— Senator
Barack Obama,
March 29, 2008.
Obama opposes the Catholic church and pushes for government-mandated contraception and sterilization:
One thing should be plainly apparent now: Abortion is more important to the Democrats than either the Catholic church
or the Constitution. I'm not a Catholic, nor will I ever be, but I'm not going to stand by quietly while a tyrant like
Barack H. Obama (a/k/a Barry Soetoro) shreds the Constitution.
Related topic:
Is Obama a Christian?
Catholic
Bishop: Obama Is 'Proponent' of What is Shameful and Criminal in the Eyes of Almighty God'. Nicholas DiMarzio, the Catholic
bishop of the diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y., says that in his zealous support for abortion, President Barack Obama has used his position not
to help mothers and children in difficult circumstances but instead has been an advocate for that which "is shameful and criminal in the
eyes of Almighty God."
Obama and the Dictatorship of
Relativism. Alas, it's not a question of the administration being tragically "tone deaf," as one American
Jesuit claimed, to specifically Catholic concerns. Nor is the bedrock of President Obama's position, in the end, a
commitment to "women's health." Outside the ghoulish world of Planned Parenthood, pregnancy does not qualify as a
disease. A fertile womb is no threat to human life. No, this is all about the absolutization of choice for the
sake of choice.
Democrat Party Is Losing Christian Voters in Droves.
Last week Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan lashed out at the Obama Administration for forcing religious organizations
to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience. New Obama regulations will
force Christian organizations to provide free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion drugs to workers even
though this violates Catholic Church teaching. The new rules are so strict that most Catholic institutions
will not qualify for an exemption. This week the military is telling Catholic Chaplains what they can and
cannot say about the Obama Administration. These are just the latest examples of Obama's war on Christians.
Obama's Culture of Death
and the Catholic Vote: Not only do Barack Obama's positions on human life issues lie in absolute
contradiction with Pope Benedict XVI, his positions are the most radical of any post-Roe candidate ever to
seek the Presidency. Far more radical than Bill Clinton, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Obama has
at least been forthright in proclaiming that the very first thing he will do as President is sign the Freedom of
Choice Act, which codifies Roe in national law and strikes down every single protective restriction to abortion
in all 50 states, including parental notification and partial-birth abortion bans.
A
Catholic Case Against Barack: Not only is Barack the most pro-abortion member of the Senate, with
his straight A+ report card from the National Abortion Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood. He
supports the late-term procedure known as partial-birth abortion, where the baby's skull is stabbed with
scissors in the birth canal and the brains are sucked out to end its life swiftly and ease passage of the
corpse into the pan. Partial-birth abortion, said the late Sen. Pat Moynihan, "comes as close to
infanticide as anything I have seen in our judiciary."
Obama's Choice of Sebelius Heats Up the
Pro-life Battle. President Barack Obama has selected a pro-abortion Catholic governor, who has
been told by her bishop not to present herself for communion, to head the Department of Health and Human
Services. Writing last year in his diocesan newspaper, Bishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas,
discussed a meeting with Gov. Kathleen Sebelius where he told her "that someday she's going to have to stand
before God and account for her public service."
Obama vs. Pope Benedict.
President-elect Barack Obama's plan to pass the Freedom of Choice Act is setting up a showdown with the Vatican. "The
first thing I will do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act," he said at an address before Planned Parenthood on
July 17, 2007. And if he does, it will trigger a harsh response from Pope Benedict XVI, as well as a political
revolt among practicing American Catholics.
Is Obama
Trying To Replace The Pope? The First Amendment forbids "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion.
But a pontificating President Obama would do just that in forcing Catholics to provide contraception and sterilization.
NOW
President: It's 'Poppycock' to Say Catholic Institutions Have a Conscience. National Organization for Women
President Terry O'Neill says that it is "poppycock" for America's Roman Catholic bishops to say that Catholic institutions
have a conscience. "The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' claims that institutions can have consciences —
that's poppycock," said O'Neill.
Religious
intolerance, California-style. The Obama administration proved Friday that California laws continue
to have national influence. But this time, the pattern has wrought a serious violation of the First Amendment
protection for religious liberty. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is sticking with
a rule that mandates insurance coverage for sterilization and contraceptives, including some that cause abortions.
