We started to make this simply part of a regular posting but quickly realized the Political Rant deserves its own category. We know we can get wordy. We also want to make them easy to skip for those uninterested :)
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So we're trying to follow Vice President Joe Biden's logic here.
As almost everyone now knows, President Obama signed an Executive Order requiring that any entity receiving federal funds also offer healthcare insurance to its employees and that coverage include free contraception for women. Many people -- granted primarily (but not exclusively) Republicans -- are against the EO, for a number of reasons, highest among those being concerns about its constitutionality and potential infringements upon religious freedom. According to the Vice President, this constitutes a, "war on women's rights".
Huh?
Let's look at each of the primary concerns some folks have with this EO and see if we can make sense of Mr. Biden's claims.
CONSTITUTIONALITY
The Executive Order is a powerful tool in the hands of the president. Although never explicitly granted in the Constitution, the power has traditionally been an accepted implied power, derived from Article II, Section1, Clause 1 therein, which states the President will, "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed". As such, a Presidential Order is generally deemed to be acceptable if it either clarifies a law or dictates a procedure for the following of a law.
This commonly-accepted definition was clarified in the 1952 US Supreme Court Ruling in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company v. Sawyer, in which the Court struck down Executive Order 10340, signed by President Truman, ruling that the Order, which would have placed the nation's steel mills under federal control, would have made new law, not clarify or assist in the enforcement of an existing one.
While most Executive Orders barely merit a blip on the political radar, there are exceptions -- both beneficial and shameful. Integration of the Armed Forces was enacted by President Truman via Executive Order, as was desegregation of public schools (Eisenhower) and the creation of interment camps during World War II (Roosevelt). All three were major changes to policy and were viewed by some to be circumvention or actual creation of new law.
A presidential Executive Order is almost impossible to reverse. The Supreme Court has only struck down two in its history and even strengthened the Executive Order in a 1983 ruling in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, where the Court essentially removed the ability of Congress to pass a law that conflicts with an EO, without a supermajority vote of 60%. The Court's reasoning was that the EO is a de facto Presidential veto, so the supermajority would eventually be required nonetheless.
So political game playing ensues. Congress cuts off funding for programs effected by an EO and the President calls them out on it. In the end, while not the most popular of tools in the President's box, it is amongst the most powerful
How does this apply here?
Pretty much like it does in all other cases. The President will claim he is merely clarifying that which was originally intended in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the opposition will claim he is overreaching. Considering Congress was overwhelmingly Democratic at the time of its March 2010 passage and that contraception and abortion rights are primary planks in their platform, chances are President Obama is right on this one and was, in fact, clarifying the intent of Congress.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Here's where it gets a little less cut and dry.
Despite the fact that President Obama sees this Executive Order as a mere clarification of a law passed by Congress, that does not mean that an Executive Order pertaining to the law -- or the law itself -- is constitutional.
We'll leave the second question out of it for the purposes of this conversation and focus n the first: is the Executive Order constitutional? A strong argument can be made that it is not. Again, for the purposes of this conversation, we're going to focus on the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to the EO, as that has been the most-publicized.
The Roman Catholic Church is morally opposed to artificial birth control. It's as simple as that. Whether it is a man using a condom or a woman popping the pill, the Church is morally opposed to contraception. It doesn't matter whether you or I are opposed to it. The Church is and as such, feels that the government compelling them to provide contraceptives to its female employees is in direct violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which states the government shall not pass any law, "...impeding the free exercise of religion...".
The Church believes that by invoking this Executive Order forcing them to offer health insurance plans that provide contraceptive services to its female employees, the government has violated the Constitution. That is the argument in its entirety.
And we agree. This executive Order clearly compels the Roman Catholic Church to provide services it is morally opposed to. In our opinion, this clearly unconstitutional..
Getting back to the Vice President's remark, how exactly does this constitute a, "war on women's rights"?
Exactly -- it doesn't. This is blatant pandering to the hard left, twisted into a women's rights issue, which makes absolutely no sense. No one is taking away the rights of a single woman. Show us where in the constitution that contraception is a right. It's simply not. If one wants contraception, they are free to pay for it themselves -- or get a job that has an insurance option that covers it.
The irony here is that, if anything, men would be the ones discriminated against if this EO were to stand. While women get free birth control pills, there are no such provisions in the EO for men's condoms. The way it reads, women's reproductive rights are more important than those of men, by Presidential Executive Order. This, of course also makes it unconstitutional but we'll stick to our original premise here.
Most problems in life -- including political ones -- really can be solved with a little common sense. The simple fact is, if you accept a job at a Catholic institution, you should assume there are going to be policies and procedures within the workplace that you will be expected to conform to, specific to that Church's beliefs. If you work at your local JCC, they'll probably not have pork chops in the employee cafeteria. If you teach at a Baptist elementary school, you'll probably be signing a morals clause upon hiring that will make such things as extramarital affairs terminable offenses. If you are unwilling to conform to these restrictions, then you are welcome to seek employment elsewhere.
The bottom line here is that health insurance is a benefit. An employer can choose to offer whatever benefits they want -- or none. Potential employees are free to choose a job that offers the benefits they desire and turn down offers that are not up to their standards. That's how the system works.
Now, here is the truly sad part of all this -- if the executive order is to stand, the Church will be left with three choices:
1) Stop offering health insurance to its employees.
2) Stop accepting federal funds. Sounds good, right? Well those federal funds are Medicare dollars, which are paid for services rendered at a rate of about 10 cents on the dollar compared to what the actual rates for the services are. It's not like the Church is making money on the transactions. But the Veep didn't mention that, did he?
3) Compromise its principals.
An often-used argument in favor of the President's order is that birth control pills are sometimes prescribed for purposes other than contraception and that taking that away would be a disservice to women. We agree. So does the Catholic Church -- which is not opposed to the prescribing of these medications for the treatment of conditions such as endometreosis. As a Roman Catholic, the Vice President knows this and should be ashamed of himself for contributing to the deliberate spread of misinformation.
This is not a women's rights issue. This is a religious freedom issue. You may not have a dog in this particular fight but some day soon, a similar fight just may come along where you do.
Do you want this to be the precedent your fight is decided on.
Until next time,
Keep the Faith
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