I have no problem with Catholics lobbying-- I just think they should lose their tax exempt status & be treated the same as any other lobby group.
This is also why I say it is JUST FINE to discriminate based on "creed." Creed is what people think, & if people think, for instance, that magic faeries sprinkle souldust on a sperm & an egg & that masturbation is murder-- or if they think that special invisible guys make souls appear when the sperm & the egg touch & that women should be kept in cages as incubators....well then that is a great reason not to vote for them.
@mordicai: This isn't how tax exemption works. Planned Parenthood is a 501(c)(3) and has a lobbying arm, and it hasn't compromised their tax exemption. Or Komen's. Or the United Way's. Either all not-for-profits that engage in lobbying should be taxed, or none should be. It can't just apply to organizations who lobby for things we don't like.
@mordicai: You got it, and you said it all more civilly than I usually do when I feel compelled to comment.
Cuomo got it right too. The Church is refusing to give Catholic pro-choice Dems Communion because they acknowledge that their voters may not comply with Church dogma (self-identified believers and non-believers alike.) Great! If they have a stake in politics, you're right, they should lose their tax exempt status.
I would also add--it pisses me off even more when I think that American bishops were so quick to campaign for Bush and other "family values" Republicans (Catholic or otherwise) who also are fiscally conservative or support the war. For the most part, beyond abortion (and occasionally, immigration), the Church backs off (whether their perspective is a reasonable one or not). Why doesn't a social service budget deserve the same scrutiny as abortion (especially considering that anti-choice politicians seem to love having their cake and eating it too...screw the social costs of forcing a woman who doesn't want to a child to bear it and screw the endless benefits of sexual health awareness and family planning would have for the average citizen.) The bishops know why--their voice would be unwelcome, THAT'S why! People resent religion butting in then, so why does it fly here?! (Not that I can't think of a few answers that make me nauseous and angry. If only men could get knocked up...I wonder if they'd be labeled "baby-eaters" for protesting.)
The Church is rewarded for supporting hypocrisy when we give them a special voice. The irony....if there's something in the Constitution or public law against lobbyists or PACS, is it as well-known as the principle of separation between church and state? Why, how the hell is it that they can can away with this? Because pollers tell us that Americans see this as a "Christian" nation, despite the fact that half of those who identify as such have no fucking idea what they're talking about?
Dogma and "faith"--easily distinguishable from empathy, stewardship, or a number of other moral values that exist apart from institutionalized religion-- deserve no place in policymaking, PERIOD. It infuriates me. What entitles lobbying bishops or religious policymakers to impose the fables a select minority have accepted on everyone else? Fuck that.
@lizdexia: Dang it with your...reasonable response! Fine, okay good. Actually that makes me feel a little less irate.
Then I guess the right answer is: stop taking communion. If that is the way they want to play it-- then fine, agree with them. Stop taking communion & paying tithes.
@lizdexia: I think the lobbying/political portions of those organizations are somewhat separate and NOT tax-exempt, however. That's not the case with religious groups, it seems.
@mordicai: I don't really know what the answer is. As a deeply conflicted Catholic, I'm never sure whether I can do more good by voting with my feet or agitating from within. I do donate to my parish, but for specific things like the parish grade school, or funds for repairs. I don't even donate to Catholic Charities so much anymore because I'm not sure what they do with their funds. I split my contributions btw the Coalition to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and the Adoptive and Foster Care Coalition. Unlike the bishops who insist on running my Church from an ivory tower unrelated to reality, I prefer to try and effect change in a way that will make people's lives better. I do take communipon though because I believe in primacy of conscience above all. I have a clear conscience about my convictions, and I will not let a priest or bishop with a selective definition of pro-life act as a gatekeeper between me and a sacrament I hold sacred.
My local bishop does regularly get an earful from me when the USCCB gets riled up about abortion and remains silent on other life issues. Jesus had far more to say about social justice and equality for the poor than he ever did about the occupancy of my uterus.
@cate3710: According to the IRS, churches can engage in lobbying, as long as it is not a "substanital part" of their activities. If it's determined they've done too much, they can be subject to a 5% tax on lobbying expenditures. My guess would be that the sheer size of the RCC allows it to engage in a fair amount of lobbying. Even if all the USCCB did was lobby congress, if you compare that to all the man hours of employees in Catholic institutions - including churches, schools, hospitals and charities, plus the man hours of religious orders, lobbying activities are a drop in the bucket.