But the rule's exemption for religious employers is so narrow as to have raised the ire of religious leaders,
organizations and pundits across the political spectrum.
The
Catholic Church is fighting mad with the Obama Administration. The Health and Human Services
Department recently announced it will require all employers (with few exceptions) to provide health insurance
to their employees which includes subsidized contraception, sterilization and coverage for abortion-inducing
drugs. This meant that religious institutions, like Catholic colleges and hospitals, or other Christian
institutions would be compelled to violate their conscience by cooperating with that which they believe to be wrong.
A Clash
of Conscience. The decision last week by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
to reject the appeals of scores of religious leaders and retain a very narrow "religious" exemption from Obamacare's
so-called contraception mandate has ignited an uproar among Catholic leaders, as well it should —
because it's hard to fathom a government dictate more offensive than this one.
Catholic Church Rejects Surrender Terms from
Obama. My Catholic priest, Father Larry Swink, delivered a homily on Sunday that I told him would make
headlines. In the toughest sermon I have ever heard from a pulpit, he attacked the Obama Administration as
evil, even demonic, and warned of religious persecution ahead. What was also newsworthy about the sermon was
that he cited The Washington Post in agreement -- not on the subject of the Obama Administration being evil, but
on the matter of its abridgment of the constitutional right to freedom of religion.
Contraceptive mandate
could face tough sledding in Supreme Court. The Supreme Court and the Obama administration, already
headed for a face-off in March over the constitutionality of the healthcare law, appear to be on another collision
course over whether church-run schools, universities, hospitals and charities must provide free contraceptives to
their students and employees. The dispute stems from one of the more popular parts of the new healthcare
law: its requirement that all health plans provide "preventive services" for free. That category
includes vaccines and such routine screenings as cholesterol checkups and mammograms. Starting this year,
it also includes coverage of birth control pills, IUDs and other contraceptives.
The Editor asks...
What will the next incremental change bring about? Will "preventive services" include sterilization of
the poor? Abortion on demand? Lobotomies for political opponents?
The State Ruling the Church:
[Scroll down] No, the real issue is not birth control or the provision of it. The central issue is
government intimidation of and control over religious institutions. It is government's overriding of the
consciences of Catholics and members of other denominations who oppose abortifacients and sterilization.
The 2013 deadline for Catholic institutions to conform to the health care mandate is the proverbial governmental
foot in the door for controlling religious institutions — actually, for controlling all people of faith
who disagree with the administration's stance toward abortion. For the truth of the matter is that the U.S.
government's intrusion into religious organizations, if not halted at this stage, will continue to press even
harder for even more sacrifices of conscience.
First,
They Came for the Catholics. This weekend, Catholic bishops informed parishioners of the recent
White House edict forcing religious hospitals, schools, charities and other health and social service providers
to provide "free" abortifacient pills, sterilizations and contraception on demand in their insurance plans —
even if it violates their moral consciences and the teachings of their churches. NARAL, NOW, Ms. Magazine
and the Feminist Majority Foundation all cheered the administration's abuse of the Obamacare law to ram abortion
down pro-life medical professionals' throats.
WH:
'No Constitutional Rights Issue' in Forcing Catholics to Act Against Their Faith. White House
Press Secretary Jay Carney says there are no "constitutional rights issues" involved in a regulation issued by
the administration that requires all health-care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all
FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that induce abortions.
Obama
plays his Catholic allies for fools. Both radicalism and maliciousness are at work in Obama's
decision — an edict delivered with a sneer. It is the most transparently anti-Catholic maneuver
by the federal government since the Blaine Amendment was proposed in 1875 — a measure designed to
diminish public tolerance of Romanism, then regarded as foreign, authoritarian and illiberal. Modern
liberalism has progressed to the point of adopting the attitudes and methods of 19th-century Republican nativists.
The implications of Obama's choice will take years to sort through.
Religious
Liberty Can Still Trump ObamaCare. Religious freedom is a core American principle, one that our
Founding Fathers enshrined in the Constitution and called on future generations of leaders to preserve and protect.
