The weekly report on US and World public policy
by Edwina Rogers
Employers Stifling Employees
The United States is exceptional in that most of our health care comes from employers instead of provided by the government or purchased privately. Leaving aside the question of whether a business, which is not a person, can even have a religion, can corporations with deep faith impose their choices on their employees? The Supreme Court said yes, unfortunately, in a recent ruling that Hobby Lobby, a chain of craft stores, can refuse contraception in their health care packages for staff.
To secularists, this is religious discrimination at the workplace and this week I attended a debate on the topic hosted by The Federalist Society, Was Hobby Lobby Wrongly Decided?.
We Join Coalitions Too
Our Secular Policy Institute has the world’s largest secular coalition, now with 300 members from around the world, but it’s not all about us, and it’s not all about secularism. We have joined several other coalitions, some with secular angles and some more tangential but synergistic.
For example, this week I’ll represent the SPI at the Inter-Coalition Religious Refusals Working Group, which is part of (or related to) the National Women’s Law Center. We’ll discuss the recent US Supreme Court ruling that the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic school, may withhold birth control from its health insurance, and recent anti-LGBTQ cases involving religious discrimination.
US Congress Embraces the Ignorance of Abstinence-Only Sex “Education”
Can you really call it “education” when it misinforms teenagers and fails to fully inform them? Teaching that avoiding sex is the only approach to sex is a religious viewpoint that’s not very practical. Although 100% of Texas teen students or taught abstinence or not taught at all, Texas has the third highest teen birth rate in the nation: 50% higher than the national average.
Yet the US House of Representatives is now pushing a package of healthcare funding legislation that actually increases spending for abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education by a whopping 50 percent. This brings the total funding of such programs to $75 million annually. Although all research shows that teaching abstinence is totally ineffective, and poor sex education leads to venereal disease, religiously-motivated legislators continue to force taxpayers into subsidizing legislation that actually hurts, not helps, American youth.
This week, the House and Senate passed nonbinding budget proposals for the 2016 fiscal year. The next few days will see much voting on the budget amendments proposed by various congresspeople.
Greenhouse Gases: If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Executive Order ‘Em
This week, President Obama issued an executive order mandating the federal government to cut greenhouse gas levels by 40 percent from its 2008 emissions. Although the mandate left unspecified how this goal was to be achieved, it paves the way for other nations to set similar goals.
They Hated Obamacare. Were They Right?
It’s hard to believe that five years have passed since the Affordable Care Act was put into action. Religiously motivated arguments played and continue to play a large part of conservative objections to Obamacare. Now that the law has a track record, were the haters right? This week the White House released a Here’s What Five Years of the Affordable Care Act Means for America, a video report on the impact the ACA has made. It’s good stuff but the self-congratulatory clapping is over the top.
Netanyahu Wins Reelection
Benjamin Netanyahu has won another term as Prime Minister of Israel. Despite his success abroad, Israel’s relationship with the US has been rapidly deteriorating, thanks in large part of Netanyahu’s current refusal to allow ┬áa two-state solution with the Palestinians. Read in-depth analysis of the current situation, and projections about what Netanyahu’s next steps might be.