Pew poll on Catholics, contraception mandate
Continuing saturation coverage, I refer you to a new poll from Pew Research Center with some interesting numbers on how Catholics view the dispute over the federal mandate that health insurance cover contraception for employees of religiously affiliated institutions:
While 55% of Catholics who have heard about the rule support an exemption to it, opinion varies considerably by frequency of church attendance. Among Catholics who attend Mass at least once a week, 63% support an exemption while 25% say religiously affiliated institutions should have to cover contraceptives like other employers. Among those who attend less often, opinion is evenly divided (48% favor an exemption, 49% oppose one).
About one-quarter of Catholic churchgoers (24%) report having heard about the issue in church. Among Catholics who report attending Mass weekly, 32% said the rule was brought up recently by their priest or other church official.
One caveat: President Obama revised the rule on Feb. 10, in the middle of the period when the poll was taken, Feb. 8-12. So the full effect on Catholics of that move is not clear. It doesn’t seem, at least from these numbers, that Obama’s decision had a strong influence on regular churchgoers. Those who attend weekly Mass continue to support the bishops’ position by a wide margin, even as they reject the church’s teaching that artificial birth control is morally wrong.
Setting aside the legal and moral issues dealt with elsewhere on dotCommonweal, this hints to me that Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan’s approach of framing the issue in terms of freedom and conscience remains pretty good politics. But that could change; a poll is a snapshot, not a live video feed.
In any case, I recommend a look at the full Pew poll.
Good politics is easier when it is based on reality. The President’s mandate is about violating religious freedom, not about contraception or moral-cooperation-in-evil, because even if Sr. Keehan and David Gibson think it is OK to cover contraception this way, that is insufficient and irrelevant to the fact that it’s illegal for the federal government to force everyone to adopt the theological conscience of Sr. Keehan and David Gibson or else be fined. Which shows: this is a religious freedom issue, and even Catholics who agree with Keehan should be able to see this, and the poll shows they do generally see this, when they don’t have a stake in whether their former endorsement of this President was a good or bad idea. Truth explains why the Archbishop’s politics has been effective.
Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan’s approach of framing the issue in terms of freedom and conscience remains pretty good politics
It’s not a matter of politics. At least not for the Church, despite the attempts of those who do put politics first to try to delegitimize the Church (including the bishops) as a purely worldly partisan political organization.
As for polls, public opinion is irrelevant to the question of being forced to cooperate with and facilitate wrongdoing, to violate moral truth.
If you take a poll on whether Catholics believe in the real presence, the results might be interesting, but they won’t affect Catholic teaching. Polls matter only insofar as they facilitate or hinder one or another politician’s work.
If large numbers of Catholics and others – no matter whether or not they add up to a majority – support the bishops’ – and other spokespeople’s – position against Obama, the President will have to try to please them or risk losing their votes in just a few months. Of course, if he backs down too far, he’ll alienate all his pro-choice supporters.
The President seems to have done a very silly thing. It’s not uncommon, of course, for presidents to make big mistakes. He has plenty of company throughout history. It will be interesting eventually to learn how all this developed in the White House.
Today’s NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/us/politics/poll-finds-support-for-contraception-policy-and-gay-couples.html?hpw
“On contraceptive coverage, 65 percent of voters in the poll said they supported the Obama administration’s requirement that health insurance plans cover the cost of birth control, and 59 percent, said the health insurance plans of religiously affiliated employers should cover the cost of birth control.
In a compromise last week, President Obama said insurance companies could shoulder the costs required under the new federal health care law, but the Conference of Catholic Bishops and other religious leaders continue to oppose the rule.
A majority of Catholic voters in the poll were at odds with the church’s official stance, agreeing with most other voters that religiously affiliated employers should offer health insurance that provides contraception…
Unlike Catholics, white evangelical Christian voters were more divided, with half objecting to requiring the health insurance plans of religious employers to cover contraceptives; 43 percent supported it.”
Given the number of Catholics who have left or who attend mass less regularly, it may not matter in the polls overall, if those attending weekly or more support the bishops in higher numbers.