Despite our deeply rooted heritage of religious liberty, the Obama administration recently issued a mandate under
ObamaCare that will require church-affiliated organizations to offer their workers private-insurance coverage
without out-of-pocket charges for birth control, something they are morally opposed to. In doing so, the
administration ignored efforts by numerous faith-based organizations to be granted an exemption on religious grounds.
ObamaCare Abortions: Will Catholics Vote
for Him A Second Time? During the last presidential election, Catholics voted by a margin of
55-45% for the most pro-death President in history. Of course, he started out by covering up the
crucifix at Georgetown before delivering a speech, so as not to offend Muslims or Atheists, proceeded to declare
that "America is not a Christian nation", then bowed before a Saudi king. Therefore, should we be surprised
when this secular humanist, pro-abortion President now attacks religious freedom by backing regulations which
force Catholic hospitals — against their will and the tenets of their religion — to fund
and/or even perform abortions or risk sanctions and closure?
Civil Disobedience in Obama's
Second Term. Some of Barack Obama's useful idiots on the Catholic center/left say that his decree
forcing religious organizations to pay for contraceptives amounts to a betrayal. No, it is not. Candidate
Obama had telegraphed his plans to discriminate against the religious. Were Cardinal Mahony and company too
busy burbling over "hope and change" to pay attention? You made Obama's bed; now lie in it.
A
Catholic Case Against Barack. Thrice in the Illinois legislature, Obama helped block a bill that
was designed solely to protect the life of infants already born, and outside the womb, who had miraculously
survived the attempt to kill them during an abortion. Thrice, Obama voted to let doctors and nurses
allow these tiny human beings die of neglect and be tossed out with the medical waste. How can a man
who purports to be a Christian justify this?
Obama: The
One, True Faith. It's hard to believe that Obama falls to his knees for anyone, but apparently
he does. As long as they aren't Catholic.
The Audacity of Obama's
Secularism: Obama's Fifth Column within the Church also stands ready to help. The National
Catholic Reporter, to take one example, has run a sympathetic editorial about his HHS mandate. And even
ostensible opponents of it on the Catholic left and center already reveal the white flag near at hand. In
the last few days, they have been blubbering weakly that the issue is not "contraception" — a subject
on which they agree with the president — but the etiquette of partisan coordination and team play.
Obamacare vs. the Catholics.
In Virginia, Catholics heard from Bishop Paul Loverde, who wrote, "I am absolutely convinced that an unprecedented
and very dangerous line has been crossed." In Phoenix, Bishop Thomas Olmsted wrote, "We cannot — we
will not — comply with this unjust law." In Pittsburgh, Bishop David Zubik wrote that President Obama
had told Catholics, "To Hell with your religious beliefs." ... It was a remarkable moment, in part because despite
their stern reputation, most Catholic bishops are not terribly conservative. They tend to be politically
liberal and socially cautious.
The
Obama Administration Is In For An Enormous Battle With The Catholic Church. The Obama Administration
made a huge political error in its recent decision to compel religious institutions to buy health insurance policies
that cover things they believe are inherently sinful — like contraception, sterilization, and drugs that may act
as abortifacients. Over the past two weekends thousands of priests read out a letter to their parishes
promising that the Church "cannot -- and will not comply with this unjust law."
Three
Things Everyone Should Know about the HHS Mandate. [#1] It's an abortifacient mandate; not
just a "contraceptive mandate." The HHS rule requires large employers to provide insurance for free
sterilizations, abortion-inducing drugs, and artificial contraceptives. Our side would do well to refer to
it as the "abortifacient mandate." [#2] The religious exemption is absolutely meaningless.
Obama: Our Henry VIII.
The administration is seeking to coerce Catholics to act against their consciences on two fronts: on
sterilization, contraceptives and abortion, and on the definition of marriage. Obamacare regulations
proposed by the Department of Health and Services on Aug. 1 would require every private health plan in
America to cover sterilizations as well as all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including
"emergency contraceptives." These include drugs such as ulipristal, which can cause abortions both
before and after an embryo implants in a mother's womb.
