After some lengthy discussion about the Catholic Church’s dismay over the Health and Human Services Department’s ruling that insurance plans must provide free-of-charge contraceptives, a couple things have become abundantly clear.
The first is that, as is often the case with matters even tangentially sexual, certain Catholics have a special set of rules. The crux of their argument against the “contraception mandate” is that Catholic employers will be required to pay for products that frustrate the procreative force of sex, which they (some of them, anyway) consider a grave moral evil1. This line of reasoning surprised me (although it probably shouldn’t have), because Catholics seem to have very little problem indirectly subsidizing other “grave moral evils” – in many states, for example, Catholics are compelled to pay taxes that cover the costs of carrying out death sentences. Presumably, these tax-paying members of the faithful are not held accountable for the actions of the state, which, in the case of the death penalty especially, violate Catholic teaching.
