Yesterday, Andrew Sullivan commented in his Newsweek column that "Obama Set a Contraception Trap for the Right." In it, he claims that the HHS mandate on Catholic churches (the one that requires Catholic institutions pay for abortions, sterilizations and contraceptives, all of which violate the church's teachings), is actually a carefully laid plan by Obama to trick the right-wing into waging the "culture wars of the 90s."
On the one hand, this seems to be rather an odd statement. Before the HHS mandate, the so-called "culture war" aspect only came up in recent Republican debates by moderators who are decidedly not right-wing.
The strangest part, however, has yet to come. Not even forty-eight hours later, Andrew Sullivan went on Hardball with Chris Matthews, and said that, instead, the Bishops were booby trapping Obama.
If you could avoid a fight with religious people, you should. And I think it’s a very complicated issue. I might add also that in California and New York this was already the rule. This was already the law. In 2000, the Employment Equality Opportunity Commission [sic] ruled it had to be mandated in every healthcare plan because otherwise it would violate sex discrimination laws.
So I think a lot of this was ginned up by the Bishops. They were the ones that set a trap for Obama. They’re like Wile E. Coyote trying to blow up the Roadrunner only it blew up on them.
If one ignores his flip-flop, there are a few glaring omissions from this particular statement. Yes, while New York and California passed these rules, Catholic institutions got around the law by being self-insured. Legal loopholes were utlized to keep Catholic ideals being practiced by the Catholic institutions -- now, there seems to be no loopholes at all.
So, we come to the strange question of Andrew Sullivan. What, exactly, did he think the Bishops do? Support a legistlation that the Church itself is now threatening to sue over?
All in all, it's a little strange. Perhaps Mr. Sullivan would like to get his narrative in order before speaking on the topic.
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