This issue actually really burns me up from a PR perspective. The RCC does so much good work, in terms of advocating for and providing for the poor and running quality schools and hospitals. Interjecting themselves in the healthcare debate has really overshadowed all the good work they do. To the outside observer, it probably appears the Bishops do nothing but meddle with women's health, when in reality the Church does a tremendous amount of good.
When I'm Head Cheese of the World I'm going to abolish religion in government. I don't know how yet but I'll figure it out after I figure out how to become Head Cheese.
When you become head cheese, just create a constitution that says religion can't influence policy. And put it in your constitution that when a policymaker allows religion to influence policy, he is to be F-I-R-E-D.
Perhaps if the Bishops called out all Catholic politicians for any legislation that leads to murder it wouldn't be so bad. But do they call out the politicians who support the death penalty? How about the politicians that prevent changes to policy to reduce wrongful convictions? How about the politicians that support war? How about the politicians that don't provide adequate support for our troops who are facing death? Or don't support adequate medical care to those who return? How about the politicians that allow our veterans to go untreated for brain injury and PTSD so they put their own lives and the lives of their families at risk? How about the politicians that vote in favor of the tobacco industry? How about the politicians that are preventing health reform that would save and improve lives of so many Americans?
@bluebears: True. My teenaged son (I am more of a Unitarian myself) recently converted to Catholicism. After being in the church for about a year, he converted right back out! Good man!
@morninggloria: I find it sad that these incidences overshadow Catholicism's social justice work. Both in the media attention and, I fear, in the actual commitment by the church, bishops and priests. There are some Catholic churches that are safe havens to undocumented immigrants. There are some that stand next to community organizers and unions fighting for the poor.
@Lymed: unfortunately though, it's a top down organization and the upper management (if you will) seems way less interested in social justice then your kind hearted parish priest or kick ass nun (I have a fondness for nuns). So I don't think its surprising that the social justice work gets overshadowed.
@bluebears: But the Catholic Church used to be known as a social justice organization in America. It is the change that saddens me...as a non-Catholic social justice activist.
I was pretty into being Catholic for a long time because I loved that part of the faith was service. I went to a Catholic university and did service work all through college (I also sang in the liturgical choir) and due to my Catholic faith, I joined Americorps after I graduated.
I realized one day, though, that you can believe in serving others and social justice without the icky parts of the Church clinging to you. You can be pro-social justice and also pro-women's rights. You can be a moral person without the institution telling you that your body isn't really yours.
Did anyone else watch 60 Minutes last night? The story on end-of-life care showed that in this country, politics injects a level of stupidity into the debate, and I fear that we will not have good reform anytime soon. We spend so much money keeping people alive, avoiding death, and it's a debate we can't rationally have because you have assholes like Sarah Palin tweeting about "death panels" and making people lose their minds.
@Ruby_de_la_Booby: I didn't see it, but there was an interesting study that came out a few years ago that African Americans have more health care dollars spent on end of life care than white Americans. I believe one of the findings was that African Americans are more likely to spend their last days in a hospital versus a hospice, compared to white Americans. That is something we should be talking about. Because it is not just that the hospital is more expensive. It is that those last days are likely much less comfortable in a hospital. But we need a national conversation about this because there are numerous issues that impact end of life care, including cultural norms, trust or mistrust of the medical system, knowledge of options and ability to pay.
@Lymed: The segment covered that very point, that people really don't want to die in an ICU, but many times they do. Most people would prefer hospice or to be at home, but doctor's aren't encouraged to have that conversation with their patients. And because this mostly involves the elderly, we are talking Medicare, which does not set a limit on end-of-life care payments. That was another point made: setting a limit would have the Palins of the country screaming "RATIONING," thus we can't have an honest debate about it.
But...Wasserman Schultz was politicizing breast cancer. I mean, obviously the GOP is throwing this out primarily as a hurdle. But I watched that yesterday, and the point was that the council had a great deal of regulatory power over Medicare or the public option or whatever. Stephanopolis read the line in the bill, and the congresswoman said no, it's just a suggestion. She was ignoring the issue.
