amen

doing better?...

Where Catholic diocese operate hospitals and schools, under the very same rules now causing such controversy, there are, I discover, carefully determined waivers and adjustments for religious exceptions to providing ''comprehensive'' insurance plans (without contraceptive care coverage), which already provide satisfactory law (whodathunkit!?). This issue is, I think, a logically soft, politically insubstantial and intellectually dishonest "straw man"; designed by the theocratic to frighten the democratic. There is no "assault" on religious practice, but a defense of equal treatment under the law and of civil rights for workers (both obviously under attack from the unprincipled and the intolerant). Doing the right thing, in my opinion, is just as ''spiritually'' important with regard to women's access to healthcare services and regarding the civil rights of workers as when about the care and services provided to the needy (is it not?). The church that cannot adapt to worldly circumstances without transgressing its own tenets is not, in my opinion, the living congregation of faithful and compassionate souls with which I have become familiar. Moreover, I have been convinced that change is inevitable, whether in moral or material matters. The "culture wars" long waged by authoritarian fear-mongers, to hold one religion preeminent over any others, seems malicious to me, if not entirely un-Christian. We should not, I think, entertain the bad socio-political ideas of the right with any more trust than we should give their bad economic ideas (obviously, I say). I am principally endued to appreciate a democratic/egalitarian liberalism that is biased against both unmerited privilege and intolerant arrogance - call it "reformist".

fair-minded...

The function of the state is not only to protect us from the malicious disregard of our unscrupulous neighbors nor just provide safe, habitable commons; but also to "regulate" commerce (which at least, in part, guarantees open access to services/facilities and fair treatment/relief for the vulnerable); unless I have misread the social contract upon which I have been convinced I could rely.