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Health

Kansas Governor Approves Sweeping Anti-Abortion Law, Writes ‘JESUS + Mary’ In His Notes On The Bill

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Apr 22, 2013 at 1:45 pm

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has signed a stringent anti-abortion bill that blocks tax breaks for abortion providers, requires doctors to tell women about the disputed link between abortion and breast cancer, and defines life as beginning at conception in the state constitution. However, despite the fact that the omnibus legislation is 70 pages long, it does not necessarily explicitly state everything that the Republican governor wishes to convey on the abortion issue.

Before Brownback signed HB 2253 into law at a ceremony at the statehouse on Friday, an AP photo reveals that he made a few additions of his own in his notes on the bill. He typed out some phrases — “building a culture of life,” and “all human life is sacred” — that he ended up using in his speech to abortion opponents before approving the legislation, and he also scribbled “JESUS + Mary” at the top of the paper (second enlarged image via Gawker):

Of course, this is hardly the first time a politician has invoked religious belief to justify their opposition to legal abortion rights, regardless of the historical separation of church and state in the United States. That’s partly because the anti-choice community has worked hard to brand reproductive freedom as entirely antithetical to the Christian faith. Catholic lawmakers in particular are often hostile to abortion rights even when they are more moderate on other social issues.

But even though Brownback may invoke the Christian faith as he approves some of the harshest abortion restrictions in the nation, his position isn’t necessarily representative of the Christian coalition in the United States. Reproductive rights aren’t actually always in sharp opposition to religion. People of faith support women’s access to contraception, and most religious groups don’t want to overturn Roe v. Wade. In fact, over 75 percent of white Protestants — along with 65 percent of black Protestants and 63 percent of white Catholics — support women’s constitutional right to legal abortion services.

Justice

Why An Anti-Birth Control CEO’s Big Mouth May Force His Lawyers To Toss Him Under The Bus

By Ian Millhiser on Apr 19, 2013 at 1:30 pm

As ThinkProgress explained on Monday, the CEO of a company challenging the Obama Administration’s rules promoting access to birth control made statements to the press which could destroy the basis of this case. Since then, the CEO went even further in undercutting the basis of his case. Indeed, the CEO’s most recent statements are so damning they could require his own attorneys to scuttle his case.

Michael Potter is the owner and CEO of Eden Foods, one of several for-profit companies challenging federal rules expanding access to contraception on the grounds that he has a religious objection to complying with those rules. Earlier this week, however, he made several statements to Salon’s Irin Carmon suggesting that his true reason for opposing the birth control rules are libertarian objections to employer regulation, not the religious objections he claims to have in his legal complaint. This distinction is important because federal law protecting religious liberty only applies when someone has a religious objection to complying with the law — not when their objection is merely rooted in a “philosophy or way of life.” So if Potter does not actually hold religious objections to birth control, he loses his case.

In a second interview with Carmon, Potter fairly explicitly states that his objections are not religiously motivated:

[T]here were the allegations, made by two sources associated with the company, that it isn’t Catholicism but rather macrobiotics, extensively discussed on the company website, that motivates Potter’s opposition to birth control, which would also contradict the lawsuit’s claims.

Potter sounded angry when he called me back, but he did answer questions. (I asked him twice if anything had been inaccurate or misleading in my earlier reporting, and he didn’t point to anything.) Asked about macrobiotics, he said, “It didn’t come into play at all in any of the discussions we have.” So, I asked, it’s motivated by his belief as a Catholic?

“Not so much that as our denial of our rights to exercise our conscience,” he said, confusingly. “And the government overreach into that. They’re infringing the religious freedoms that are supposedly in the Constitution. I think those are more important than any particular religious dogma.”

I rephrased. “What particular belief leads you to oppose this regulation?”

“Well, there isn’t any one particular religious belief, Irin,” he said, sounding irritated. “I find it hard to get my head around the question.”

Potter makes several significant statements here, but the most significant is his direct denial that his objections to birth control are motivated by religious objections rooted in his Catholic beliefs. When Carmon asks whether his objections to the birth control regulations are motivated by his Catholicism, Potter responds “[n]ot so much that as our denial of our rights to exercise our conscience.” This statement directly conflicts with a sworn affidavit Potter’s attorneys filed in federal court. In that document, Potter claims that his company’s health plan does not cover birth control because “[a]s a practicing Catholic, I steadfastly make efforts to avoid practices that subvert the teaching of the Catholic Church.”

