Every American with “religious beliefs or moral convictions” must now report to jail, because the Senate narrowly failed to pass Roy Blunt’s amendment tacked on the end of a highway funding bill specifying that no health plan sponsor must offer coverage for any otherwise mandatory services that it deems immoral. (The amendment does not name contraception but says only “specific items or services” because heh heh, the only type of health that is offensive to God is lady parts health.) So what will the Catholic bishops do when they hear that the United States Senate has aided and abetted Barack Obama in requiring insurance companies rather than whiny, misogynist religious institutions to cover the cost of birth control, aka OUTLAWING RELIGION, as the president’s contraception requirement compromise indicates? Eh, we are going to go with “continue to talk loudly about women’s vaginas in public,” much the same as the old creeps in the Republican party, to prove that they are very, very heterosexual.
What was the scene on the Senate floor like, The Hill?
Blunt and his Republican colleagues were adamant that the amendment was an effort to preserve religious freedoms in the face of government encroachment.
This proposal “simply preserves and protects the fundamental religious freedom that Americans have enjoyed for more than 220 years,” Blunt said Wednesday.
Much of the rhetoric on the floor grew heated.
“This is tyranny,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said Thursday. “This is discrimination masquerading as compassion, and I’m going to fight it.”
Really now? Ha ha, this is how compassion makes Orrin Hatch feel:
We would have thought this was the sort of sex torture thing that Republicans secretly liked, but who knows, etc. [The Hill]
{ 182 comments }
I prayed for this outcome. Thanks God!
That was pretty sly of you, Barb, using an arrow from their quiver.
Saint Sebastian libel!
"Thank you God for making me an atheist."
– Ricky Gervais.
I'm guessing Blunt's argument wasnt sharp enough to penetrate the target of his audience.
Huh huh huh, you said "penetrate".
No one should have been the least bit afraid. The Dems were salivating over having this vote. So were the Republicans, but for delusional reasons. Harry read can be pretty cowardly, but when he knows he has the votes he puts shit up.
Sneaky religious women-haters are sneaky, but blatant.
What did that "slut" chick that didn't get to testify have to say about this?
It's not polite to talk with your mouth full.
Hooooo-oooooooooh!
A small victory for lady parts! Jam out with your clam out!
Lyin' about with your vagina out?
Derby girl?
Rock out with your rack out?
Just don't black out.
I have a moral objection to assholes like Blunt and Hatch being in the US Senate. Am I therefore free to disobey laws they pass on moral grounds, because I think I ought to be.
I'm jumping on the Puck Train. Thanks for stopping at my station.
No One Expects the Blunt Amendment!
It's main weapon is misogyny. Misogyny and religious fuckwittery…TWO! It's TWO main weapons are surprise, religious fuckwittery, and engrained patriarchalism…THREE!!..
And an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope!
Roy Blunt is a Southern Baptist who couldn't care any less about what the Pope has to say. It's like how Protestants have made strange bedfellows with conservative Jews. They all have their different reasons for their social nastiness.
Surprise, religious fuckwittery, engrained patriarchalism… and FOX NEWS!!
At least, not since Redman & Method Man issued a Blackout Order.
I await your costumes and torture devices, Cardinal Ximénez.
Bring me…. the COMFY CHAIR!
This is EXACTLY how Hitler got started. By rejecting opt-out provisions in insurance plans.
I thought he got his start by signing individual mandates for everyone to have some kind of insurance, if not already provided by their employer?
^^
^
You're both wrong. He started by going on TV and telling kids to do well in school.
[in case you missed it, this was a real thing. Here's the dumb bitch who actually *cried* about it. Notice her husband openly laughing at her]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l2Kw8Wl8qs
First round at the Abortionplex is on me!
…I'll have TWO please!!!
To all my friends!
There's a Chuck E. Cheese next to the rock wall — the Placenta Pie is to die for.
"Ew."
