Home Highlights In the Name of God

In the Name of God

birthcontrol-300x199

Marquel TPVs NYTimes Malthus Section correspondent, was ingesting something bitter when he read, Birth Control Order Deepens Divide Among Justices. The Supreme Court temporarily barred the government from enforcing against a Christian college a contraception rule under the Affordable Care Act, drawing a furious dissent from the three female justices, who said the court had broken a promise.

Marquel realized that those women were right. The Hobby Lobby decision said quite clearly that all a school has to do is sign a statement that they oppose birth control. They needn’t provide it and the statement allows insurance companies to provide it for free. Hobby Lobby also said that it was not a burden to sign the form (as if any sane human being with or without a brain would ever think so) and therefore there can be no legal objection.

But now the court ordered the government to leave Wheaton College, a well known hotbed of right wing Christian extremism, alone because signing the form would jeopardize Wheaton’s beliefs. Marquel thought about broken promises. Can the Court break promises? What is the penalty? Can it make promises? Are these women a bit hysterical or is that too patently sexist to even articulate? Aren’t Alito and Scalia the most hysterical members of this so called Court? Is there a human being dead or alive who could even suggest this is a judicial court and not an arm of the truly idiotic and brainless Tea Partiers?

Marquel knew that was too much to answer in one of his columns or even in his little head. No, he was more interested in this Wheaton so called college and the devils handmaidens who toil there.

Off to Illinois. Wheaton College here I come. I’m going to meet real Christians! When I reached the campus, which was filled with greenery, gardeners, and flowers, I knew I first had to find some employees. I went to the cafeteria and quietly asked some of the women if there were any who would or could talk to me, ever so briefly, about how contraception coverage, or its absence, would affect them. Most seemed too embarrassed to talk but one young lady in a starched white uniform was quite outspoken.

‘I have three children. No husband at home. I make $350 per week. My children go to school every day, I study with them after school, and some day they should get scholarships and loans to get them through college. I wouldn’t send them here on a bet, even though they could go for free, as my family.” she asserted loudly.

“And how does contraception coverage affect you?” I asked her.

“I’m not a monk,” she said proudly.

“Neither am I,” I said equally proudly.

“Then you should know how horrible it is to be afraid of getting pregnant when you can’t even afford to go for a doctor’s visit, let alone an abortion, if necessary.”

“Can I ask if you’ve had an abortion, or is that too rude of me?” I asked.

“Rude?” she said. “Rude is the people screaming outside the abortion clinic. Rude is the people who offer me help and then say that they want me to go away for several months to bear a child I can’t afford to raise. Of course I’ve had an abortion.”

“And?” I asked.

“Contraception is more human and more affordable to anyone with common sense. In the end it’s cheaper, and helps me keep a family going under difficult circumstances. To cut off contraception coverage is about as Christian as spitting on the poor. This school has serious problems thinking. That’s ironic, no?” she asked.

“Ironic, but unsurprising,” I said. “Fundamentalists of every persuasion don’t think. It’s against their religion.”

I thanked her for her time, congratulated her on her children, and wished her luck.

In the Administration building, I spoke to the Dean in charge of Christian Cruelty. He was good at his job.

“Dean,” I said. “What’s wrong with signing a paper that you oppose birth control. It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Betcha last dollar it’s true,” he said. “Birth control is a sin against God.”

“So tell me,” I said, “ ‘I oppose birth control.’ “

“I oppose birth control,” he said.

“Well,” I said, “since you can say it, why can’t you write it? This is a college, isn’t it, where the written word is highly respected, if not worshiped at Wheaton.”

“Because if we sign that form, they can get free birth control.” he said.

“So this is to prevent them from getting birth control? Isn’t that cruel and unchristian?” I asked.

“It’s not Christian to help somebody commit a sin,” he asserted.

“But by refusing to provide birth control under their health plans, you are eventually helping them get birth control from the government, instead of directly through the insurance company.” I said.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“Because if you provide the document, the employee goes directly to the insurance company. If you don’t, the employee goes to the government, who then goes to the insurance company. So either way you are providing birth control indirectly. Although in fact, in either case, you are not actually providing it.” I said.

“Well, we don’t want to,” he said.

“You sound like my three year old,” I said. “I don’t want to. It took me a while to teach him that not wanting to is not a good enough reason. Did you ever learn that?”

“I don’t want to,” he repeated, “and we don’t want to. And we won’t.”

“Don’t you love the sinner?” I asked.