This contradiction also puts Potter’s lawyers in a serious bind. The lead counsel representing Potter is Erin Mersino, an attorney with the conservative Thomas More Law Center and a member of the Michigan Bar. Under the Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct, “[i]f a lawyer has offered material evidence and comes to know of its falsity, the lawyer shall take reasonable remedial measures.” Official commentary on this rule provides that “if necessary to rectify the situation, an advocate must disclose the existence of the client’s deception to the court or to the other party.” At the very least, this rule suggests that Ms. Mersino and her colleagues should conduct an investigation to determine whether or not Potter’s previous statements to the court are accurate. If Mr. Potter misled the court about the nature of his religious beliefs, Ms. Mersino has an obligation reveal that fact — despite the fact that it will likely destroy her client’s case.

To be absolutely clear, there is no evidence that Potter’s legal team knowingly deceived the court or that they violated any ethical obligation when they initially filed Potter’s affidavit with the court. Ms. Mersino is now aware of Potter’s statements to the media, however — I emailed them to her as part of a request for comment and received a terse response pointing me to Potter’s affidavit and other documents filed in this case.

Justice

How A Right-Wing CEO’s Big Mouth Could Kill His Attack On Birth Control

By Ian Millhiser on Apr 15, 2013 at 3:00 pm

Eden Foods is one of several for-profit corporations challenging Obama Administration rules requiring most employer-provided health plans to cover birth control, on the questionable legal theory that Eden is immune to these rules because its owner has religious objections to birth control. According to Eden’s legal complaint, Eden’s owner “Michael Potter holds religious beliefs that prevent him from participating in, paying for, training others to engage in, or otherwise supporting contraception, abortion, and abortifacients.”

In an interview with Salon’s Irin Carmon, however, Potter’s supposed religious beliefs are unusually absent. Rather, Carmon quotes Potter raising objections to the birth control rules that have nothing whatsoever to do with his faith:

“I’ve got more interest in good quality long underwear than I have in birth control pills,” [Potter] said to me. . . . [I] asked why he said he didn’t care about birth control, since he filed a suit about it and all.

“Because I’m a man, number one and it’s really none of my business what women do,” Potter said. So, then, why bother suing? “Because I don’t care if the federal government is telling me to buy my employees Jack Daniel’s or birth control. What gives them the right to tell me that I have to do that? That’s my issue, that’s what I object to, and that’s the beginning and end of the story.” He added, “I’m not trying to get birth control out of Rite Aid or Wal-Mart, but don’t tell me I gotta pay for it.”

The reason why these quotes matter is because there is nothing in federal law allowing someone to sue because they generally object to having the government tell them what to do — if that were the case, speed limits, workplace safety laws and the minimum wage would all be illegal. Instead, a federal law known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) permits people to challenge federal laws only when those laws “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion.” Potter can’t get into federal court because he does not like the birth control law, he can only get into court if he has a religious objection to birth control. And yet, here he is telling a reporter that “the beginning and end” of his objection to the Obama Administration’s rules is that he does not think the federal government should have the power to tell him to provide certain benefits to his employees — not that he believes that such laws burden his faith.

If Potter does not actually object to the birth control rules on religious grounds, then that’s the end of his case. As a federal appeals court explained in a decision that is binding upon the judge hearing the Eden Foods case, a plaintiff may only invoke the protections of RFRA when a law burdens “a religious belief rather than a philosophy or way of life,” and when the plaintiff’s purported religious belief is “sincerely held.”

As we have previously explained, the case for allowing for-profit corporations to claim that they are immune to federal law on religious groups is very weak — at least under current law. In the Eden Foods case, however, there may not be a need to reach the broader question of whether a for-profit company can immunize itself from the law because of its owner’s religious views. Based on Carmon’s reporting, it’s not at all clear that Potter actually holds the religious beliefs that make up the backbone of his case.

Justice

Poll: One in Three Americans Support Establishing Christianity As Their Official State Religion

By Ian Millhiser on Apr 11, 2013 at 10:10 am


Following up on a failed effort by eleven North Carolina lawmakers to declare that their state can ignore the Constitution’s ban on government establishments of religion, a Huffington Post/YouGov poll finds that just over one in three American adults would actually support making Christianity their state’s official faith. The same poll shows that only 11 percent of the country incorrectly believes that the Constitution would permit such an outcome.

