February 10, 2012 by David K. Sutton
When The Economy Is Looking Up, There’s Always The Culture Wars
There is reason to believe the economy is starting to build momentum. Last week’s January jobs report was quite positive and that sentiment continued yesterday with a Sentier Research study that shows median household income up 4% in the last four months of 2011.
Inflation-adjusted median household income increased 4%, from $49,434 to $51,413, from August to December
For Republican presidential candidates and congressional Republicans, scripted rhetoric about Obama and the economy isn’t going to be as effective as it once was. What is a Republican to do? Ah, the trusty standby, the culture wars.
Which wedge issue is it this time? Birth control.
The health care reform law requires health care plans to offer access to birth control. This is being used by conservatives and Republicans as a political weapon to say that Obama is waging a war on religion. In reality, it’s simply a business regulation and in no way does it infringe on a person’s religious beliefs. Nobody is forced to do anything that is against their religious beliefs. The only rights being infringed are the rights of women.
The Obama administration has offered a compromise on the employer coverage requirements for birth control to appease the overly sensitive indoctrinated souls among us.
The new compromise is that religious employers themselves will have no responsibility to either pay for this coverage or to communicate with employees about it; instead, those burdens will shift to insurance companies, at no additional cost to consumers.
Some Republicans, like Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, still aren’t satisfied. Hatch says, “This is about religious freedom, and anything short of a full exemption is no compromise”. Hatch apparently believes a woman’s employer should be able to deny access to birth control.
It’s good to know that we can always count on Republicans to inflame the culture wars and fire up their base when needed. Society is marching in one direction and Republicans are marching in the other. It’s only a matter of time before they render their party obsolete.
Or did that already happen?
dks
