brother, Quintus Cicero, was a leading commander of the Roman army.

In the year 64 B.C., Quintus Cicero wrote a letter to his older brother Marcus, regarding Marcus’ political campaign for Consul.   The letter concisely states the themes of both ancient and modern politics.   Quintus advised Marcus to make promises liberally. “If you make a promise, the thing is still uncertain, depends on a future day, and concerns but few people; but if you refuse, you alienate people to a certainty and at once, and many people too.”

In other words, Promise everything to everybody.  [by translator P.Freeman, "How to Win an Election".]

Quintus also wrote about political issues of his time.   His text could be a letter to the editor in this morning’s newspaper.

“The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced, if the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”  

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We are now in the silly season of American presidential politics.   

Both parties have nominated their candidates for president, written their platforms, held their conventions, made endless pleas for donations to run political advertisement.  Heeding the advice of Quintus Cicero, they have distorted and disparaged the record of their opponents, avoided clear discussion of the issues, promised everything to everybody, and lied liberally about everything.

Let’s look at the United States’ Federal budget for 2012

Federal spending is shown in the following chart.   Total spending is $3.894 trillion, or 26% of GDP.   

Social Security and Medicare represent about 32% of total Federal spending.  Defense and Veteran’s benefits are about 22%.  Interest on existing debt is 6%.  Together, these items are about 15.5% of GDP.

Tax receipts, according to the budget, are expected to be 2.469 trillion dollars.   A small increment of additional funding is found in the budget as line item 950, Undistributed Offsetting Receipts, adding about 98 billion dollars.   Total funding is thus expected to be $2.568 trillion dollars, or about 17 percent of GDP.

The total Federal deficit for 2012 is about 1.3 trillion dollars.  Federal spending exceeds tax revenue by an astonishing 51%.

Federal debt held by investors (“public debt”) is now about $11 trillion dollars, or about 72% percent of GDP.   Public debt is growing at a rate of about 20 percent per year, a rate that would double the debt in 3 ½ years.  Foreign investors hold $5.3 trillion, or nearly half of the public debt.   Obligations between government agencies, such as the social security trust fund, amount to an additional $4.7 trillion, bringing total Federal debt to $16 trillion (107% of GDP).

Against this backdrop, Republicans propose an amendment to the constitution requiring a balanced budget.  Mitt Romney proposes to cut marginal tax rates by 20 percent.  He also proposes raising Defense spending by about 5% (excluding war expenses), adding 100,000 members of the military, modernizing weapons, and building more ships and aircraft.   He said that budgetary changes will not affect current retirees or veterans.   

Defense, Elder-care programs, and Interest are about 60 percent of Federal spending.  If all tax revenues were applied to these categories with no reductions and a balanced budget, as proposed by Republicans, it would eliminate 83% of all other government functions.  This is without even considering the proposed tax cut.

We cannot eliminate 7/8ths of the functions of the Federal government to pay for defense and elder-care.   It is absurd.

Democrats have been equally negligent in providing a clear blueprint toward solution of the crisis.
Both sides are simply promising everything to everybody.   

It is clear that any solution to the budget crisis will require a combination of increased taxes, cuts to defense spending, and reductions in elder care.  And these changes must be implemented sooner rather than later.

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Marcus Cicero was successful in his election campaign.  He was elected Consul in the year 63 BC.  Shortly thereafter, the Roman Republic collapsed in a series of civil wars followed by dictatorship of the Caesars.   

Quintus Cicero, his son, and Marcus Cicero were declared enemies of the state and executed in 43 BC.  The Roman Empire continued as a dictatorship for four hundred years.
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Addendum:   A few days after I wrote this post, retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter was interviewed, as part of a civic education project in New Hampshire.  Souter is worried about 'pervasive civic ignorance' in America.   Here are his words.

"What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible.  And when the problems get bad enough - another serious terrorist attack, another financial meltdown - some one person will come forward and say, 'Give me total power, and I will solve this problem.' That is how the Roman Republic fell....That is how democracy dies.  And if something is not done to improve the level of civic knowledge, that is what you should worry about at night….I am not a pessimist, but I am not an optimist about the future of American democracy.”