One of the legitimate functions of government is to promote equality and fairness for ALL, to have everyone play by the same rules. No one is coming into our Churches and trying to tell parishioners what to believe. BUT If the Bishops want to start businesses that employ millions of people of varying faiths -or no “faith” at all- THEN they must play by the rules…ESPECIALLY if they use our tax dollars in the process. Just because a religious group in America claims to believe something, we cannot excuse them from obeying the law in the PUBLIC arena, based on that belief. They can legally attempt to change the law, not to deny it outright. And if they want to plunge overtly into politics from the pulpit, then they should give up their tax-exempt status. Did I miss something, or when it comes to the “sanctity of life”, is every single righteous Catholic still a card carrying conscientious objector, still refusing to take up arms, still totally against the death penalty, and still against contraception and birth-control in all its forms? Oh well, hypocrisy is at the heart of politics, and politics masquerading as religion even more so. This country is an invigorating mixture of all the diversity that life has to offer, drawing its strength FROM that diversity. We need to work together to preserve, enrich, and strengthen this unique experiment – NOT to tear it down with poisonous, paralyzing, and un-Christian demonization of each other.
From the current Economist:
http://www.economist.com/node/21547241?fsrc=scn/tw/te/mt/obamaswaronreligion
I am flabbergasted that contraception – contraception! – can arouse such passion. I believe that it’s all orchestrated by people preparing the presidential campaign. But then, I remember the flag-burning media flare, and I understand: many want to turn people’s attention away from economic woes, disastrous consequences of lack of health care, inequalities and tax inequities, ruinous and unjust wars of death, and the mounting failures of the US in general. It’s like scratching a pimple to draw one’s attention away from one’s cancer.
In a compromise last week, President Obama said insurance companies could shoulder the costs required under the new federal health care law…
There is no cost to the insurance companies, as Jacob Lew told Chris Wallace.
FR. Z and other websites are enthusing about a magazine article by Sr. Carol Keehan that appears to be a retraction of the CHA position on the February 10 accomodation.
The article was published on the web on February 2 HERE
Apparently the magazine didn’t get word that it was out of date.
Unfortunately, it’s the CHA’s own magazine called “Catholic Health World.”
Here is a statement on the CHA website:
CHA Will Review the Proposed New Rules for the HHS Mandate
CHA looks forward to reviewing the specifics of the changes in the mandated benefits. Many members have called with questions about these since they were a concern as first published. On Friday, Feb. 10, 2012, we were notified that our organizations would not have to buy or refer employees for contraception and other services. We were also told that the self-insured plans would be accommodated in this. At this time, there are many unanswered questions about specifics. We now have the challenging work of reviewing the proposed rules, examining their impact and giving input before they are finalized.
Because many members have asked about specifics in the rules and also the process for applying for the one-year exception, we have included links to the rules and to the guidance on the safe harbor with this email.
As more is known about this, we will be getting that information out to the membership as quickly as possible.
Final Rules
Guidance on Safe Harbor
It’s interesting that that “Guidance on Safe Harbor” linked in my last post includes a kind of trap for Catholic Institutions that are already providing contraception. They don’t qualify for the one-year safe-harbor if they provided contraception after February 10, 2012. In other words, you can’t claim a religious exemption if you are already doing it.
John Hayes ; Good point ‘ In other words, you can’t claim a religious exemption if you are already doing it.’ ‘you are silly looking, to claim consciencous objection status after you graduate cum laude from Officer Candidate School or West Point’.. . reductio ad absurdum may be the best way to answer this farce.
Q: The Pew poll to which Paul links uses categories of “Morally acceptable”, “Morally wrong”, and “Not a moral issue”.
I’ve looked in vain for a definition of “Not a moral issue”. Can that fraction be combined with the “Morally acceptable” as the Not Opposed group? Makes quite a difference.
http://www.people-press.org/2012/02/14/public-divided-over-birth-control-insurance-mandate/1/
John H: “It’s interesting that that “Guidance on Safe Harbor” linked in my last post includes a kind of trap for Catholic Institutions that are already providing contraception. They don’t qualify for the one-year safe-harbor if they provided contraception after February 10, 2012. In other words, you can’t claim a religious exemption if you are already doing it.”
Ed: “Good point ‘ In other words, you can’t claim a religious exemption if you are already doin’ it.’”
