Dr. James Dobson sues over HHS contraception mandate
As Americans, we should all be free to live according to our faith and to honor God in our work…. The Constitution protects that freedom so that the government cannot force anyone to act against his or her sincerely held religious beliefs.
But the mandate ignores that and leaves us with a choice no American should have to make: comply and abandon your religious freedom, or resist and be fined for your faith.
~ Dr. James Dobson of the Family Talk ministry, in light of his lawsuit against HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius over the Obamacare contraception mandate, as quoted by World Net Daily, December 11
[HT: Laura Loo]

I don’t follow. If you pay a worker money, the worker can use the money to buy contraception. If you give a worker health insurance, that health insurance can be used to obtain contraception. Does anyone seriously think a worker shouldn’t have the right to use his or her money on contraception? Then why not use a health insurance benefit the same way? An employer who doesn’t like providing a certain health plan might also not like that an employee is going to Vegas with his wages, or buying beer. But, that’s just too bad. Employers don’t get to control the personal lives of their employees.
Hal, you’re back at it again. No one is disputing the fact that an employee has the right to use his wages as he sees fit. The dispute lies in the fact that the HHS mandate says employers MUST provide coverage to which he has a moral and religious objection. Somebody pays for that coverage. It is not FREE! The employer should not be fined to the point that it would financially severely cripple his business because he has closely held religious beliefs. This is a guaranteed by the Constitution.
Amen, Dr. James Dobson. Amen.
I can’t stand many of Dobson’s views but he’s not wrong on this one. It is true that you can limit religious freedom in certain circumstances but I do not believe that the contraception mandate falls under reasonable restrictions, at all. I don’t think employers should be put in the position of providing health insurance anyway, it just seems ripe for these kind of abuses.
Jack, I don’t like Dobson, O Reilly, Hannity,,etc. And I really cannot stand Rush In fact, just sbout the only thing I agree with them on is abortion
Why are conservatives whining about people losing health plans when it is clear many conservatives don’t see a health plan as belonging to a person. It is just a gift from the employer that offers it, and a person’s rights don’t seem to be more important than the person with coverage.
I don’t like the precedent. I get Dobson’s view, but I also don’t like giving an employer free run on these benefits. I just think it’s crap.
I agree with Dobson. You can’t control what people do with their own money, but why should those of us who don’t WANT to cover it have to pay for it? The money has to come from somewhere. It will come from taxes, and from employers’ pockets. People’s premiums have already been raised several hundred dollars to cover HHS mandate. Even people who are pro-choice/pro-abortion/pro-contraception have mentioned having problems with this.
Love Dobson!
And if he wins? You have him to thank!! :) He is fighting for ALL of us!
My wallet. My choice.
Pay for your own contraception and abortions.
Love this quote
How can your sex life simultaneously be 0% my business and 100% my financial responsibility?
This is an interesting question – I can see some points on boths sides.
As for Dobson, pfft… He comes off as a total fruitcake, most times, with stuff like implying that the Sandy Hook, CT school shootings were due to gay marriage. Oh brother…
Take him back a few years and he’d be crying the blues about interracial marriage or women getting the vote.
I’ve long been an admirer of Dr. Dobson and his excellent work; he has a very good heart and great zeal for the Gospel, and I hope God gives him many more years of ministry and efforts before he’s called home.
(I do disagree with him on some less urgent points, but on the whole, Dr. Dobson has been a paragon of Christian ethics and ethos.)
Doug: that last sentence of yours was a bit beneath you, I think.
Why is it beneath him? It’s a decent hypothesis. He blames school shootings on gay people and he really, really believes in “traditional” (western Christian) gender roles. I don’t think it’s a huge stretch that he would have opposed suffrage. I don’t know about the interracial stuff, I’ve never heard him say anything racist. But he certainly is a regressive person.
Honestly, I think that anyone who blames tragedies on non-related stuff like that isn’t worthy of listening to, ever again. They destroy their credibility with me forever. Anyone who thinks God would let dozens of LITTLE KIDS get shot because two guys or gals can get married in a couple states has disgusting views and no credibility. Period. It’s like the people who blame hurricanes on gays. I notice how the shameful rates of divorce or premarital sex never get blamed for the disasters and tragedies (probably because the blamers have engaged in those activities themselves, often). Bullies and pseudo-Christians they are.
Paladin, the best we can do is to agree to disagree on James Dobson. I’m not just taking a potshot at him because I’m pro-choice and it’s 2013 and he’s a topic on Jill’s blog. Stuff has been going on for years.
http://www.christianissues.com/focus.html
In the end, he was forced out of Focus on the Family, was he not? Not saying that his “business practices” were the reason, but I do think that as with so many “TV preachers,” a lot of it is about money with him, and his net worth is $100 million or more.
Paladin, one place where we can and do agree is on the possibility of joy and suffering coexisting, side-by-side, as you said in a really good post from Dec. 3, on the Weekend Question thread. It was too late for me to reply there, but I’ve got an 18 year old nephew who has Eosinophilic Gastritis, and he’s allergic to a great many foods, so I know at least a little about some of the health matters you mentioned. I hope you’re feeling good, and doing well, there.