We'll need a designated driver. I don't like to abortion and drive.
I know a guy but he only drives stick
The Handmaid's Fail
Oh, that's good… golf clap … That's quite good indeed.
You, sir, are a genius.
Is that you, Margaret Datgood?
Government of the penises, by the penises, for the penises…..
get back in the kitchen, Sluts – nothing to see here……
That Blunt dude oughta smoke a blunt, maybe he'd mellow out a bit.
Need to find out what Rush thinks.
"We are the priests, of the Temples, of Senate
All the gifts of life are held within our walls "
Their "2012" album kicked ass.
Why on earth would you think he thinks?
I thought Freedom of Religion only meant that no one had the right to impose their religious beliefs on another, like requiring employees to adhere to weird cult rules about homonculi in spermz? Oh, we're talking Freedumb of Religion, sorry. I forgot to pull out my GOP Constitooshun.
Obviously, when Orrin Hatch said "this is tyranny", he was thinking of Garry Wills' recent New York Review of Books article, which noted that
The bishops’ opposition to contraception is not an argument for a “conscience exemption.” It is a way of imposing Catholic requirements on non-Catholics. This is religious dictatorship, not religious freedom.
One Italian pope's privilege is many an American laymen's tyranny.
So, I guess having all the Jews going around knocking on everyone's doors and making them not eat ham, also out of the question?
Fuck me. Now my company plan is still going to have cover hypertension, diabetes, and cancer, all of which I morally object to.
"Bird flu? Santorum was right! Allow gay marriage and…."
My relijun~insurance only covers gay marriage abortionz.
Are they going to suffocate it with cloying LNS-quality body spray, or hack it to bits with a large hatchet?
Not that I'm complaining–either way is fine with me.
As a former Catholic school student your depiction of the Inquisition made me go all wobbly. Next time please give a NSFW warning.
What, isn't that some kind of medieval tilt-a-whirl or ferris wheel or somethin'? It's no big deal.
It's physical therapy of some kind. The guy's got a bad back, and the physician Cardinal Fang is treating him.
I suppose, from all that kneeling those Catholics do. Must be hard on the back after awhile.
Wheel of morality, turn turn turn.
Tell us the lesson that we should learn.
"Next time please give a NSFW warning."
So you can…
EXPECT the Inquisition?
“This is discrimination masquerading as compassion, and if anyone knows about discrimination masquerading as compassion, it's me and my fellow Republicans!!! Hell, we fucking invented that ruse!!"
The Right Wing, on the other hand, never masks its discrimination.
tacked on the end of a highway funding bill
Worst. Road. Kill. Ever.
Renamed "My Way or the Highway Bill".
I was thinking "The Highway/Pervert Bill", but yours is way better.
This is tyranny, forcing the Christian Scientist employers to offer health insurance that covers medical care by doctors instead of prayer!
You know who else practiced discrimination masquerading as compassion?
Count Chochula?
Every religion ever?
Actually, come to think of it, no, .. no I don't.
All the states with those "separate but equal" bullshit laws?
The Salvation Army?
George Walker Bush?
Willie Wonka?
The Tuskeegee Institute?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_ex…
Those horrid Indian Schools.
…is that Andrew Breitbart on that spinning wheel?!?! Damn, they have a fetish for everything!
This is part of the highway bill?, I promise to think of nothing but Vagina's on my commute today.
Already beat you to it.
You know, wouldn't this all be easier if we just outlawed women?
It all started when they got the vote, didn't it.
Then only outlaws will have women, and nobody wants that…
Says you. I got a mask and everything.
Ladies Love Outlaws. (like babies love stray dogs)
You'll pry my uterus from my cold dead hands. Or something like that. Now I have to go wash my hands.
Practice makes perfect.
Those cannons won't fodder themselves, you know.