It may make sense to not extend the safe harbor to Catholic institutions that have *freely chosen* to provide contraception. But for those institutions who are currently providing contraception against their will because of state mandates, this is a pernicious exclusion.
Of course it’s not contraception, Claire. Not even to Obama.
As i undertand it, it is good Cathoic teaching that remote cooperation with evil is allowable in order to achieve a proportionate good.
Presumably, those hospitals and universities decided that providing contraception met that test and was allowable.
How would they argue now that it is not?
If they want to argue that even remote cooperation in evil is more than they should be required to do, I think that will a very difficult argument to win in a pluralistic society.
It is worth noting that the CHA (vis Sr. Carol Keehan) does not speak for the American Catholic Church; the USCCB does, via AB Dolan.
That this administration is willing to bypass the bishops and try to set CHA up as some sort of authority/voice for the Catholic Church shows Mr. Obama and crowd are not honest.
The US government does not get to decide who the spokesman for American Catholics is; Rome does.
Typo; should have read “…shows Mr. Obama and crowd are not being honest. . . .”
From USCCB website:
WRITE to CONGRESS TODAY — The U.S. Bishops have serious objections to the “preventive services” regulation issued in August by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). Study the issue & then write to Congress urging support for the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act here.
http://usccbmedia.blogspot.com/2012/02/six-more-things-everyone-should-know.html
Yes, David, but why did this flare start from something as uncontroversial in practice (among US citizens and US Catholics in general) as contraception? It suddenly blows out of proportion. Suddenly we hear big words about freedom of religion (at the state level it wasn’t a problem, but at the federal level it’s a terrible attack), and all that noise is drowning serious topics. It’s like a troll on the internet that, by making inflammatory interventions on web sites he or she dislikes, keeps the attention on him or herself and prevents discussions from getting to important issues.
“Yes, David, but why did this flare start from something as uncontroversial in practice (among US citizens and US Catholics in general) as contraception? It suddenly blows out of proportion. ”
Because what the White House cooked up conflicts with religious liberty, and it turns out that this value is still important to a lot of Americans, such that it even united people across the ideological spectrum.
(How interesting that another recent religious liberty issue, the proposed Muslim community center near the WTC site, didn’t ignite a similar passion for religious liberty).
The White House seems to have missed the problem. I’ve read an account that there were religious people (mostly Catholics, as it happens) who called out in internal discussions that this could be a problem. Former Chief of Staff Bill Daley was one. I believe VP Joe Biden was another. But their advice was overridden.
“Suddenly we hear big words about freedom of religion (at the state level it wasn’t a problem, but at the federal level it’s a terrible attack),”
Claire –
The reason that the federal level is much more important is twofold: first, it affects all states, and second, the Court of last resort is on the federal level. It is always risky bringing a highly disputed case to the Supreme Court. If it goes against you, the story is over. Not so with state laws and courts.
Contraceptives and distributing related material and information were illegal by state law until 1965 in Connecticut. The US Supreme Court found the law unconstitutional. Justice Douglas reported the opinion. Imagine an analogous inquiry going on related to who has a right to impose what on whom or obstruct access with respect to contraception these days.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0381_0479_ZO.html
Claire, it’s my vague understanding that bishops in local jurisdictions protested similar laws or rules but had the autonomy to handle their cases differently. I think there may be several local lawsuits underway. As Ann says, this federal action is apparently somehow different in the way it’s written or applied and since it affects the entire nation, the ball fell into the hands of the USCCB.
Obama does seem to be making decisions (Hosanna Tabor, the human-trafficking contract, and now this) that evidence a pattern of slapping down the traditional Catholic Church in America. Why he’s doing that, I don’t have a sense from what I’ve read that anybody who’s talking knows, but it’s worrying. Also, there are the attempted narrowings of the meaning of “religion” in both Hosanna Tabor and this.
David: I admit that I did not noticed that pattern. But I wonder: what is the risk? What may realistically happen to threaten Catholics, if there really is a pattern, a slippery slope towards… towards what?
I just looked up “Hosanna-Tabor” on google (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/12/us/12scotus-text.html) and I did not see that it had anything to do with either Obama or the Catholic Church in America…?
