In December 2000, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that companies that provided prescription drugs to their employees but didn't provide birth control were in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prevents discrimination on the basis of sex. That opinion, which the George W. Bush administration did nothing to alter or withdraw when it took office the next month, is still in effect today—and because it relies on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, it applies to all employers with 15 or more employees. Employers that don't offer prescription coverage or don't offer insurance at all are exempt, because they treat men and women equally—but under the EEOC's interpretation of the law, you can't offer other preventative care coverage without offering birth control coverage, too.

But the central mandate—that most employers have to cover preventative care for women—has been law for over a decade. This point has been completely lost in the current controversy, as Republican presidential candidates and social conservatives claim that Obama has launched a war on religious liberty and the Catholic Church.

Originally posted by jibeho
reply to post by negativenihil

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I think the folks over at Mother Jones are hitting the hash pipe a little to often at times. The Obamacare Mandate goes above and beyond that which is mentioned in the article (the birth control pill). The Obama mandate includes, sterilizations and the morning after pill as well and that it should ALL be FREE of charge. Let's just call it Obama's sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate.

The mandate violates the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act. Mother Jones is lost in left field once again.

Confusion sets in....

edit on 9-2-2012 by jibeho because: clarity

edit on 9-2-2012 by jibeho because: more clarity

“The Catholic bishops and their allies in the Republican Party are increasingly isolated in their desire to rescind the Obama Administration's compromise regulation affecting contraception services and religious liberty. Most of the leading Catholic institutions affected by the rule agree that the Administration is acting in good faith and is invested in drafting a workable solution acceptable by all parties. The bishop's blanket opposition appears the serve the interests of a political agenda, not the needs of the America people.”

They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is the government that gives you right, what’s left are no unalienable rights, what’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that, but if we do and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.