EWTN Files
Suit to Block Contraception Mandate. Eternal Word Television Network filed a lawsuit today [2/9/2012]
in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Ala., seeking to halt the federal government's imposition of its contraception
mandate and to have the court declare the federal rule unconstitutional. The lawsuit names Kathleen Sebelius, the
secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and other federal agencies, as defendants.
Abortion Haunting Obama. A
coalition of Catholic Bishops, concerned about that possibility, sent a letter to Congress and the White House in mid-July
demanding that health care reform "excludes abortion coverage or any other provisions that threaten the sanctity of life."
Religious conservatives aren't the only political demographic uneasy with the abortion implications of Obama's health care
revamp, either. In late June, about two dozen House Democrats sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi pledging opposition to any
reform bill that includes abortion coverage.
Dangerous
Negotiations Over Abortion. America's Catholic bishops are being used in a negotiating ploy that
could lead to enactment of Obamacare and to federal funding of abortion.
The Gospel
According to Obama: [Scroll down] Our quaint Constitution grants special autonomy to religious
institutions. Accordingly, it would be a mockery of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment if, for
example, the Catholic Church were required by law to freely provide such "health-care services" (in secularist parlance)
as contraception, sterilization, and pharmacological abortion — to which Catholicism is doctrinally opposed
as a grave contravention of its teachings about the sanctity of life. Ah. But there would be no such
Free Exercise violation if the institutions so mandated are deemed, by regulatory fiat,
not religious.
Do
Catholics Have Too Many Babies? This is quite literally Congress making a law that interferes with
the free exercise of religion. This is not about the morality of contraception. This is about the
constitutionality of government coercion, coercion of religious institutions, coercion directly and profoundly
prohibited by the Constitution itself. The motivation for the coercion — that Catholics have too
many babies — is reprehensible, and those in government who embrace that and are willing to use the power of
government to resist that should be voted out of office.
Obama's
war on the Catholic Church isn't just insensitive — it's un-American. No Democratic president ever
picked a fight with the Catholic Church in quite the way that Barack Obama has. ... Bishops, conservative and liberal,
are now a single voice in their disgust with the administration's move. The scale of Left-wing outrage is
astonishing. Even the columnist EJ Dionne — the Polly Toynbee of American Catholics — complained
that "progressive" Catholics who had put their reputations on the line to support Obamacare had been "thrown under the
bus." Obama took 54 percent of the Catholic vote in 2008. He will struggle to do that well again.
Next, the Amish must buy Chevy Volts.
The point is the same as the point about abortion — which by the way is next on the list of things
the Church will be ordered to provide. The point is the same about gay marriage, which priests will be
forced to perform beginning with military chaplains. The point is the destruction of Catholicism in the
name of "freedom." Liberals have targeted the Church for years because of all the major religions, it is
the most centralized and most disciplined and the biggest threat to socialistic governments.
WSJ
Almost Uniquely Raises Self-Insurance Issue in 'Immaculate Contraception' Editorial. Showing just
how out of touch the establishment press is with reality, an editorial this morning in the Wall Street Journal
cutely titled "Immaculate Contraception" points out something most, including the Associated Press, have
missed — that in a large number of cases involving many thousands of employees, there is no "insurance
company" there to directly pay for these services.
Nancy
Pelosi: Religious Freedom is an "Excuse" When It Comes to Women's Health. House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi said in a press conference Thursday [2/9/2012] that Republicans are using religious freedom as an excuse to
change the law in a way that will be harmful to women's health. This was in regard to the pushback against
Catholic employees being required to cover birth control and abortifacients, which violates Church doctrine.
Religion burns Obama
again. It's a problem that previously has popped up in controversies over Israel, the Rev. Jeremiah
Wright and even Obama's 2008 comments about people holding on to "guns and religion." "It almost appears
that every time he tries to steer clear of [the intersection of politics and religion], he steps right into it,"
said Susan MacManus, a professor of political science at the University of South Florida. "He's trying not
to call attention to it and then he finds himself in the middle of it."
Here's the simplest explanation:
Obama is incompetent.
Bigoted Barack, Red in Tooth
and Clause. To put the point even more directly, Obama does not want the Catholic poor to procreate.