Security

How South Asia’s ‘Hardline Buddhists’ Threaten Muslim Communities

By Hayes Brown on Mar 29, 2013 at 3:00 pm

The term “hardline Buddhist” may seem like an oxymoron, but it accurately describes the movement currently leading attacks on Muslim communities in South Asia. So far, though, the United States has done little to pressure the governments in question to halt the violence, to the chagrin of human rights activists.

Sri Lanka, where 69 percent of the population is Buddhist, is home to a small community of Muslims who kept a low-profile during the country’s lengthy civil war. Recently, however, a number of hardline Buddhist groups have sprung up, stirring anti-Muslim fervor among the majority Sinhalese ethnic group. These groups — that call themselves names like the Buddhist Strength Force and Sinhala Echo — accused the minority community of producing exam results “distorted to favor Muslims” and claimed that calves had been slaughtered indoors — which is illegal in the country’s capital. Neither claim has borne out, but they have led to mass protests and attacks against Muslims and their communities.

Most recently, a Buddhist monk-led mob in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, swarmed and assaulted a Muslim-owned clothing warehouse on Thursday:

The BBC’s Charles Haviland in Colombo said the monks led a crowd which quickly swelled to about 500, yelling insults against the shop’s Muslim owners and rounding on journalists seeking to cover the events.

Five or six were injured, including a cameraman who needed stitches.

Eyewitnesses said the police stood and watched although after the trouble spread they brought it under control.

Similar persecution is ongoing against Myanmar’s Muslim communities, who make up only four percent of the total population. In the face of spreading violence, also kicked up by hardline Buddhists, Burmese Muslims are fleeing their homes, leaving behind destroyed mosques and shops. At least 40 people have died in the clashes since March 20, as the fighting moves closer to the capital. These most recent attacks have left some 12,000 people displaced from their homes, according to the U.N.

Tomas Ojea Quintana, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on Myanmar human rights, on Thursday said he had “received reports of state involvement in some of the acts of violence,” earning himself a rebuke from the Burmese government. President Thein Sein on Thursday said that his government would use force if need be to clamp down on the violence, but only as a last resort.

The violence against Burmese Muslims in general has found a particular target in members of the Rohingya ethnic group. Stateless due to their status under a 1982 citizenship law, many Burmese believe the Rohingya are illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh. Because of this, the Rohingya have faced down violence and persecution for years, to the degree that some have called their situation a “genocide.” The group has caught the eye of hacktivist group Anonymous, which is now claiming credit for promoting more awareness of the Rohingya’s plight.

At present, the U.S. has backed President Thein’s call for calm, but not commented on the violence in Sri Lanka, nor taken apparent action to pressure either government to halt the attacks. This echoes previous instances of violence, such as in Sept. 2012, when the State Department urged Bangladesh to keep its borders open as Rohingya fled from Myanmar. President Obama, during his Nov. 2012 visit to Myanmar, called for greater protection of minorities in the country. So far, this call hasn’t not seemed to be heard in Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

(Photo: A destroyed mosque in Okpho, Myanmar. Credit: Ye Aung Thu/AFP/Getty Images)

Health

Boston College Threatens Disciplinary Action Against Students Who Distributed Condoms

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Mar 27, 2013 at 11:12 am

A group of students has been distributing contraceptives and information about safe sex in 18 Boston College dorm rooms for two years. But on March 15, the school decided it was time to put an end to the practice, and sent a letter threatening disciplinary action to the safe sex network, dubbed ‘Safe Sites.’ The letter said that the contraception distribution violated their “responsibility to protect the values and traditions of Boston College as a Jesuit, Catholic institution.”

Boston College itself offers contraception as part of its student health plan, as required by Massachusetts law. But students who run the Safe Sites program can’t follow their school’s precedent, and must discontinue distributing condoms, or face the school’s office of student conduct, the Boston Globe reports:

The letter, signed by Dean of Students Paul J. Chebator and George Arey, director of residence life, says that “while we understand that you may not be intentionally violating University policy, we do need to advise you that should we receive any reports that you are, in fact, distributing condoms on campus, the matter would be referred to the student conduct office for disciplinary action by the University.”

Safe Sites are sponsored by the Boston College Students for Sexual Health (BCSSH), a group that works to improve sexual health education and resources for students at BC. The group is not recognized by the university.

The American Civil Liberties Union has said that it might consider bringing a legal complaint against the University if it chooses to proceed with disciplinary action. They claim the school “may be violating student rights.”

