I wanna build on Jamelle’s post about Catholic Charities’ unveiled threat to the District of Columbia that it will throw a thoroughly un-Jesus-like temper tantrum if the District passes the almost-certain-to-pass same-sex marriage bill that’s currently before it.

Apparently the source of their anger is that that if DC passes the bill, Catholic Charities will be required, as a recipient of district money, to provide domestic partner benefits in the health insurance that it provides to its employees.

First of all, if Catholic Charities hates gay people so much, why do they even employ any? I guess the answer is that they don’t, but that they would no longer be able to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation if the DC law passes and they continue to contract with the District.

But what’s wrong with hiring gay people? Okay, so homosexual conduct is a sin, according to them. But so are a lot of other things. Catholic charities actually hires a fair number of attorneys to carry out social services; I almost applied for a job with them. Were they going to do a moral purity test on me before hiring me? Because I sin a lot. I use birth control. I’m having pre-marital sex and have been doing so for over ten years without regret or repenting. Sinner! I forget, what do the Catholics think about oral sex? Isn’t that “spilling the seed”? The precious.

I’m also just a sinner in general, since I’m not a Catholic, don’t believe in God, and take all of the many names of the Lord in vain on a daily basis.

But I’m guessing that Catholic Charities wouldn’t have asked me about any of those things before hiring me. In fact, I’m guessing that they probably wouldn’t care what I did with my personal life, as long as I was willing to follow their rules in doing the actual work. Like most employers, especially those who employ attorneys and are smart enough not to know that you really don’t want to fuck with having a lawsuit on your hands if you can avoid it.

So what’s their point here? That they will refuse a major contract with the District because they might not get to discriminate against sinners in their totally arbitrary way? I’m sure there are a number of social service agencies that would be happy to step up to the plate and accept the District’s money in exchange for helping people. Well, Catholic Charities says, we supplement that contract with $10 million from our own coffers!

But it’s not like they’re giving $10 million to the District. No, they are using that $10 million to engage in a scheme of acts of charity and compassion that they believe is their religious duty as a religious organization that happens to have a shit ton of cash. They haven’t alleged that they’re going to stop providing all services to spite the District. The real problem is that they need that contract money, which I’m sure forms a significant chunk of their operating budget. I suspect that if they carry out their threat, they’ll be facing huge layoffs and an institutional crisis. What they’re banking their threat on is that the District will conclude that social services agencies aren’t fungible and make a compromise with Catholic Charities so they’ll keep the contract. But despite their spending their own money to help DC’s poor, they’re still fungible.

Fungibility is a major theme for religious assholes this week, as we see that the RNC just yesterday discontinued its insurance plan’s funding of abortions for RNC employees. But is that enough to maintain their bizarre brand of financial purity? Cigna is still, presumably, offering coverage to other clients that includes abortion coverage. Since the whole point of insurance is pooling premiums and pooling risk, RNC premiums paid on behalf of employees are still going to fund abortions for other clients.

A dollar is a dollar, suckers.