As to the human trafficking contract, I searched for it but did not find anything. I searched for “human trafficking contract Obama” and saw that a grant to the USCCB had been denied, but Grant G. explained that the Obama administration has much increased the amount of funding of Catholic institutions overall…
So I am not convinced that there is a pattern. Maybe if you pick and choose what to look at…
Thoughtful editorial over at America Magazine.
“The religious liberty campaign seems to have abandoned a moral distinction that undergirded the conference’s public advocacy in past decades: the contrast between authoritative teaching on matters of principle and debatable applications to public policy. …
“The campaign also risks ignoring two fundamental principles of Catholic political theology. Official Catholic rights theory proposes that people should be willing to adjust their rights claims to one another. It also assigns to government the responsibility to coordinate contending rights and interests for the sake of the common good. The campaign fails to acknowledge that in the present instance claims of religious liberty may intersect with the right to healthcare, or that the religious rights of other denominations are in tension with those of Catholics. But as Pope Benedict XVI wrote in “Deus Caritas Est,” the church does not seek to “impose on those who do not share the faith ways of thinking and modes of conduct proper to the faith.” Furthermore, the campaign fails to admit that the administration’s February 10 solution, though it can be improved, fundamentally did what Catholic social teaching expects government to do—coordinate contending rights for the good of all.”
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?o=1000&article_id=13277
Forbes begs to differ: http://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2012/02/13/the-audacity-of-power-president-obama-vs-the-catholic-church/print/
From the Forbes column:”I am not a Catholic, nor do I believe in the Church’s opposition to contraception. But I pray that the leadership of the Catholic Church will have the faith and courage to stand for its core beliefs and use all of its moral power and political influence to defeat the President’s edict. I pray they will reach out across the political spectrum to people of all faiths, agnostics and atheists in the name of religious freedom and individual liberty. By so doing, they, and the institution of the Catholic Church, will have my love and respect for the rest of my life.”
I don’t know, Claire. One can’t be perfectly objective about anything. We all deduce from observation as we’re inclined. Grant sees what he’s inclined to see, as does anyone else.
Hosanna Tabor turned at least partly on whether a religious organization could hire and fire employees according to its beliefs. Obama’s office said no; they were overruled – unanimously (as I recall) – by the Supreme Court. The human-trafficking contract was denied to Catholic Charities (?) because it didn’t cover abortion services (as I recall – morning-after pills, perhaps) even though at least one previous contract had gotten around that problem satisfactorily and even though CC had rated far higher than the next bidder (again, as I recall).
I think “conservative” religious leaders of any denomination have good reason to be seriously concerned about current trends. If they said nothing and what’s been happening turned out to have been early warnings of worse to come, they’d be faulted for not having seen it coming and acting. The smoke alarm sometimes goes off even when there’s no danger. Better too cautious than too incautious.
Hosanna Tabor turned at least partly on whether a religious organization could hire and fire employees according to its beliefs.
Actually, it was about whether they could classify a teacher in a Lutheran school as a “minister” who could be fired at will – as opposed to an employee who had rights not to be fired when she became physically disabled.
The court’s decision was that a church gets to decide who is a minister.
Thanks, John. Yes, it was the Obama administration’s desire to see the laws protecting the disabled trump a religion’s right to determine who was a minister, and, thus, not covered by religious exemptions.
I suppose if a church can’t say who’s a religious employee, it can’t say who’s a priest/minister/rabbi/elder/imam/whatever. That’s a thorny issue, obviously, but this administration was pretty clearly insensitive to it.
You’ve got to wonder at the legal competency of lawyers who’d push for something that all justices of the Supreme Court agreed was simply wrong. One can be forgiven for suspecting that there were hidden motives, though I have no idea what they might be. Legal scholars no doubt have some ideas. Legal roulette?
Actually, it was about whether they could classify a teacher in a Lutheran school as a “minister” who could be fired at will – as opposed to an employee who had rights not to be fired when she became physically disabled.
Tough for that teacher, that the Lutheran church decided that freedom of religion protection of religious employers was a handy tool to enable them to fire a worker who had become disabled! Judging from the New York Times article (that tells the story in a light sympathetic to the worker), I’m not sure that this is such a good example of why freedom of religion laws are threatened and must be jealously guarded. It’s more like a warning along the lines of: “Look at how poorly religious employers sometimes treat their employees when they’re not forced to follow the same worker protection laws as everybody else!” In fact, it’s an anecdote showing the possible unintended negative consequences of laws designed to protect freedom of religion and used for other ends.
