Lisa Murkowski Admits She Voted To Help Catholic Church Enforce a Doctrine She Ignores
As I noted last week, every single Catholic Senator save Susan Collins who voted for the Blunt Amendment last week appears likely to have relied on the birth control their Church prohibits to limit the size of their families. Lisa Murkowski, who has just 2 kids, was among the 10 Catholics who was using her position to help the Catholic Church enforce a doctrine she herself has ignored.
And in an interview claiming she now regrets that vote, Murkowski as much as admits that’s what she did. (h/t TPM)
What Lisa Murkowski told me I already suspected. She’s a moderate. She supports abortion rights and contraception coverage. She also doesn’t line up completely with the Catholic Church when it comes to birth control. She regretted her recent vote.
[snip]
I pointed out that her support for birth control conflicts with the Catholic mandate against it.
“You know, I don’t adhere to all of the tenets of my faith.
Now, she’s still spinning her vote (and her letter opposing Obama’s rule on contraception) as one in favor of religious freedom.
She’d meant to make a statement about religious freedom, she said, but voters read it as a vote against contraception coverage for women.
But it is not “religious freedom” to craft laws to help the Church enforce mandates that almost none of its adherents–and probably few, if any, of the Catholic Senators supporting the law–abide by. It is an improper use of government to aid a religious institution.
Not to mention, rank hypocrisy.
I’ve been reading your tweets about Manchin, Hoeven, Johanns, and other Catholic men with 2 or 3 children, but who voted for the Blunt Amendment. It is only logical to consider other possibilities for why or how they stopped having children while still being good Catholics.
When she was in grad school, my wife heard a story about a certain philosophy professor who in the middle of a lecture suddenly bolted from the classroom and ran into the hallway. “Can you imagine why he did that?” a friend of hers asked. My (future) wife immediately came up with the correct answer, “Maybe he thought his penis had fallen off.” “YOU’RE RIGHT!,” her friend exclaimed.
Not that she had any inside information or anything, but as I said you have to consider all the possibilities and she had that kind of mind. Therefore, may I suggest for your consideration, Marcy, that every one of the Catholic men whom you accuse of hypocrisy for voting for the Blunt Amendment may have lost his penis?
@Brian Silver:
Then why use the term “Catholic men?”
@Brian Silver: Well it is certain they have no balls.
@Brian Silver: Wow. It was tough enough to entertain the thought of Roy Blunt’s balls, now you want me to consider his penis, too?
@Brian Silver:
Well, thanks to TV ads, we are all know about “erectile dysfunction.” Perhaps the Senators are of an age where most of them are afflicted by this condition, and have been for some time. They should be asked if they feel the same way about federal and/or insurance funding for Viagra as well as birth control.
Bob in AZ
If Profiles In Courage were written today, even the GOP could read the blank pages.
This should come as no surprise given all the Democrats who supported the Stupak/Nelson HCR amendment.
@Brian Silver
[“It is only logical to consider other possibilities for why or how they stopped having children… “]
Probably became a real “tea bagger”…: eew!
Gad zooks! That’s it! I have been wondering for years why Cialis thinks that it is romantic for a man and woman to sit in two separate bathtubs, (even if they are holding hands). THAT pill is to enable masturbation, not procreation! Actual sex would be BAD. But a man in his tub, is a man “spending time with God”.
I may be treading on thin ice, but here goes. Has anyone besides me been wondering why Santorum gets himself into such a wad about birth control and sex? “Birth control encourages behavior that is not natural…?” (Or something to that effect). Is he another repressed gay man that thinks sex with his wife is “icky”, only to be resorted to when it is time to make another baby for God?
Everyone seems to think they can triangulate as successfully and unaccountably as Bill Clinton. Instead, they end up looking like Barack Obama attempting to gain admittance into Wharton and the Maryknoll Mission in the same interview.
@bittersweet: He has Douthat Syndrome.
This is the rank hypocrisy that put Palin in office and continues to rally Alaskan Republicans. I guess she just announced she’s running for re-election.
@earlofhuntingdon: I am thinking he has Dontdothat Syndrome.