White House to Budge on Birth-Control Mandate

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It's called "compromise" people. You know, that word that doesn't exist in the GOP vocabulary.

And the dumbing down of America moved a little higher....... When do we start the human sacrifice and car bombing?

This is like pulling out your umbrella for a tempest in a teapot. As NPR reported this morning this question was already settled numerous times in the past 10 years - Employers have pretty much been required to provide contraceptive coverage as part of their health plans since December 2000. That's when the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that failure to provide such coverage violates the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act. That law is, in turn, an amendment to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlaws, among other things, discrimination based on gender. In 2004, the California Supreme Court upheld that state's law, in a suit brought by Catholic Charities, on a vote of 6-1. The court ruled that Catholic Charities didn't qualify as a "religious employer" because it didn't meet each of four key criteria (which, by the way, are the same as those in the new federal regulation):  - The organization's primary purpose is "the inculcation of religious values." - It primarily employs people of that religion. - It primarily serves people of that religion. - It's a registered nonprofit organization. Two years later, in 2006, New York's top state court rejected a claim by Catholic Charities and several other religious groups that the state's contraceptive coverage law discriminated against them because it exempted churches but not their religiously affiliated groups. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/02/10/146662285/rules-requiring-contraceptive-coverage-have-been-in-force-for-years