Like Planned Parenthood's twisted foundress, Margaret Sanger, Obama is a chilly eugenicist at heart who fears a
backwards America "punished" by the babies of unenlightened breeders. China boasts a one-child policy; Obama's
is more like a zero-child one. Without a universally subsidized right to sterilization, contraception, and
abortion via Obamacare, his Brave New World would falter and fail to materialize.
Condoms Are Only
Part Of It. Barack Obama thought he was only picking a fight with the Roman Catholic bishops.
He thought he could limit the argument over his health care mandate to a controversy over condoms. He's
getting a bigger fight than he imagined.
Obama's Anti-Religious Implosion.
Barack Obama may have just lost the election. He has foolishly gone to war in an election year with tens of
millions of Catholics, Protestants and Jews — Democrat, Republican and independent alike. He has
thrown down a radical feminist gauntlet and dared the Church to pick it up. They've
picked
it up.
Nothing but Squid Ink.
The Obama administration Friday afternoon [2/10/2012] put into federal law the very regulation that drew objections
from almost 200 Catholic bishops, some 50 religiously affiliated colleges and universities, 65 North American
bishops of Orthodox churches, numerous other Jewish, Evangelical and Lutheran leaders, and even some
liberals — and
without changing so much as a comma.
Catholic
Bishops: Obama's Revised Contraception and Abortion Pill Mandate 'Unacceptable'. We just received
information about this proposal for the first time this morning; we were not consulted in advance," the United
States Council of Catholic Bishops announce in a statement released Friday evening [2/10/2012]. The bishops
say that the "the law and remains a grave moral concern" and is "unacceptable."
Barack's Smug Assault on Freedom of Religion
Isn't Just Anti-American -- It's Unforgivable. The Democrat's sinister cabal, in typical Marxist
fashion, clumsily politicizes yet another area of American freedom. We observe, again, the inevitable,
serious-as-a-heart-attack, yet trite socialist power-grab. ... But of extreme import to Barack is reminding
everyone of the god that is government, with its inherent authority and right to do whatever it likes in the
lives of Americans.
Wash
Post Journalist: 'Maybe the Founders Were Wrong' to Guarantee Free Exercise of Religion.
Washington
Post political writer Melinda Henneberger shockingly stated, Wednesday [2/8/2012], that "maybe the Founders
were wrong" to guarantee religious liberty. Henneberger appeared on
Hardball to discuss the Obama
administration's decision to force the Catholic Church to provide birth control in health care.
Why Dems keep stepping on healthcare landmines:
Somehow, the Democrats just can't seem to keep reproductive politics from hijacking the health care debate.
They almost lost the health reform bill a couple of times over abortion, as anti-abortion Democrats came close to
derailing the bill during the 2009 House debate and then again during the final passage in 2010. And now, the
Obama administration's contraception rule has provoked such a massive fight with the Catholic Church and Republicans
that it has been impossible for Democrats — or the media — to talk about anything else.
United We Stand for
Religious Freedom. Coverage of this story has almost invariably been framed as a conflict between
the federal government and the Catholic bishops. Zeroing in on the word "contraception," many commentators
have taken delight in pointing to surveys about the use of contraceptives among Catholics, the message being that
any infringement of religious freedom involves an idiosyncratic position that doesn't affect that many people.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Obama
uses insurance companies to impose church-state mandate. President Barack Obama says he will bypass
religious groups' opposition to a health insurance mandate by directing insurance companies to hand out free birth
control services to employees of religious institutions. "Religious organizations won't have to pay for these
services and no religious institution will have to provide these services directly ... but women who work at these
institutions will have access to free contraceptive services, just like other women," Obama said in a brief Friday
statement at the White House. After his statement, Obama walked out of the press room without taking any
questions from reporters.
Obama's Act of Tyranny.
The edict President Barack Obama passed down today [2/10/2012] — that every health-care plan in
America must pay for sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause
abortions — is an act of tyranny.
Americans —
Including Catholics — Will Still Be Forced to Buy Coverage for Sterilization, Contraception, Abortifacients.
President Barack Obama announced today [2/10/2012] that "religious organizations" such as charities and hospitals
will not be forced by the federal government to directly pay insurance premiums that cover sterilization, contraception
and abortifacients but that their insurance providers must nonetheless provide those services free of charge to
women insured by those organizations.
