The Nuns Don't Want You to Have Sex

But we knew that already. And of course it's the most reasonable thing in the world to have a group of women who have banned together in the name of religion and who have sworn off sex for life that they control the agenda for sex in this country. And of course their agenda for sex is no sex!

Your friendly local panel of sex experts.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor ruled last night in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged -- seriously, that's their name -- as she temporarily enjoined the enforcement of the Affordable Care Act, asking for a government answer by Friday. Maybe it's me, but I find it hard to believe that a home for the aged operated by little sisters is going to have much need for birth control in the first place.

(On a serious note, it's the home's non-nun employees who would be guaranteed free access to birth control under their insurance plans. These employees don't have to use the birth control, but, interestingly, 98% of Catholic women report using birth control in spite of its being banned by the Church. This tracks well with the 99% of all American women who have used birth control for family planning, 77% of whom self-identify as Christians. )

Now, it doesn't take a constitutional-law professor to tell us that freedom of religion implies freedom from religion, you know, the part where the constitution enjoins the state from establishing a religion in order to allow its citizens to avoid having one religion or another shoved down their throats.

But with five Catholics on the Supreme Court, is there anybody out there who doesn't have serious concerns about how this will play out?

A quick perusal of the blogosphere shows that, since it's New Year's Day, nobody is dissecting this story. So I'm on my own so far. I'll state for the record that studies have shown that there are fewer unwanted pregnancies, especially among teenagers, when birth control and sex information is readily available, and thus fewer abortions where birth control is available. Insurance companies are willing to provide free birth control because it reduces their costs because pregnancy and birthing is really expensive.

One last observation: People are gonna have sex no matter what. Allowing people to control the outcomes from that sex is a good thing. Less disease, fewer teen pregnancies, planned families, and all that. The only thing that can come out of this, on the side of religion anyway, is that nuns -- and maybe Texans and Kansans -- will get to slow down the number of people having protected sex, on the margins, at least. Because people are gonna have sex.

It's funny. Americans love their guns -- we sure shoot a lot of people! -- and scream bloody murder if the guvmint tries to take 'em away. The same Americans are screaming bloody murder -- in the name of religion! -- because the guvmint wants to make it free for women to take control of their own bodies.

Oh, I get it now.

Your friendly local panel of constitution experts. Is anybody besides me worried?

Random observation: Why are the major players in this little diversion from rationality all wearing robes? I'm just asking.