Studies have shown that condom distribution, at least at the High School level, does not increase the amount of intercourse young people have. It does, however, lead to a rise in condom use and thus encourages safe sex practices that not only limit unintentional pregnancies, but also cut down on the amount of sexually transmitted infections — a big problem on college campuses, including Jesuit ones.

Fighting contraception access has been a bit of a hobby horse for religious universities in recent years, particularly with the controversy over the birth control mandate that was a part of Obamacare. One Catholic university is even dropping its student health care coverage altogether to avoid potentially offering contraception to students one day down the line.

Economy

Faith Leaders Across America Protest Budget Cuts To Programs That Help The Poor

By Travis Waldron on Mar 20, 2013 at 12:10 pm

A collection of faith groups will today hold protest actions across the country calling on Congress to pass a budget that invests in programs to help low-income Americans instead of giving tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations. The coalition will hold 21 events in 13 states, according to a release from Faith in Public Life, encouraging Congress “to protect families and seniors, reject austerity, and remind them we have enough for all in this country.”

As part of the event, leaders will deliver loaves of bread and fish to Congress, a play on the Biblical story in which Jesus fed 5,000 hungry people with bread and fish. That took “a miracle,” the groups said in a release, but “it doesn’t take a miracle for Congress to pass a moral budget.”

“In Jesus’ time, it took a miracle to feed all the hungry. But today in America, we have enough resources to feed everyone, house everyone, and educate everyone if our leaders have the political will to put the common good before tax breaks for big corporations and the super wealthy,” Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, Director of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness, said in a release from Faith in Public Life. “Congress needs political courage, not miracles, to pass a just and moral budget that makes the wealthy pay their fair share and protects struggling families from further hardship.”

One of the events will take place outside the district office of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the author of the House Republican budget that would grant tax cuts to the wealthy while finding two-thirds of its budget cuts from programs that help the poor. Faith leaders criticized that budget as “immoral and counter to our values” when it was released last week, and faith groups like the Nuns on the Bus campaign have targeted Ryan and other Republicans for their insistence on similar budget cuts in the past.

The coalition includes interfaith, Christian, and Jewish groups, including the PICO National Network, Interfaith Workers Justice, and NETWORK, the Catholic social justice lobby that organized the Nuns on the Bus campaign.

Election

No, Conservatives, America Isn’t A Christian Nation: The Rise Of Religious Diversity

By Ruy Teixeira, Guest Blogger on Mar 19, 2013 at 12:17 pm

In conservatives’ preferred vision of America, we are a white Christian nation. And it is true that in the not too far distant past, we were, at least in numerical terms, an overwhelmingly white Christian nation.  In 1944, 80 percent of adults were white Christians.  But things have changed a lot since then.  Today only about 52 percent of adults are white Christians. By 2024, that figure will be down to 45 percent. That means that by the election of 2016, the United States will have ceased to be a white Christian nation. Looking even farther down the road, by 2040 white Christians will be only around 35 percent of the population and conservative white Christians, who have been such a critical part of the GOP base, only about a third of that—a minority within a minority.

Part of this of course is the inexorable march of race-ethnic change.  The white share of the population is declining at a rate of about a half percentage point a year and is expected to continue to do so for the next several decades.  But the other part of the shift away from white Christians is less well-understood: the rise of religious diversity.

There are two components to the rise of religious diversity: (1) increasing numbers of Americans who practice a non-Christian faith; and (2) increasing numbers of Americans who are secular or unaffiliated with any religion.  A recent Pew report sheds light on these important trends.

The Pew report aggregates data from their surveys between 2007 and 2012.  They found that those of non-Christian faiths have gone up from 4 to 6 percent over the time period, while those who are religiously unaffiliated have gone from 15 to nearly 20 percent of adults.  This is an astonishing rate of change, particularly for the unaffiliated who, according to some projections, were only supposed to hit 20 percent around the middle of the next decade.  This group’s growth is clearly way ahead of expectations.

Part of the reason for this rapid growth is generational.  Pew’s study notes that, among the youngest Millennial adults—those born 1990-1994, over a third (34 percent) have no religious affiliation.

There are significant social and political implications to these trends.  Pew and other data consistently show how liberal the unaffiliated are, particularly on social issues.  And they vote that way: in the 2012 exit poll, the unaffiliated supported Obama over Romney, 70-26.  In addition, those of non-Christian faiths supported Obama by 72-27.  To add to conservatives’ woes, their strongest group, white evangelical protestants (78-21 Romney) actually declined by 2 percentage points in the 2007-2012 time period.

