It's been interesting to watch conservative Christians complain loudly about regulations that would protect people's access to health insurance. It's difficult to see in these Christians' attitudes anything other than an opposition to people being able to receive adequate, affordable health care. What do Christians elsewhere in the world think about that? Some, at least, aren't very impressed.
As a conservative evangelical christian from Canada I find it very troubling when I hear evangelical christians in America make the implication that in order to be a good christian you have to be against government involvement in health care, and that government run health care is unbiblical. This is bogus and just plain illogical.
For one the Bible is not a political text book, and some of the most scathing remarks the bible lays down are for those who do not care for the poor and vulnerable in society. The vast majority of conservative evangelical christians in Canada support the Canadian health care system.
I implore evangelicals in America, please stop being so closed minded to differing political opinions.
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Conservative evangelical Christians aren't likely to pay any attention to criticism from secular atheists or even liberal Christians in America. Would they be more willing to heed the words of conservative evangelical Christians from other nations? I don't know, but it might be worth finding out. Perhaps one of the more left-leaning evangelical leaders in America could organize something and get statements from evangelical elsewhere in the world.
Real American Christians (TM) don’t need no stinkin’ furriners tellin’ em what to do!
Universal health care in Canada started in Saskatchewan with Premier Tommy Douglas. His views towards it were shaped by seeing the poor die during the Depression of easily curable conditions, and by doctors who refused to treat those who couldn’t afford to pay. The success of Medicare in Saskatchewan eventually led it to become national policy in Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Douglas
Religious opportunists will no doubt point to Douglas’s christianity as making religions more “compassionate”, but plenty of counterexamples exist, such as Mathew Staver, the anti-abortion loon mentioned in the linked article, who would rather let women die by the thousands allow a single abortion.
As has been pointed out many times by many people, being religious doesn’t make people moral, nor does it make them compassionate.
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What passes for Christianity in the United States in 2012 would be unrecognizable by our ancestors. As an atheist raised in a culture of Christianity, I have watched Christianity evolve into the socio-political movement that it has become. Interested folks should research Ronald Reagan’s role in the “Christianization” of America long before he became President. Reagan was definitely damaged goods after his alcoholic father left the family and young Ronnie latched on to his fundamentalist Christian mother’s apron strings. McCarthy gets the credit, but Reagan was the real ramrod behind the “Godless communists” movement in Hollywood. Thank goodness L.A. knew better. George W. Bush would be the first to tell you that he is Reagan’s number one disciple. These two stooges are directly responsible for the strength and the sheer vastness of the “Christian” movement we see in America today. They believe that in order to be an American, you must be white, fundamentalist Christian, wealthy and Republican. Anyone else needs to go off somewhere and die.
I am deeply troubled by how this issue has been portrayed in the media and also by how Obama has caved (so quickly I might add) into pressure from the religious right. This is not a religious issue – it’s a public health policy issue, plain and simple. And as long as decent, moral, thinking people allow the talking heads in the media and religious circles to continue to control the premise of the conversation by dictating, bogusly, that the issue is about government intrusion into religion, it will remain incredibly difficult to make a productive counterargument.
It seems patently discriminatory to allow a double standard in health care (whose basis appears to be gender) to not only exist but now be offically endorsed by the federal government. Somehow it is now morally and legally acceptable for health care plans administered by the Catholic church (other religous organizations also) to deny women access to contraceptives when all secular organizations (businesses, etc) will have to follow the law providing access to this medical treatment?
The Catholic church has engaged in so many deplorable acts and continues to oppress women so outrageously that it almost seems pointless to rant in detail about its moral failings. I can only hope we are seeing evidence in the church’s behavior of the last vestiges of this useless and dangerous religion. I would encourage all thinking women still indoctrinated in the Catholic church to very seriously consider the implications for themselves….their sisters….their daughters. There are real life consequences (unwanted pregnancies, single parent poverty, etc) to lending your support to an institution that seeks to make the sexual oppression of women one of its foremost goals.
Does the Catholic Church support penile implants for men and providing drugs like Viagara?
Way to go Katie, please rant on! I have watched this debate in disgust and wish more women would make these statements. Don’t be shy, exercise your first amendment rights and tell it like it is. By the way would someone please tell me how it is possible to exempt the Catholic Church in any way without contradicting the first amendment which reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
If women start using aspirin for birth control, will the Catholic Church stop paying for it?
Well said, Karen!
But, Katie, none of the abrahamic religions are fond of women. We should look forward to the day when all of them (and others as well) are flushed down the S-bend of History.