So this happened... (Warning: science and religion discussion)
My good friend, Megan, posted this article on Facebook earlier: Tragic letter from the Hobby Lobby CEO: Results of Personal Freedoms Slipping Away.
My favorite paragraph of that letter: But now, our government threatens to change all of that. A new government health care mandate says that our family business MUST provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions, which means that we don’t cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill. We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the Biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one.
This is so completely and utterly wrong that I had to respond to her post. So this is what I said: I have to argue respectfully here. Birth control and emergency contraception pills do NOT cause abortions. Period. Birth control prevents an egg from being released at all, so there's no possibility of fertilization. Emergency contraception also prevents ovulation, which again, keeps an egg from being released and thus no fertilization, so no baby. The only "abortion" pill is RU486, and that is generally used to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg (a process that happens quite frequently naturally; many women will have a period even though an egg was fertilized in the Fallopian tube). Therefore, the argument that the ACA is forcing abortion-causing medications to be dispensed by Christian organizations is patently false. And these arguments specifically leave out people like me who need to take birth control to prevent other health conditions (I have poly-cystic ovary syndrome which causes a fluid-filled cyst to form on my ovary instead of releasing the egg like it should, and birth control is the best way to prevent them from forming. I don't need it to prevent pregnancy, but I do need it in order to prevent me from having another abdominal surgery to remove the cysts). So, while I'm all for people of faith having differing views of life from what I believe, I am unable to call another's view valid when it's based off completely false information.
I hope that this doesn't cause a huge fight (as the gay-is-a-sin fight I had with Bryan months ago), but I just felt like I couldn't let that stand. God endowed us with brains that have been able to begin to understand the workings of His creations (and I feel like part of the reason we don't completely understand how the brain works or how the Big Bang happened is part of His plan. We're just not supposed to know those secrets yet, but we will in time). We have the ability now to change how our bodies work using medications. I don't understand how science isn't part of God's plan. If we weren't supposed to understand the workings of the body and the rest of our universe, then we wouldn't have been given the ability to by the Lord. I believe in the teachings of the Bible. But I also believe that, while divinely inspired, it's still the writings of men. I believe that the Bible stories are just that: stories and allegories to explain complex ideas to people thousands of years ago. It would have been hard to understand the Big Bang, the coalescing of the universe, and evolution millenia ago. So we have the Creation story in Genesis. They don't contradict one another. It's just a way to explain it all in simple terms. Like a parent explaining thunder to a child as angels bowling. Once the child is older and able to grasp more complex ideas, then you can explain about positive and negative charges and how lightning causes the thunder.
So to cling to patently false concepts under the label of Faith is not okay to me. My best friend, Cristina, was on birth control BOTH times she conceived. Her daughter was actually conceived when Ina had an IUD in. To me, that is proof of God's intervention in her life. She and Bryan were supposed to have these children, despite their plans. But I also believe that the Lord is okay with me taking birth control in order to keep me from having horrible cysts that threaten my life and cause me to need surgery (I still bear the scars from the laparoscopy to remove three previous ones, including one that one that was almost 1.5" in diameter). Don't tell me that I can't take a truly life-saving medication because your beliefs don't support it. That's discrimination. I used to work for Michaels, and I have contemplated working for Hobby Lobby a lot because the store is literally three blocks away from my house--and I could totally use the discount. But now I don't even want to shop there. I can't support a company that would tell me that I'm sinning because I take a medication. Just like I can't eat chicken from Chick-fil-a because they tell me that I can't love a woman because that's a sin. I have seven words for people who accuse others of sin: "Judge not, lest ye be judged." It's up to God to judge me, not another fallible human. Period.
ETA: There's now a discussion about the phrase "In God we trust" on our currency. "Next thing you know, they'll take 'In God we trust' off our money!" I've decided it's better to not mention that the phrase was only added in 1957 to repudiate athiestic Communism and reinforce the idea that Western civilization is predominantly Christian. Since the founding of our country until the 1950s, the motto was "E pluribus unum" or "out of many, one" which is a much more awesome motto, IMHO. It sounds to me like just parroting talk from other conservatives. I'm okay with other's opinions, but they should be based in fact and researched, instead of just repeated like it's Gospel.
