Sigh…Catholics over at CNS are getting themselves all worked up and demanding that Nancy Pelosi be excommunicated because she is supporting birth control coverage at the churches secular businesses. I know it is hopeless but I did a quick drive by post anyway…

So much hoopla over something that isn’t really an issue to begin with if you stop and think about it.

Employee health insurance benefits are compensation, they are part of your pay. If your employer offers them then they are doing so to try to attract better and higher skilled workers than someone who does not. The Catholic Church says they should not be forced to pay for insurance that includes contraception at the many businesses they run, but that isn’t really what is happening here.

That is the employees money, it is a part of their compensation, it does not belong to the Church. If they did not receive health insurance benefits then they would expect a larger paycheck instead to be able to buy their own health insurance.

Does the Church tell their non-catholic employees that they are not allowed to spend any of the money they are paid on condoms or birth control pills? Of course not, because it is the employees choice how to spend any money they have earned. If they use it for something the Church sees as a sin then that is a sin that is on the head of the employee alone, not the Church.

So since the money spent on health insurance is also the employees money why is it that the Church believes it has the right to tell them how it can be spent? Imaging if your own employer was a Muslim and told you that you could only get all of your paycheck if you agreed not to buy any pork with it?

This does not apply to employees of the Churches religious organizations, those are still exempt, they are only required to include birth control coverage at the secular businesses they run. There is no loss of Religious freedom here, the Church is not being made to spend their money on birth control, that money belongs to the employees!