Obama Tries To Force Catholic Institutions To Provide Contraceptives

[a completely inoffensive name]

The Church is the Church. They can scream and yell and cuss all they want, but that's all it is. When you use the Church's use of Free Speech as an excuse to give the government more powers of imposition, we all lose--whether you're a fan of the church or not.

If you want a separation of church and state, it must be a complete separation. You can't have religions able to talk and lobby government all they want with complete immunity.

They are either part of society or they are not. If they want their hands in everything, then they need to pay taxes and face up to the fact that sometimes government does things we don't like. I find war on middle eastern countries disgusting and possibly morally wrong depending on which country we are talking about. But my moral indignation doesn't protect my money from paying for such wars.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Wait, what? Tax exempt status is an entirely separate issue- that's not in the Constitution.

All I am saying is that religion tore down the wall to get government goodies and now they want to build it back up again when it suits them. In order for them to learn, they gotta take some sort of punishment.

Society is not something you opt into or opt out of. Society simply is. The Church is something you opt into or opt out of, and very few people are influenced by the Church's views who have not already made the choice to "opt in" to the Church. Be careful what you advocate, because we live in a society where laws are based on precedent. You don't engineer society, but you do engineer governments--is this a power you want the government to have? It's not a big leap of imagination to go from unjustly imposing your views on the church to unjustly imposing your views on anything else. You give the church too much credit. Its a voluntary establishment, and you can't take issue with someone because they exist and they exercise the same rights that you would want in their position.

Who said anything about engineering society? I am not the one that wants to dictate what marriage is and spend millions of dollars in another state to force government to keep the definition I want. I am not the one that wants to restrict what kind of knowledge kids in sex education learn in order to make sure their minds don't become "deviant". I am not the one that wants to tell the future scientists what science is in the classroom in order to "not feel left out" or "get both sides of the story". I am not the one that demands that third world countries stop using condoms to protect against rampant AIDS infections because it "disgraces" the act due to preventing childbirth.You have it completely backwards GC. Churches have been trying to engineer society to what they feel is right. They don't stand on the sidelines and go about their business. Everyone and everything is a part of society, that is correct. But you can opt in or out of the public sphere. We call those citizens that habitually do so, apathetic. Churches can do it as well. They can even say, "we feel this is wrong" in a public statement. But when they have lobbyists in our Congress, when they have votes on the MPAA review boards to determine what movies are ok for the public to see, and when they post blatant lies all over my television screen about how if we don't pass Prop 8, then gay marriage will be taught in schools, they have already decided to tear down the separation of church and state.The wall works both ways. Government stays out of religions affairs and religion stays out of government affairs. One side broke down the wall, and now they must lie in the bed they made. I don't like it. I wish it didn't come to this. But you honestly can't tell me that religions aren't power players in politics and government polices, if you wanna play the game, you gotta accept the rules. Sometimes you lose.