My favorite paragraph of that letter: But now, our government threatens to change all of that. A new government health care mandate says that our family business MUST provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions, which means that we don’t cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill. We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the Biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one.
This is so completely and utterly wrong that I had to respond to her post. So this is what I said: I have to argue respectfully here. Birth control and emergency contraception pills do NOT cause abortions. Period. Birth control prevents an egg from being released at all, so there's no possibility of fertilization. Emergency contraception also prevents ovulation, which again, keeps an egg from being released and thus no fertilization, so no baby. The only "abortion" pill is RU486, and that is generally used to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg (a process that happens quite frequently naturally; many women will have a period even though an egg was fertilized in the Fallopian tube). Therefore, the argument that the ACA is forcing abortion-causing medications to be dispensed by Christian organizations is patently false. And these arguments specifically leave out people like me who need to take birth control to prevent other health conditions (I have poly-cystic ovary syndrome which causes a fluid-filled cyst to form on my ovary instead of releasing the egg like it should, and birth control is the best way to prevent them from forming. I don't need it to prevent pregnancy, but I do need it in order to prevent me from having another abdominal surgery to remove the cysts). So, while I'm all for people of faith having differing views of life from what I believe, I am unable to call another's view valid when it's based off completely false information.
I hope that this doesn't cause a huge fight (as the gay-is-a-sin fight I had with Bryan months ago), but I just felt like I couldn't let that stand. God endowed us with brains that have been able to begin to understand the workings of His creations (and I feel like part of the reason we don't completely understand how the brain works or how the Big Bang happened is part of His plan. We're just not supposed to know those secrets yet, but we will in time). We have the ability now to change how our bodies work using medications. I don't understand how science isn't part of God's plan. If we weren't supposed to understand the workings of the body and the rest of our universe, then we wouldn't have been given the ability to by the Lord. I believe in the teachings of the Bible. But I also believe that, while divinely inspired, it's still the writings of men. I believe that the Bible stories are just that: stories and allegories to explain complex ideas to people thousands of years ago. It would have been hard to understand the Big Bang, the coalescing of the universe, and evolution millenia ago. So we have the Creation story in Genesis. They don't contradict one another. It's just a way to explain it all in simple terms. Like a parent explaining thunder to a child as angels bowling. Once the child is older and able to grasp more complex ideas, then you can explain about positive and negative charges and how lightning causes the thunder.
So to cling to patently false concepts under the label of Faith is not okay to me. My best friend, Cristina, was on birth control BOTH times she conceived. Her daughter was actually conceived when Ina had an IUD in. To me, that is proof of God's intervention in her life. She and Bryan were supposed to have these children, despite their plans. But I also believe that the Lord is okay with me taking birth control in order to keep me from having horrible cysts that threaten my life and cause me to need surgery (I still bear the scars from the laparoscopy to remove three previous ones, including one that one that was almost 1.5" in diameter). Don't tell me that I can't take a truly life-saving medication because your beliefs don't support it. That's discrimination. I used to work for Michaels, and I have contemplated working for Hobby Lobby a lot because the store is literally three blocks away from my house--and I could totally use the discount. But now I don't even want to shop there. I can't support a company that would tell me that I'm sinning because I take a medication. Just like I can't eat chicken from Chick-fil-a because they tell me that I can't love a woman because that's a sin. I have seven words for people who accuse others of sin: "Judge not, lest ye be judged." It's up to God to judge me, not another fallible human. Period.
ETA: There's now a discussion about the phrase "In God we trust" on our currency. "Next thing you know, they'll take 'In God we trust' off our money!" I've decided it's better to not mention that the phrase was only added in 1957 to repudiate athiestic Communism and reinforce the idea that Western civilization is predominantly Christian. Since the founding of our country until the 1950s, the motto was "E pluribus unum" or "out of many, one" which is a much more awesome motto, IMHO. It sounds to me like just parroting talk from other conservatives. I'm okay with other's opinions, but they should be based in fact and researched, instead of just repeated like it's Gospel.