I don't really know who's technically correct, but this whole affair begs the question: when the government is responsible for more health spending, it will be responsible for budgeting. Maybe that will require hard choices. Maybe in order to pay for one thing that will save or better a large group of people, a minority of others might be shorted for treatment funds. Or maybe in order to save a diminishing margin of people for one disease you would need to spend money on an expensive screening process that could be used more efficiently to save a larger group of people for something else. Health care is utilitarian in that respect.
Under a private system, squawking over rationing won't due any good because you're nobody's boss. Public officials are (in thoery) our minions, though. The Democrats' jumpy reaction to the reports this week makes me worry that in the future lawmakers will quixotically pursue 100% treatment under the threat of interest groups. If we have to make Medicare cuts and reduce fee-for-service and the like in order for this thing to work on a cost basis, we're in deep shit.
It's time for everyone to stand up, including myself. I'm trying to draft a letter I can send to all the members of the Senate, imploring them to consider carefully the implications of killing health care reform. I don't expect the Republicans to listen, but at least I will have had my say.
I believe the Catholic Church made a definitive choice years ago to go out of their way to alienate young members of the faith. They're holding up heath care legislation over abortion rights, they're protesting D.C.'s gay marriage proposal, and, lest we forget, they tried to cover up a nearly-century-long scandal of pedophile and homosexual priests through dishonest means. Bullying victims, shifting problem priests from one parish to another, and then denying the scandal from the highest offices.
What they don't seem to get is that *nobody* is really pro-abortion, but they're pro-abortion *RIGHTS*, which is a much different thing indeed. This story from the Boston Globe should be mandatory reading for anybody who wants to place a vote on curbing abortion rights.
"Don't ask me to make everybody live by it because they are not members of the church," Cuomo said. "If that were the operative rule, how could you get any Catholic politician in office? And would that be better for the Catholic church?"
Exactly. The Catholic church is great at the holier-than-thou stuff, but all they ever end up doing is shooting themselves in the foot. They have a lot of nerve whining about abortion funding, while their church is having to fight off lawsuit after lawsuit because their celibate male priests can't keep their hands of young boys.
@NefariousNewt: Remember history. Weren't many folks afraid that President JFK was going to take his orders from the Pope. Shit like this makes what was once thought of as an irrational fear as quite legit. Well, this and Judge Scallia, who probably does make all of his decisions based on Catholic doctrine.
Bishop Tobin needs to go back to ministering his flock and staying out of politics. If he's so worried about his parishioners getting abortions, then perhaps he should spend his time inveighing from the pulpit, instead of wasting time in the halls of Congress.
Yea, how can a religious organization that has tax exempt status act as a PAC with social agenda?
All the while the issues holding up healthcare all relate to women.
Separate of what now?
I have a feeling that if we lifted the tax exempt status from all religious institutions in this country we might very well be able to pay for this damn bill from the revenue.
11/23/09
This is also why I say it is JUST FINE to discriminate based on "creed." Creed is what people think, & if people think, for instance, that magic faeries sprinkle souldust on a sperm & an egg & that masturbation is murder-- or if they think that special invisible guys make souls appear when the sperm & the egg touch & that women should be kept in cages as incubators....well then that is a great reason not to vote for them.
11/23/09
11/23/09
Cuomo got it right too. The Church is refusing to give Catholic pro-choice Dems Communion because they acknowledge that their voters may not comply with Church dogma (self-identified believers and non-believers alike.) Great! If they have a stake in politics, you're right, they should lose their tax exempt status.
I would also add--it pisses me off even more when I think that American bishops were so quick to campaign for Bush and other "family values" Republicans (Catholic or otherwise) who also are fiscally conservative or support the war. For the most part, beyond abortion (and occasionally, immigration), the Church backs off (whether their perspective is a reasonable one or not). Why doesn't a social service budget deserve the same scrutiny as abortion (especially considering that anti-choice politicians seem to love having their cake and eating it too...screw the social costs of forcing a woman who doesn't want to a child to bear it and screw the endless benefits of sexual health awareness and family planning would have for the average citizen.) The bishops know why--their voice would be unwelcome, THAT'S why! People resent religion butting in then, so why does it fly here?! (Not that I can't think of a few answers that make me nauseous and angry. If only men could get knocked up...I wonder if they'd be labeled "baby-eaters" for protesting.)