The Editor says...
Barack H. Obama is an elected official, not a king. He has no authority to require private businesses to give away
products or services at no cost to the recipient. President Obama should
be
impeached.
Obama goes Henry VIII on the church.
In essence, President Obama has embarked on the same usurpation of church authority as Henry VIII: as
his Friday morning faux-compromise confirms, the continued existence of a "faith-based institution" depends on
submission to the doctrinal supremacy of the state. "We will soon learn," wrote Dr. Albert Mohler of the
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, "just how much faith is left in faith-based institutions."
Obama tosses contraception under the bus.
Oh how they championed President Obama's effort to force Catholic bishops to violate church doctrine and provide
contraception to their employees. This is a run-up to making Catholics pay for abortions.
Contraception
Accomodation: Who Pays For This? If not the religious institutions... or the women... who pays
for the contraceptive services? The Obama administration claims it pays for itself...
Catholic
and pro-life leaders slam White House 'compromise' on birth control mandate. The White House
announced today [2/10/2012] that, instead of forcing religious employers to pay for birth control, it will force
insurance companies to offer the drugs free of charge to all women, no matter where they work. The plan,
put forward as a concession to freedom of religion, was immediately denounced by Catholic Rep. Chris Smith as
fundamentally the exact same mandate.
Southern
Baptist leader: If Obama mandate isn't changed, Christians will go to jail. Dr. Richard Land, president
of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), told LifeSiteNews.com "we
will not comply" with the Dept. of Health and Human Services' mandate requiring religious institutions to cover
abortifacient products such as Plan B, Ella, and the IUD. "We want the law changed, or else we're
going to write our letters from the Nashville jail, just like Dr. King wrote his from the Birmingham jail,"
Dr. Land said.
This week's grand prize for doublespeak goes to Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi:
'I am going to stick with fellow Catholics' in supporting Obama birth control mandate. Even as
the United States' Catholic bishops have launched an all-out campaign against the Obama administration's birth
control mandate and urged their flocks to resistance, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has invoked the support
of "fellow Catholics" to justify her position in favor of the mandate. ... The comment came as at least
164 Catholic bishops across the country, representing over 90% of the country's dioceses, have blasted the
mandate, in many cases ensuring that letters were read to the faithful during Sunday Mass calling the mandate
unconstitutional and unjust.
National
Right to Life: Obama mandate 'scam' paves way for national abortion mandate. President Obama's
defense of his deceptive rephrasing of the birth control mandate on Friday — suggesting that insurers
can provide the drugs for free because fewer children means less overall health costs — lays the
groundwork for a future abortion mandate, the National Right to Life Committee has warned.
Archbishop
Dolan slams Obama's birth control compromise a 'violation of our freedom of religion'. Even with
Archbishop Timothy Dolan absent from the pulpit, the flock at St. Patrick's Cathedral Sunday heard a harsh
condemnation of new federal rules on birth control coverage. Rev. Robert Bubel blasted President Obama's
compromise plan and branded the drugs "poison" in a fiery homily. "I heard someone in Congress say, birth
control is medicine. But they deleted all the lies around that statement. Medicine is used to combat
disease," he said. "Pregnancy is not a disease. Pregnancy is much more like a miracle than a disease.
Whom the Gods Would Destroy:
It seems that Obama, in a classic act of hubris, has created the means of his own destruction. Through his
great historical contribution, his health care bill, he has struck what was surely intended to be a lethal blow
against the oldest organization on earth — an organization with something on the order of a billion
members, with a cadre of hundreds of thousands of highly trained and dedicated personnel, and a history of overcoming
political threats that make Obama look like a kindergartner.
Obama
tries to repair breach with Catholics. President Obama is trying to repair his relationship with
Catholic voters following a policy dispute over contraceptives even as Republicans are trying to convince voters
that the president has declared war on religion. ... Since winning 54 percent of the Catholic vote in 2008, the
president's approval rating among Catholics had fallen to 39 percent in the latest Rasmussen Reports poll.
