A proclamation honoring a 50-year-old Denver business was pulled by its sponsor last week after she learned that the company opposed a provision of federal health reform requiring insurance coverage to include no-cost access to contraception and other preventive care.
In scuttling the proclamation, Denver city councilwoman Robin Kniech noted that it’s “silly season,” meaning that political disagreements are amplified in anticipation of the November election.
In our view, her decision only makes things sillier.
Earlier this summer, Kniech’s staff started drafting a proclamation commemorating Hercules Industries, which is a manufacturer of heating and air-conditioning equipment founded in Denver in 1962.
A draft highlighted a number of issues, including the company’s growth in the last half-century, refurbishment of the historic building from which Hercules operates, positive relationships with labor unions, and “generous employee health coverage.”
And that’s the problem.
You see, late last month, a federal district court judge agreed to Hercules’ request for an injunction from the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive insurance mandate. He found that the business, owned by a family of devout Catholics who seek to run a company in keeping with their faith, would suffer “irreparable harm” if forced to provide the coverage.
Kniech told us Tuesday that her issue was not with the mention of health coverage — which she said was probably given to her staff by the company’s owner. Instead, she worried that, if passed, the resolution would focus the conversation “on their views and my views, and that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”
But Kniech, who is pro-choice, has done just that.
A move that was intended to avoid politics only made the issue more political.
It sends a message that a single stance at odds with her own trumps numerous positive impacts. And it borders on intolerance.
We believe that, regardless of political or religious differences, Denver should celebrate anyone who puts down roots, creates job and operates as a good neighbor.
If the City Council won’t celebrate that fact in the case of Hercules Industries, we will.
