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The contraception debate continues

Andrew Sullivan gives us the latest from both sides. My thoughts here, which I emailed to Andrew and which he posted. That was a huge honor, even though Andrew always posts reader responses anonymously. Here is Scott Lemieux adding to my side of the argument:

[I]f opposition to contraception represented a widely practiced tenet of the Roman Catholic faith, I believe that the government's interest in securing gender equity with a reasonable, generally applicable law should prevail, but I can understand seeing this as a difficult question. But forgoing contraception is not central to the faith of most practicing Roman Catholics. There’s not a genuine clash between religious freedom and pressing government interests here; rather, a small minority of religious leaders are seeking a special exemption that burdens women in the name of principles the overwhelming majority of their followers reject.

That's a similar argument to the one I made, which was basically that a belief against contraception isn't really a religious belief. I think I made my case well in my first post. So I won't retread the arguments at length here. Check Andrew's link for some counter-arguments. But I think mine still stands.

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