"Squid Ink": The
HHS mandate is already law. [Scroll down] ["]Thus, instead of delaying final regulations
until they could be revised to reflect the prospective changes President Obama outlined Friday, the administration
went ahead and locked into regulation its original position, accompanied by a (non-binding) promise to revisit
the issue.["] ... Kinda makes Obama's protestations of "accommodation" look even more like a fraud and a lie than
they already did. Pass it on. And while you're at it, pass this on, too: There are no exemptions
for individuals, either.
The
Catholic church learns the true meaning of Obama's 'transformative' presidency. The American Catholic
Church, from left to right, is now being handed a lesson in the hierarchy of raw political authority. One
hopes they and their supporters will recognize that they have not been singled out. The federal government's
forcings routinely touch other groups in this country — schools, doctors, farmers, businesses.
The church's fight is not the whole or the end of it.
The war on life. For weeks now, the biggest issue
in the news has been the Obama administration's birth control mandate. The mandate requires all Americans to
purchase health insurance that provides birth control, abortifacients, and sterilizations. Catholics,
Orthodox Christians, many Protestants, and even some non-Christians are furious. Suddenly, for the first
time in our history, religious beliefs can make you a criminal, and the Catholics who supported and voted for
Obama in 2008 feel betrayed.
Obama's Dupes: The President's
Pro-Life Catholic Suckers. On March 24, 2010, President Obama, flagged by 13 beaming
pro-life Democratic members of Congress, led by Michigan's Bart Stupak, signed an executive order that he
promised would prevent abortion funding in his "healthcare reform" bill. These were the infamous "Bart
Stupak Democrats" — many of them Roman Catholics — who had placed their faith not in their
bishops or pro-lifers who urged them not to vote for "Obama-care," but in Barack Obama. It was an executive
order that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Right to Life, Americans United for Life, LifeNews.com,
Priests for Life, Susan B. Anthony List, and every reputable pro-life organization or leader said would be
ineffective in preventing abortion funding under "Obama-care." These pro-life Democrats, however, trusted
not these lifetime fighters for life but a man who as U.S. senator had co-sponsored the Freedom of Choice Act,
the most radical piece of pro-abortion legislation in the history of the republic...
Liberals Forced to
Bare Their Teeth. American women who don't want liberals legislating a culture of death over their
families should know what's what. Faithful Catholics who continue to vote for Democrats have to ask themselves:
what was the point of "Dagger John" Hughes, first Catholic Archbishop of New York, teaching the WASPs the time of
day a century and a half ago? What was the point of building the Catholic school system to which the nuns
devoted their lives, if today's Catholics just knuckle under to a new era of anti-Catholic bigotry? And
for what are people supporting the Democrats?
Obama's
epic blunder on birth-control mandate. Before Barack Obama can defeat his opponents, he must first
be rescued from his friends. ... The initial policy was a disaster. The partial retreat was more skilled.
Obama's goal was not resolution but obfuscation. The contraceptive mandate was shifted from Catholic employers
to insurance companies. Instead of being forced to buy an insurance product that violates their beliefs,
religious institutions will be forced to buy an insurance product that contributes to the profits and viability
of a company that is federally mandated to violate their beliefs.
American Catholicism's Pact
With the Devil. You have to hand it to Barack Obama. He has unmasked in the most thoroughgoing
way the despotic propensities of the administrative entitlements state and of the Democratic Party. And now
he has done something similar to the hierarchy of the American Catholic Church.
Obama Steamrolled
by Catholic Church. The secular Leftists who control the White House were steamrolled last week
by the Catholic Church, and they still don't understand why. Obama's requirement that church organizations
provide contraception and abortifacients unleashed a mighty backlash from Jews, Catholics and Protestants.
Leftists fancy themselves as champions of the First Amendment, but now we know that doesn't include the free
exercise of religion.
Conservatives
Unite in Opposing Obama's Assault on Religious Liberty. A sweeping alliance of fiscal, social and
national security conservatives and leaders of the Tea Party movement came together on Monday [2/13/2012] to
denounce the attack that President Barack Obama has launched on the free exercise of religion by ordering
virtually all Americans to buy health insurance plans that pay for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients
even if doing so forces them to act against their consciences and the teachings of their faith.