The Church is rewarded for supporting hypocrisy when we give them a special voice. The irony....if there's something in the Constitution or public law against lobbyists or PACS, is it as well-known as the principle of separation between church and state? Why, how the hell is it that they can can away with this? Because pollers tell us that Americans see this as a "Christian" nation, despite the fact that half of those who identify as such have no fucking idea what they're talking about?
Dogma and "faith"--easily distinguishable from empathy, stewardship, or a number of other moral values that exist apart from institutionalized religion-- deserve no place in policymaking, PERIOD. It infuriates me. What entitles lobbying bishops or religious policymakers to impose the fables a select minority have accepted on everyone else? Fuck that.
11/23/09
Then I guess the right answer is: stop taking communion. If that is the way they want to play it-- then fine, agree with them. Stop taking communion & paying tithes.
11/23/09
11/23/09
My local bishop does regularly get an earful from me when the USCCB gets riled up about abortion and remains silent on other life issues. Jesus had far more to say about social justice and equality for the poor than he ever did about the occupancy of my uterus.
#tips
11/23/09
[www.irs.gov]
This issue actually really burns me up from a PR perspective. The RCC does so much good work, in terms of advocating for and providing for the poor and running quality schools and hospitals. Interjecting themselves in the healthcare debate has really overshadowed all the good work they do. To the outside observer, it probably appears the Bishops do nothing but meddle with women's health, when in reality the Church does a tremendous amount of good.
PR geniuses, they're not.
#tips
11/23/09
11/23/09
When you become head cheese, just create a constitution that says religion can't influence policy. And put it in your constitution that when a policymaker allows religion to influence policy, he is to be F-I-R-E-D.
11/23/09
#tips
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#tips
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I was pretty into being Catholic for a long time because I loved that part of the faith was service. I went to a Catholic university and did service work all through college (I also sang in the liturgical choir) and due to my Catholic faith, I joined Americorps after I graduated.
I realized one day, though, that you can believe in serving others and social justice without the icky parts of the Church clinging to you. You can be pro-social justice and also pro-women's rights. You can be a moral person without the institution telling you that your body isn't really yours.
11/23/09
11/23/09
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11/23/09
I don't really know who's technically correct, but this whole affair begs the question: when the government is responsible for more health spending, it will be responsible for budgeting. Maybe that will require hard choices. Maybe in order to pay for one thing that will save or better a large group of people, a minority of others might be shorted for treatment funds. Or maybe in order to save a diminishing margin of people for one disease you would need to spend money on an expensive screening process that could be used more efficiently to save a larger group of people for something else. Health care is utilitarian in that respect.
Under a private system, squawking over rationing won't due any good because you're nobody's boss. Public officials are (in thoery) our minions, though. The Democrats' jumpy reaction to the reports this week makes me worry that in the future lawmakers will quixotically pursue 100% treatment under the threat of interest groups. If we have to make Medicare cuts and reduce fee-for-service and the like in order for this thing to work on a cost basis, we're in deep shit.
11/23/09
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What they don't seem to get is that *nobody* is really pro-abortion, but they're pro-abortion *RIGHTS*, which is a much different thing indeed. This story from the Boston Globe should be mandatory reading for anybody who wants to place a vote on curbing abortion rights.
[www.boston.com]
11/23/09
Exactly. The Catholic church is great at the holier-than-thou stuff, but all they ever end up doing is shooting themselves in the foot. They have a lot of nerve whining about abortion funding, while their church is having to fight off lawsuit after lawsuit because their celibate male priests can't keep their hands of young boys.
11/23/09
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All the while the issues holding up healthcare all relate to women.
Separate of what now?
I have a feeling that if we lifted the tax exempt status from all religious institutions in this country we might very well be able to pay for this damn bill from the revenue.
11/23/09
Obviously, He would demand proof of citizenship, co-pay, and proof of insurance (or entire bill paid in cash) at time of all miracle workings.