Ok before you begin reading I am legally required to issue this warning:
Surgeon General's WARNING: Reading this blog without an aspirin on hand may be hazardous to your health. Trying to understand the mental backflips needed to understand the reasoning of the people who brought the lawsuit of this blog is about could lead to chronic brain meltage without proper precautions.
Now with that out of the way, lets get started.
Ok so several years ago the Government passed this thing you might of heard of called Obamacare, which requires that everyone have health insurance. And as it turns out the standard insurance package includes covering contraception. Not really shocking since 99% of the country actually uses the stuff.
But of course religious groups object because the bible says you cant use contraception and we can never go against anything in the bible.
(By the way, I was looking up bible passages that banned or suggested contraception was bad, and the one I kept popping across was Genesis 38:8-10, which is all about God telling this dude to nail his sister in law because her husband (the dudes brother) isnt getting the babies made, and then God kills the dude because he jizzed on the ground and not in his sister in law. Just something to keep in mind about how sacred and unchangeable the morality of the bible is and how we should always by biblical standards)
Now the Obama administration actually said "ok fine we will grant an exception for religious groups so that they have access to healthcare that doesnt include contraception". All you have to do is notify the government you want an exception so they can arrange it for you
Well turns out that wasnt good enough for the Catholic Church and they sued on pretty much every possible ground you can think of.
The weirdest of those lawsuits made headlines this week (this part on is where you might need that aspirin)
A group of Catholic nuns sued the government because they object to notifying the government they want an exception, BUT they still want the exception.
To put that another way:
There is a McDonalds across the street from my house, this would be like if I went to the McDonalds and ordered a Big Mac, and then got pissed that they put pickles on it, so I sue them over it.
See I hate pickles. But you dear reader, didnt know that till the last sentence. Nor would the McDonalds worker, since they cant read my mind. And the Big Mac is known to come with pickles. And of course everyone knows how NOT to get pickles on a Big Mac, you order "Big Mac, no pickles", so that they know you dont want pickles and BOOM no pickles. This is pretty much the norm in every aspect of life if you want something that varies slightly from whatever is advertise or sold as the norm.
Yet despite this fairly simple logic, the Church still decided that being asked to request "no pickles" was a bridge too far and sued. Granted they have what they call a logically explanation for why they needed to do this:
These nuns also operate a nursing home, and believe that, should they tell the government they dont want contraception coverage, the government would tell the insurance company about it. Which would then be followed by the government telling the insurance company they were free to offer separate contraception coverage to the nursing home workers.
Now 3 things here:
1) For the first sentence, I think the Nuns are 100% correct. The government WILL ABSOLUTELY inform the insurance companies the Nun's are entitled to a contraception exception.
Again think back to ordering a Big Mac, if the cashier doesnt tell the cook you dont want pickles, guess what? your still getting fucking pickles! Requesting a special order only works if EVERYONE involved in the transaction know about it.
2) For the second sentence. Yes to be fair I suppose the government COULD tell the insurance company that there is this group of people who could use contraception coverage, but they dont actually need to.
See the insurance company has the insurance policies, so has some idea of the coverage they are granting. All they really need to do is read their own internal information to figure out there is a block of people who they could sell contraception to.
It's a bit like that Cashier at McDonald's telling the Cook how many Big Mac's the cook made without pickles that day. Given that the Cook actually made the Big Mac's, its a safe assumption HE ALREADY KNOWS.
And thats the thing, even if the Nuns had sued on the grounds they ONLY wanted to give the exemption information to the insurance company (which they didnt), they would still have this same problem that the company could if they wanted offer contraception coverage separately, because again, they already know what they themselves are and arnt covering.
3) and this is the real kicker. The insurer the Nun's use, itself has a religious exemption so that it can NOT carry contraception coverage. Which means they dont actually have any contraception coverage to offer the nursing home workers if they wanted to in the first place, which they clearly dont.
Basically this is like walking into the McDonald's and seeing a giant sign across counter saying "PICKLES CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE". Guess what? in that situation no matter what you do your not getting a fucking pickle. Which is great, if you hate pickle's, you can just walk in, order "1 Big Mac" and not have to worry about it.
Which means even if the Nun's were right on the assumption the government would need to tell the insurance company that they could offer Birth Control, the insurance company would say "ok, and? what do you expect us to be able to do about it?"
Which means the entire justification for bringing the case int he first place cant possibly happen. There are no god damn pickles, you cant have them even if you want them. So their is no way their employees could get contraception coverage in the first place.
Yet despite ALL of that, this case was not laughed out of court as it rightly should be, its actually made it all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States.
By the way, I guess I should be glad their is literally NOTHING pressing, no major legal issues or disputes, no laws being challenged, or even no more legitimate challenges to the Obamacare contraception mandate and exception, so that the court can spend time on this inane petty conspiratorial hallucination.
Oh and the other day, the Supreme Court issued a temporary order on this case.
They told the Nun's they DO NOT have to fill out the official government form to request an exception.
Instead the Nuns only have to give all the information that would have been on the official form to the government on a non official form.
In otherwords, instead of telling the Cashier they dont want pickles on their Big Mac, the Nun's can now take out their cell phones, call a friend, tell the friend they dont want pickles, then handing the cell phone to the cashier so the friend can tell the cashier about the "no pickles".
After the SCOTUS order the Nus' promptly filled out their information, upsidedown backwards, and in lemon juice, using the Cyrillic alphabet while writing left handed, so that no one could ever possibly read it without knowing the super secret handshake.
I'm kidding of course(At least I think I am, but who knows as crazy as this case is). But the Nun's and the church are treating this like a MAJOR victory.
Which is actually kinda ironic, given what this "victory" did.
Assuming you believe the Church should not have to request an exemption, this ruling still means you have to request an exemption. So its basically a different colored wrapper on your Big Mac.
Not much of a victory, especially for something thats supposed to be a "moral imperative". Your still doing the thing you morally object to doing, it just now looks like your not doing it.
Nor is that the only irony. Most of the other catholic lawsuits revolve around the idea that the exemption isnt large enough, or easy enough to get, especially as it relates to privately owned businesses run by Catholics
This ruling actually makes it HARDER to get an exception. After all, how do you know what information you need to give the government to get an exception, if there is no where to go where the information is all laid out for you in a standard unchanged order?
You dont, unless you copiously double check everything. You cant just fill out every blank on the page, as you could with say your taxes to get your refund, because their is no page.
So I hope you have the time to figure it all out on your own, and the time to get the information together and the resources to figure out if you'd qualify in the first place.
If not, I dont really like your chances if getting that exemption. God help you if you miss something, you wouldnt even know what it was you were missing.
So yea, I dont see this working well for any Catholic small business owners.
BUT if what you wanted was a headline that said "We win" and wanted to win on a issue you claim to believe in, while not actually doing anything that would anger the 99% of your own practitioners that dont agree with you, then this really is the major victory they are acting like.
I mean think about it. The Church won (for the moment), took a stand for their religious convictions, while affecting no actual real change that might show the divide between their convictions and their followers actions.
But no, the church would never be that hypocritical and deceitful. They would never ever turn a blind eye to the morality laid out in the bible, and only pretend to be fore it while actually letting their followers ignoring it in order to survive as an institution and not face mass dissertation. (pun intended)
Which is why we all remember our "uncles" fucking our mothers as children when our "fathers" couldnt get the job done........
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