When pussy is outlawed, only outlaws will have pussy…
In 1990, the well-known liberal activist judge, Antonin Scalia, wrote, (To) “make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land would have the anarchic effect of permitting “every citizen to become a law unto himself,”
Yeah, I was gonna ask whether the GOP was now ready to repeal the prohibitions on peyote and marijuana, you know, for religious freedom. Fair is fair.
And when I sacrificed several thousand of my neighbors to Tonatiuh the Fifth Sun to ensure that He would continue to rise every morning, the police arrested me. All I was doing was expressing my religious freedom!
I have a feeling he's getting his eraser out.
The democrats should've led with this and ridiculed the GOP all the way to the endzone. I'm sick and tired of them pussying out when it comes to the religious right.
How terribly oppressive that religions aren't able to treat everyone according to their own repressive, racist, sexist doctrines. You just know this spells the end of theocracy in the United States.
For at least a week, probably.
The Hindi Cattle Butcher Lobby is going to be pissed off at this precedent.
Buy me some religiousy birth control, it's time for MissTaken to get slutty!
Oooh! Look! I GOT THE NUMBER 1 TICKET!
Well of course, according to Rush Limbaugh if a woman has ever used birth control "It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute."
Well, then, I guess we are close to the final word about why Rush, despite the four wives he's had, remains childless. He once told the Palm Beach Post, "Marriage is about raising children. That's the purpose of the institution."
Bless his heart, 15 years past his sell by date, & he desperately tries to out-crazy Beck & Fox News to get at least a little sliver of attention. It must be hard trying to play on such a crowded field.
Isn't that a rather sweeping statement?
I think the fact that the only women who will go near him are prostitutes has caused Rush to overgeneralize.
the only women who will go near him are prostitutes
"women" hahahaha! Like Rush goes down to the Dominican Republican to shtup women.
You may not want to mix religiousy birth control (abstinence, rhythm method, Catholic school girl uniforms) with slutty behavior. It may cause an erection lasting four hours.
I'm sorry…there's a problem there?
SRSLY – for erections lasing longer than four hours, it sure as hell ain't my doctor that I call.
More like may cause unintended pregnancy…
…er.
Birth control pills cannot be "immoral," because they are inanimate objects. This demonstrates that, despite all appearances, Orrin Hatch is not an inanimate object.
So let me see if I have this right: Today the GOP essentially VOTED, all but unanimously, to make being against coverage of birth control a plank in their party platform? In 2012? WIth an election in 8 months? In a country where women can vote?
Holy shit.
When there's a principle at stake, it doesn't matter what the voters will do in response.
Also — shhhhh — they're on a roll.
Obama should say thanks to the Tea Party Patriots. Without them this election would've been a tight one.
KBJ, Thanks for the graphic. I've been trying to figure out how to best express what Blunt and his ilk are incapable of understanding.
Really, the "freedom" for organizations run by Catholics to refuse to allow their employees' coverage for birth control is exactly the same as the "freedom" for businesses to refuse to serve or hire non-white people that the Pauls support, that is the exact opposite of freedom.
It's pretty simple, really: Congressional Republicans think that all healthcare decisions should be between a woman, her healthcare provider, and her God. Also too her insurance company, her employer, her employer's God, whatever church hirerarchy the employer kinda feels sorta answerable to, the God of whatever claims adjustment drone handles her case at the insurance company, whatever random arbitrary, non-medically-justified strings and requirements Congress or state-level Republicans feel like throwing in for good measure…
In order to protect individual religious freedom, of course.
Well, that makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
Also, her husband/boyfriend/father, or whatever white male, you know, actually OWNS her.
Also, the 'a woman' part is strictly optional.
Hatch has been hitting the acid lately. First he sees Obama in a fedora and now he's hallucinating that he knows what compassion is.
He has always felt sorry for the oppressed job creators.
This proposal “simply preserves and protects the fundamental religious freedom that Americans have enjoyed for more than 220 years".
If it was that important, you'd think it would deserve a higher profile that just being tacked on the end of a highway funding bill.