David Souter, retired Supreme Court Justice, September 17, 2012

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Quintus Cicero Quotes:

http://www.bartleby.com/73/1543.html

http://www.quotatio.com/c/cicero-quintus-tullius-quotes2.html

Federal Budget data:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget

http://budget.house.gov/budgetprocess/budgetfunctions.htm

http://budget.house.gov/budgetprocess/budgetfunctions.htm#function600

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

Marcus and Quintus Cicero

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Cicero

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Tullius_Cicero

Pamphlet on Electioneering, 
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_running_for_the_Consulship
also, How to Win an Election, (trans. P Freeman, Amazon.com)

http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Election-Ancient-Politicians/dp/0691154082/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347681795&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+win+an+election+Cicero

Mitt Romney, Republican Platform

http://www.gop.com/2012-republican-platform_home/

http://aboutmittromney.com/military.htm

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/17/where-obama-romney-stand-on-foreign-policy-challenges/

David Souter, interview

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/09/conversation-justice-david-souter.html

Religious Freedom and Contraception

Republicans have taken the idea of religious freedom and turned it on its head.

Earlier this year (2012), there was a significant political skirmish revolving around the issues of contraception and religious freedom.  The skirmish sharply delineated the parties’ positions on social issues and justification for those positions.  The event provides a clear blueprint for what to expect from each party in future debates about reproductive rights and religion.  

Contraceptive coverage is a standard health insurance benefit.   It is a matter of personal choice, but contraceptives are a medical need for those who practice contraception.  And health insurance is the usual way that consumers obtain pharmaceuticals conveniently and at fair prices.

The center of the political debate is the question of whether employers must provide free contraceptives as an insurance benefit to female employees.  The president’s health care reform law requires all employers to provide this benefit.  The objective of the rule is to remove cost as a barrier to effective birth control.  Free access to birth control allows women to decide whether and when to have children.  Effective family planning also provides benefits to society at large, including better child care, slower population growth, and lower medical expense.  At the time of the rule change, a majority of states already had similar rules in place.

Republicans in Congress, conservatives, and religious leaders opposed the new rule on the grounds that the rule infringed upon religious freedom.   Conservative Christian churches, in particular the Catholic Church oppose birth control, and therefore oppose providing free contraceptives to their employees.  The new law requires corporations owned by churches to provide contraceptives through health insurance, although churches themselves (as opposed to their subsidiary corporations) are exempt from the rule.  

In the early spring, Republicans in Congress tried to block implementation of the new rule, but failed by a narrow margin.  Over fifty Catholic institutions and other conservative religious groups have filed lawsuits in a dozen different Federal courts to block implementation of the ruling.  Some of these lawsuits have been dismissed, but I believe the issue will eventually rise to the Supreme Court.

Churches own and operate universities, hospitals, and charities.   They participate in open labor markets to hire employees.   By necessity, and as required by equal opportunity law, corporations owned by churches must hire people of all faiths.

When churches refuse to provide contraceptive coverage to employees, the church is using its position as employer to unfairly impose its religious tenets on employees.  Doctors, nurses, radiologists and janitors working in these hospitals may be Hindu, Muslim, Protestant, Jewish or atheist.  There is no religious basis for their work.  When a Catholic-owned hospital refuses to provide contraceptive coverage, it is imposing its religious beliefs on employees of other faiths. 

In attempting to block this rule, Republicans are not promoting religious freedom; instead, they are denying religious freedom.  The freedom of religion guaranteed under the First Amendment to the Constitution does not belong to corporations, but rather to individuals.   Individuals have the right to decide which religious precepts to follow; and this decision should not be dictated by the employer.  The phrase “Religious Freedom” is absolutely Orwellian in this situation.  Allowing employers to deny contraception to employees would deny individuals the freedom to follow the religious precepts of their choice.

Social issues will be a major factor in the upcoming Presidential and Congressional elections.  The skirmish over this issue provides a clear view of the positions of the parties with regard to individual’s freedom of religion, and reproductive rights and choices.   A Republican victory would instill conservative Christian religious values in many aspects of American life, in direct contradiction to the First Amendment ban on the establishment of a State religion.   And if there is a Republican victory, we can be sure that administrative rules, congressional laws, and court appointments will generally deny reproductive rights and choices to women.  

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References:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/health_insurance_and_managed_care/health_care_reform/contraception/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/us/politics/senate-kills-gop-bill-opposing-contraception-policy.html?src=twr