“We love the sinner, not the sin,” he said.

“Well, then,” I said. “Be nice to the sinner. Give her insurance. Don’t do the sin. Then we’re all happy.”

“It’s fornication,” he said.

“What, insurance coverage? Are you nuts? Do you realize how much trouble it is to get health insurance and then to get payment for what health insurance promises to pay? You’re on the telephone for hours, collecting forms, mailing them in, reading the web page. It’s Hell, really,” I said. “Fornication, on the other hand, involves no form. No phone calls. No denials of service. Or at least you can talk it over. That almost always works. No web pages. You’re happy. She’s happy. What’s wrong with you? Don’t you want us to enjoy God’s gifts?”

“It is not a gift to fornicate. It is a sin,” he said.

“Not in my book. In my book, not fornicating is a sin.” I said.

“We read different books,” he said.

“Is that a sin?” I asked. “If I read Shakespeare and you read Malthus, is one of us a sinner?”

“I read the Holy Bible,” he said.

“Well, I’ve done that too.” I said. “It’s interesting. But there’s more to read out there. Isn’t this a college? Don’t you encourage reading?”

“We encourage Christian reading. This is a Christian college. I think Shakespeare is okay. Malthus, probably.”

“Okay,” I said. “Why won’t you let your students have birth control coverage?”

“There are other ways,” he said.

“Such as?” I queried.

“The rhythm method,” he said.

“I don’t think anyone even remembers what that is,” I said. “First of all it was pretty much Catholics who used it and it’s highly unreliable. They’ll get pregnant.”

“Not,” he said, “if they don’t fornicate.”

“But if they don’t fornicate,” I said, “they don’t need the rhythm method.”

“They might be curious,” he said.

“They might be curious about fornication.” I said. “By the way, let’s call it making love. Are you against love?”

His cheeks turned scarlet. “We worship love. It is God’s commandment to love the other as yourself.”

“Well, that’s what your employees and students are doing!” I said. “They’re loving one another as themselves! And when they do that, they can get pregnant.”

“Not if they love one another in a Christian way,” he said.

“How does that work? Something like masturbation?” I asked.

“Masturbation is a sin,” he asserted. “If Christians love one another non-carnally, they will not need birth control, and they can be happy knowing they are praising God.”

“But many people praise God when making love carnally.”

“How do you mean that?” he asked.

“Are you married?” I asked.

“Of course.” he said, somewhat cryptically. Of course?

I went on. I leaned in to him, and said, “Is she, you know, is she noisy?”

He smiled broadly. “Yeah, she’s a screamer.”

“Well, many women are,” I said. “And they scream, ‘Oh God, Oh God, Oh God.’ “

“Not my wife,” he said.

“She likes it dirty, huh?” I asked.

He looked at me as if her were about to exorcise me. Or would like to.

“Forget that,” I said. “don’t you see that these women, even if they don’t agree with your detailed religious principles, are being God’s servants, enjoying, even worshiping, perhaps, the body he gives them?”

“No” he said “These are not details. This is fundamental Christian morality. Parts of the human body are their for the devil’s temptation.”

“Why would God make such a defective body? And with such an obvious defect? He knows the devil is lurking, why would he include a defect the Devil could so easily manipulate and exploit?” I asked

“It is God’s way of testing his Creations,” he said

“You make God,” I said, “seem like General Motors. They have defects, they recall and redesign. God can’t do as well as GM?”

“You are trivializing God’s great Plan.”

“No,” I said, “You’re wrong. Life is too mysterious for me to trivialize it. I just think the Plan we should be thinking about is your college’s Health Plan.”

“Well the Court has agreed with us,” he said, rather happy, and, if I may say so, transparently full of shit.

“Let me tell you,” I said, that’s not the same as God’s agreement. I’m sure he’s very disappointed in you.”

“Not a chance,” he said.

I left, but said very loudly, “Pride. Pride. Pride. It’s a sin.”

But he had already closed the door. It seemed like it had been closed during the entire interview.

***

BY MARQUEL: In the Name of God

7 COMMENTS

  1. Good question: “Is there a human being dead or alive who could even suggest this is a judicial court and not an arm of the truly idiotic and brainless Tea Partiers?”

  2. Maybe Wheaton is a music school, that would explain this:

    “The rhythm method,” he said.

    and the no reading… 

    Did Ernie have a thing for you, M or is this a typo:

    We thought we’d live together. [forever?]

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.