Hey, all you women posting here: Bring me a beer. It better be cold. Don't make me raise my consciousness.
But … but … but … soshuliszm!!! oppression!!! nazis!!!
Remember, freedom means ensuring women have no choice but to get pregnant when they have sex and, then, forcing her to endure that pregnancy as a prison sentence.
Because babbiez is the punishments for Sexxytimes, as Gawd HIMself said in Genesis!
That's also what smaller, less intrusive government means.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=257212227…
if she floats, she's a witch! if not…well she was a slut anyway, good riddance
I am going to take my vagina out of wraps and air it out by way of celebration.
It's not official until March 20, but it's already Spring in my pants!
It's a steamy, moist Summer in mine…
Off to the jacks, lads!
I'm with you, time to get rid of the mothballs.
Looks brand new to me. Good taste never goes out of style
So does this means employers DO have to buy the aspirin for the ladies to hold between their knees?
This BARELY got defeated? Like, it wasn't smacked down handily?
"I don't want to live on this planet anymore."
- Farnsworth
Well, Casey and Manchin are both Catholic and up for re-election this year, so it was probably not as close as 51-48 under any other circumstances. On the other hand, Snowe voted it down because she's retiring but Nelson voted it up because he's just an asshole, so who can really say what might have happened?
Pardon my French, but…suck our balls, Republicans!
"suck our balls" is not French. Or at least the waiter pretended not to understand me for some reason.
Phuque vous! Now that's French!
Woo hoo!! I'm running out into the street wearing nothing but a condom, in celebration!
Film at 11:00?
In the future, historians will refer to 2012 as "The year of the twat."
Whatever Breitbart had, I hope it's catchy.
That margin is a bit uncomfortable. I hope the Senate can muster at least a 53-47 defeat when the G.O.P. bill comes through recommending public stoning for failure to walk behind one's husband.
In honor of the Senate's tyrannical discrimination masquerading as compassion I will rename my ovaries Hellfire and Brimstone.
Did you get those vajazzled? I like the sequins
What! Now we have to dress up for the trans-vaginal probe??
I'd feel more strongly about my employer's religious liberty if it wasn't a Japanese company. Also, if employee's religious liberty — let's say, right to wear a hijab or take all off all Jewish holidays — was part of the bargain. "Any employer exercising the morality clause must honor without penalty all employee religious prerogatives."
Haha! As if employees have rights. You're funny!
If the women of America would withhold sex from wingnuts for the next twenty years or so, this contraception problem would fix itself.
If the men of American were required to undergo a colonoscopy every time they wanted a doctor's script for Viagra, the problem would fix itself tomorrow morning.
Alright everybody, time to start fucking!!!!
Hey everybody! We're all gonna get laid!
God bless Rodney Dangerfield.
Put your money where your mouths are, Fundamentalists (of all stripes, Catholic, Baptist, Muslim), & convert to the Church of Christ, Scientist. (Not to be confused with Scientology (though Dianetics view of homosexuality has a lot in common with the GOP, yes).)
We must honor the sanctity of the unborn penis.
Prometheuterus Unbound!
Don't blame me, I voted for whoever Blunt's 2010 opponent was.
So does this religion of freedom thing also cover honor killings? What about religions that like human sacrifice or mutilations? Do they get to have freedom too?
Muh-muh-muh-my Sharia!
Peyote for Native Americans?
Ganja for the Rastafarians?
Spaghetti for the Pastafarians?
I would love an amendment to a bill that states that all amendments to bills must be directly related to the bill in question.
wherefore and resolved and so forth!
Maybe if you tell the Republicans they will get more vacation days …
What a novel idea. Seems very sensible & it would prevent lot of time from being wasted. So it'll never happen.
you know gentlemen, we DO have the vote, we're apparently better educated than you and there are MORE of us than you.
does this seem like a strategy for winning your future?