Remember, Claire, that the New York Times makes little pretense of keeping its editorial voice out of its news stories. Read that paper’s news – especially when it’s on an issue that’s promoted or damned on the editorial page – with a grain of skepticism. Research further.
And remember that judges judge on matters of law, not on matters of justice. It’s not their job to choose the side of the good or the deserving, but rather the side that has behaved according to the law.
Sometimes, the executive branch is prone to push a “fairness” case, in spite of the law. Perhaps that’s done for political reasons, rather than legal ones. Seems likely. That may be what happened here – the President knew that your sympathies would be with the poor handicapped teacher, not with the heartless Lutheran Church. But that’s not what law in this country’s about. Legality, not “fairness”. If it were the other way around, justice would change with every new politician and every new judge.
Yes David, I am not criticizing the judges. It’s their role to make decisions according to the law.
The department of Justice appears to have erred in this case. By the way — is that the same as President Obama? When you say “the President”, do you know that he personally had something to do with this? (Not that it matters, really – he’s responsible for what people under him are doing – but it gives the story a different color to say “the Department of Justice” or “the President”, as though he was the one who personally took that decision.)
And, yes, I am aware that by reading just a single account of that story in a single newspaper, I am seeing only one side.
In any case, it does not matter much: given the selection of Republican candidates, my vote is clear. I can already think in a post-election frame of mind, because my choice is already made.
The Chicago Tribune, whose editorial voice on social issues is generally moderate, has an interesting take on the Pew numbers.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-mandate-0215-20120215,0,5595785.story
Claire wrote,
Tough for that teacher, that the Lutheran church decided that freedom of religion protection of religious employers was a handy tool to enable them to fire a worker who had become disabled!
Thats a little to liberal reading of the case, I think. The litigation was only tangentially concerned with whether she was disabled or not. Here is how the cases arose:
The EEOC brought suit against Hosanna-Tabor, alleging that Perich had been fired in retaliation for threatening to file an ADA lawsuit. Perich intervened in the litigation, claiming unlawful retaliation under both the ADA and the Michigan Persons with Disabilities Civil RightsAct, Mich. Comp. Laws §37.1602(a) (1979).
The Trib also ran an interesting story on Republican backing of contraceptive mandates at the state and federal level (via the LA Times):
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-gop-contraceptives-20120216,0,3392996.story
“The state laws were the product of a campaign by women’s groups and others that began after insurers started covering Viagra for men.”
Someone with an eye for satire could make hay imagining an episcopal rant on the insurance industry’s covering of this drug and its interference with “natural” processes. Where’s Germain Grisez when you need him …
Thanks to Ms. Fullman for noting the new Ameruca stance -also bringing a sober view of the complexities – and more knowledgeable than the Forbes piece dredged up again.
I further think that the lived experienc eof Catholics matters tremendously and, while David is right that we wil tend to frame this through our own perceptions(as he certainly does with his anti-Obama harps), there is a broad swath of Catholicism that sees the issue needing a better balance than USCCB supplies.
Ken says simply the Bishops speak for the US Catholic Church but while they are the policy makers, their credibility and effectiveness in this role is measured by the resonance it receives.
Undergirding this all are tensions on matters of women, sex and authority all of which continued too be hightened in divisiveness -with, IMO, sad results.
Here’s the summary of he case from the Supreme Court opinion, which should be impartial. Note that the Case againt the church was brought by the U.S.Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which determined that the church had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The District Courtt agreed wih the church, the Appeals Court ruled against the church, and the case went to the Supreme Court.
Some people would have liked to have the Department fo Justice say that it disagreed with the Appeals Court and that it wouldn’t defend the case before the Supreme Court, but that is not really how our system of justice works. It’s the Supreme Court that gets to make the decisions, not he Department of Justice.
Sorry, wrong link
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-553.pdf
Thanks John!
Thanks, Jim (10:19), for that. Nice editorial. Might even give one or two people pause :0)