Even conservatives should be able to do the math.  It’s time to give up on America as a white Christian nation and fully embrace its diversity–race-ethnic and religious.

Politics

New Pope Elected

By Igor Volsky on Mar 13, 2013 at 3:14 pm

The Catholic cardinals have elected a new pope on Wednesday after just two days of deliberations, selecting 76-year-old Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio on the fifth vote. He has taken the name of Francis and was not considered to be one of the front runners. He is the first Jesuit pope and the first non-European pope since the 8th century.

Bergoglio has affirmed church teaching on homosexuality, contraception and abortion and is considered to be among the most conservative in Latin America. In 2010, for instance, Bergoglio stated that same-sex adoption is a form of discrimination against children and has said that same-sex marriage is “a scheme to destroy God’s plan” and “a real and dire anthropological throwback.” He strongly opposed legislation introduced in 2010 by the Argentine Government to allow for marriage equality, writing a letter warning that it would “gravely harm the family.”

However, Bergoglio has focused on helping the poor throughout his career, noting, “The suffering of innocent and peaceful continues to slap us, the contempt for the rights of individuals and peoples are so far away, the rule of money with his demonic effects as drugs, corruption, trafficking people, including children, along with material and moral poverty are big problems.”

In 2001, upon becoming cardinal, Bergoglio “discouraged people from spending the money to fly to Rome to celebrate with him and advised that they instead donate the funds to help alleviate poverty at home.” He lived in a simple apartment, cooked his own food, and traveled by bus instead of a chauffeured limousine.

However, Bergoglio has been criticized by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) for his behavior during the 1976-1983 dictatorship in Argentina, with some journalists claiming that he prevented human rights groups from finding political prisoners by imprisoning them in his vacation home.

During the period of the dictatorship, the Catholic Church failed to confront the regime, even as it was kidnapping and killing thousands. The church eventually issued a blanket apology for its actions in October of 2012, though Bergoglio “invoked his right under Argentine law to refuse to appear in open court” to address two cases in which he was directly involved. When he did testify in 2010, his “answers were evasive,” human rights activists claim.

It has been 1,272 years since a non-European pope led the Church, and is particularly appropriate today, as the number of Catholics have declined in Europe, but grown significantly throughout Latin America. It is now home to 41 percent of Catholics and is “perceived as a Catholic bedrock that needs support to counter the tremendous growth of Protestantism. ”

White smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel at 7:07 PM at Vatican City, as the crowd cheered loudly in anticipation. The inaugural mass for the new Pope could take place as early as this week.

Climate Progress

Will The Next Pope Tackle Climate Change?

By Matt Kasper, Guest Blogger and Jack Jenkins, Guest Blogger on Mar 12, 2013 at 11:39 am

Solar panels at the Vatican (Photo credit: AP)

The world is anxiously waiting for the College of Cardinals to select the next Bishop of Rome, especially the planet’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. The faithful have good reason to be anxious: After all, the new pope will have to address a number of polarizing issues within the Catholic Church.

In addition to the challenges of ecclesiastical governance, however, there also exists an opportunity for the next pope to address an issue affecting the entire world community, both Catholics and non-Catholics alike: the urgent threat of climate change.

The destructive impact of climate change has been felt not only in the United States through droughts and floods and sea level rise, but also in communities around the world. The science suggests that its effects will only worsen, intensifying the hardships experienced by the poor and vulnerable. In the midst of this global crisis, the next pope is poised to become a key voice on the issue of climate change by helping the international community find solutions to the climate crisis.

The compulsion for the pope to act on climate change isn’t just based in science. It’s also rooted in theology: Catholic teaching insists that believers put the poor and vulnerable first, and inaction to save the most susceptible is considered immoral. Indeed, it has been 13 years since Pope John Paul II gave his 1990 World Day of Peace Message, saying:

“[A]n adequate solution cannot be found merely in a better management or a more rational use of the earth’s resources, as important as these may be. Rather, we must go to the source of the problem and face in its entirety that profound moral crisis of which the destruction of the environment is only one troubling aspect…

The ecological crisis reveals the urgent moral need for a new solidarity, especially in relations between the developing nations and those that are highly industrialized… I wish to repeat that the ecological crisis is a moral issue.”

Pope John Paul II’s words were more than just a symbolic prayer: both he and Pope Benedict XVI used their position and the power of the Vatican to elevate the moral case for action on climate change.

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