Catholic Bishops against Obama's birth control mandate

Remember Obama's mandate that employers cover birth control through insurance plans offered to their employees? The US Conference of Catholic Bishops is up in arms about that now, even though the American President had already agreed to tweak the mandate a little to appease religious employers. The Catholic Bishops have announced plans for a PR campaign against birth control.

"We want to make it something that will get peoples' attention," said Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Well, that will certainly not be hard to achieve. The Catholics are going to work with other religious groups, including evangelical Christians, and may use TV spots, radio adverts, and social media messages in their campaign.

What is this campaign about, exactly? According to the Bishops, Obama's mandate that obliges employers to cover birth control as part of insurance plans for their employees is an assault on Americans' religious liberties. So the Catholics want the mandate repealed, and want to go even further than that and allow employers to decide not to offer anything they disagree with as part of their healthcare plans.

Should employers who think childhood vaccines interfere with God's plans really be able to remove coverage from their employees' insurance plans? How about Jehova's Witnesses, who disagree with blood transfusions do their workers not receive coverage for that, either?

I think these Catholic Bishops have totally misunderstood the meaning of "civil liberties", and that what they are trying to do is actually to take away other citizens' civil liberties, rather than gain their own freedom. The right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins, remember? People have all the liberty in the world not to use the birth control pill if they don't want it, but attempting to deny others that same right really has nothing to do with religious freedom.

Unfortunately, we'll be seeing a lot more of this group's opinions. Stay tuned.