I, for one, am thrilled they are showing their true natures. They always thought this stuff. They had just been trained to keep it quiet. I'm sure we have President Obama to thank. They let out their inner racist and the inner sexist came out with it.
"They let out their inner racist and the inner sexist came out with it."
They can only suppress but so much at any given time.
It's taking every bit of effort they have not to call the President a "nigger" to his face, so there's nothing left over for not calling women "whores".
Of course, religious institutions are free to simply not own and operate businesses like Universities and Hospitals – or could do so while respecting employment law – and then we could put all this nastiness behind us.
Really, it never seems to occur to these dolts that somebody who, say for example, has an ethical, religious, whatever, problem with providing medical care (and I'll be generous and suppose that they really do have a problem with it, and aren't just out to impose their misogyny on the rest of us) really ought to go into some line of business where that isn't an issue.
I'm borrowing from somebody here, but if I opened a candy store that sold nothing but bread and spinach, because candy is fattening and non-nutritious; nobody would buy it, I'd get a reputation for being a stupid bastard, and after awhile, my candy store would go out of business.
First they came for Breitbart, but I did not speak out because I was not a conservative blogger. Then they came for the Catholic priests and whatnot, but I did not speak out, because I didn't feel the need to give them exemptions from employment law…
Did Hatch say this was a tranny? Sheesh I thought Larry Craig left the Senate. But seriously though, does the prove the GOP is hetero, or just misogynists?
I hate to put a damper on everyone's celebration, but these fuckheads are still in office and they're far from giving up on their twat policies.
Snark off. Props to Olympia Snowe, who was the ONLY republican senator to vote to table this garbage. It's really a shame that she's retiring, but I would too in that environment. Actually, I would have wizened up and switched parties ages ago. But I digress. Distinguished senator from Maine, my happy vagina salutes you!
This is exactly what is wrong…tacking something that is totally unrelated with a bill on the end of it hoping it will pass. I'd like to see legislation stand on it's own so we really know what they are voting against!
"Blunt and his Republican colleagues were adamant that the amendment was an effort to preserve religious freedoms in the face of government encroachment.
[...]
“This is tyranny,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said Thursday. “This is discrimination masquerading as compassion, and I’m going to fight it.""
Once again, if they can't force everybody else to be controlled by them, it's "tyranny" and "oppression" and they're being "discriminated against".
How much of a stink do you suppose there would be if atheists tried to get a bill passed banning churches?
Blunt probably thinks the bill should have been a gateway to the other side of the theocracy fence, where the grass is greener; but that's because he thinks that women's rights are making this country go to pot. He wants to stamp out those rights like a weed and let the church bells ring with a loud bong, until all us chicks decide to blow this joint. The reason he feels this way is because he's a big dumb dope.
Too bad there isn't some way he could just, yknow, mellow out.
Applying the law equally to everybody = discrimination. Gotcha.
Undeterred by this setback, Blunt went home and crafted a bill that appears to be a pay raise for Congress, but has a rider tacked onto the end changing the nation's motto from "E Pluribus Unum" to "your mother fucks dogs".
Seen from their point of view, however, it's crazy for anybody pay good money for contraception since Blunt, Hatch and their ilk have it "au naturale" what with the mis-shapen physical appearance, halitosis, poor social skills, terminal smegma, genital warts, chronic flatulence and impotence.
The Republicans have a death wish. This is the only real way to explain this, because they are so obviously chasing away significant parts of the electorate.
Either that, or someone switched on the anti-woman switch, and it broke preventing it from being turned off.
IT AIN'T IN THE BIBLE, BUT IT'S PART OF OUR RELIGIOUS HERITAGE, LIKE BURNING WITCHES, TAKING SLAVES AND KEEPIN' IMMIGRANTS DOWN…
….whooooooooooooa, calm down there chief! Dont start spreading those"Hippie" concepts around here!!!!
But we all know blah people and women don't count as "individuals", so it's okay.
Comments on this entry are closed.