Loop21 Composite

Loop21 Composite

In case you’re confused – no, it’s not the 1960’s. Margaret Sanger is not in D.C. pushing controversial birth control products to the mass market. Women aren’t still largely relegated to secretarial and hospitality work.

It’s 2012 and women are yet nudging their way to a comfortable seat at contraception-religious freedom table. For many years, this historically oppressed group has had to choose between jobs in religious-affiliated institutions and the ability to make sound, affordable choices on their health and well-being.

That changed this week when the Obama administration announced tweaks to regulations exempting religious-affiliated organizations from having to provide female employees with coverage for birth control prescriptions and other contraceptive services.

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On Friday, after a week of renewed accusations from the right and left of a war declared on America’s religious communities, President Barack Obama said his administration would amend its hastily rolled-out policy. Religious-affiliated organizations, such as non-profits and hospitals, would now not have to begin treating its female employees as equal members of society. Insurance companies will have to carry that burden for them.

(Yes, there was sarcasm in that last part.)

But let’s be clear, any claims that the Obama administration’s policy change ever violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom are patently inaccurate. Said religious-affiliated institutions – the operative word here being “affiliated” – are not completely tax-exempt entities, which don’t receive millions in federal money to keep the very important work they do going.

Actually, the exact opposite is true. But if you listened to conservative activists, GOP presidential candidates, and even some devoutly religious Democrats this week, the Obama administration was asking priests to fill their communion bread receptacles with birth control pills.