TPM Reader Anon asks for a rethink …
I’m a long time reader. I gave several hundred dollars to the Obama campaign in 2008 (and am sure I was well over a thousand given to all Democrats I supported). I worry about conservative Catholic bishops. I worry about the GOP in this time of talk radio and Fox News. I fear greatly the possibility of the GOP winning in 2012. I am not a conservative, by any stretch of the imagination.
However, I am a liberal Catholic, and I am very disappointed by the restrictive conscience clause concerning requirements to provide contraception. I am even more disappointed, and surprised, by your coverage of this issue. Your report today by Sahil Kapur writes: “But the policy itself carves out an exemption for churches and doesn’t require any individual or employer to violate a religious belief —”How do you know that this does not force an employer to violate a religious belief? Have you interviewed knowledgeable Catholic moral theologians to get their take? (Even liberal ones!) If you did, I can find no evidence of that in your report. If you did not, how do you know that it does not violate their beliefs? I am not advocating for some kind of even handed he said/she said. But it sure would be nice to see at least some effort to hear from the folks who say that they do, indeed, need to violate their beliefs (or to stop providing insurance), due to this decision. This is shoddy journalism.
I have suspended donations to the President over this issue. America Magazine (hardly a conservative mouthpiece) has railed against it. Some folks at Commonweal (though not all) have complained. Same with the liberal National Catholic Reporter. E.J. Dionne and Mark Shields have spoken out against it. The folks from the Catholic health system whose support was likely essential for the Affordable Care Act have spoken out against it. What I hear from you is the sort of casual dismissal of alternative points of view that I mostly associate with the political right.
I stopped reading the Washington Monthly because their presentation of religious concerns showed a clear lack of effort to understand the point of view of people who are religious. I never thought I would need to worry about that with TPM. Now I do.
