Sen. Scott Brown, culture warrior
Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) has apparently decided the best way to beat challenger Elizabeth Warren is to follow the crazy in the culture war over birth control. He announced
earlier in the week that he supported Sen. Roy Blunt's insane amendment to let employers deny coverage of health care services to their employees.
Warren blasted Brown for his support of the bill, saying, "This is an extreme attack on every one of us. [...] It opens the door to outright discrimination. It would let insurance companies and corporations cut off pregnant women, overweight guys, older Americans, or anyone—because some executive claims it’s part of his moral code." Apparently thinking this is exactly the ground he wants to fight Warren on, Brown has come back firing, doubling down on his support for the crazy. Here's a snippet of an email from his campaign, posted at Blue Mass Group:
One of our most fundamental rights as a people is the freedom of religion. It was right here in Plymouth, Massachusetts that pilgrims from Europe established a colony because of religious persecution at home.
Now, it is Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren who has assumed the mantle of oppressor. She and her allies on the left are dictating to Catholics and other people of faith that they must do as they are told when it comes to health care or face the consequences, regardless of their personal religious beliefs.
That’s not the America our Founding Fathers envisioned, and it’s just one of the unhealthy side effects of Obamacare, which seeks to impose a one-size-fits-all, government-knows-best health care program on the whole country.
Here's the flip side of the "religious liberty" argument Brown and his cohorts are making: The Catholic or Christian Scientist or Seventh Day Adventist employer has the "liberty" to dictate to her employees what health care they can receive, regardless of their personal religious beliefs. That's an interesting interpretation of freedom. And an extreme one, particularly for Massachusetts.
Brown must be feeling the need to shore up his conservative cred back home, but he picked a strange issue to do that on. Massachusetts just doesn't provide fertile ground for a culture war.