War
on Obama birth control mandate grows. A wave of conservatives, Catholic leaders, even typically
media-shy nuns is building to crash on President Obama's insurance birth control mandate, raising the possibility
that ObamaCare will join the economy as a top issue in the 2012 election. On multiple fronts, foes of the
president's insurance birth control demand are forming this week, some to raise money to advertise against the
president's reelection campaign and others simply to plead with the White House to stay out of the church's
business.
Just a Taste of a Second Obama Term.
First, he came for the General Motors bondholders, but the religious leaders were not GM bondholders, so they did
not speak up. Then he came for the oil companies, but they were not oil company executives, and again they
did not speak up. Next, he came for control of the nation's health care system, and again they saw no
threat — in fact, many of them supported his plan. We were told we had to pass the plan
to ... find out what was in it. Then he came for our freedom of religion, and we found out what was
in it: pure, unadulterated tyranny.
ObamaCare
Violates Far More Than Just Catholic Rights. The president's phony contraception compromise might
be enough to convince Catholics their rights aren't being trampled. But what about the rest of us, who
face more rights violations in the name of ObamaCare?
Obama: Violating Much More than Conscience.
In his latest show Gov. Mike Huckabee was seen interviewing a Catholic priest, as they spoke, the Governor
said that since the Catholics have come under attack "we are all Catholics." The audience accepted what he
said and while they knew the Governor was not referring to some giant ecumenical switch to Catholicism he was
stating the obvious. When the government suspends or denies first amendment principles to the church,
be it Protestant or Catholic, we all tend to close ranks.
Mark
Levin recommends 'articles of impeachment' for HHS Secretary Sebelius. On his Monday [2/13/2012]
show, radio talk show host Mark Levin, author of "Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America," said "what would happen
if we were living in a functioning constitutional republic is articles of impeachment would be drawn up against
the secretary of [Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius]" over a slew of charges, most recently the
contraception mandate for Catholic institutions.
Bishops
Reject White House's New Plan on Contraception. The nation's Roman Catholic bishops have rejected a
compromise on birth control coverage that President Obama offered on Friday and said they would continue to fight
the president's plan to find a way for employees of Catholic hospitals, universities and service agencies to receive
free contraceptive coverage in their health insurance plans, without direct involvement or financing from the
institutions.
59%
of Catholics Disapprove of Obama's Job Performance. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone
survey finds that 59% of likely Catholic voters nationwide at least somewhat disapprove of the president's job
performance, while 40% at least somewhat approve. But the passion's on the side of those who don't like
the job he's doing: 44% Strongly Disapprove versus 19% who Strongly Approve.
Poll: Catholics abandon Obama.
54% of Catholics voted for President Obama in 2008. Now, things are different. The Rasmussen Poll
found his approval among Catholics plummeted to 40% approval, 59% disapproval. "Republican hopeful Mitt
Romney currently leads the president among Catholic voters by a 52% to 35% margin," Rasmussen reported.
The Little Sisters of Limousine
Liberalism. [Scroll down] So let's get down to brass tacks. How much is Sister Keehan worth
for such political interventions? The checkered Catholic hospitals Keehan represents as chief executive officer
of the Catholic Health Association stand to receive gobs and gobs of cash from the federal government if Obamacare
holds up past 2012. Consequently, the members of the association are more than happy to pony up huge salaries
to executives skilled at manipulating the Catholic electorate for Obama. Keehan is worth $962,467 to them in
total salary and benefits, according to the Schedule J (Form 990) 2010 document sent to me by CHA.
Pelosi:
Govt. Should Require Church To Pay for Birth Control. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said
Thursday morning [2/16/2012] that the government should require self-insured religious institutions, such as the
Catholic church in Washington, D.C., to directly pay for contraception and abortifacients.
Mother
Angelica's network isn't buying Obama's religious liberty ruse. Don't pick a fight, the saying goes,
with a man who buys ink by the barrel. Here's a corollary for President Obama: Don't pick a fight with
an elderly, retired, cloistered nun who founded the world's largest religious media network. That is precisely
the mistake Obama made when his administration announced that religious employers like Mother Angelica's Eternal
Word Television Network (EWTN) would be forced to provide coverage for contraception, sterilization, and
abortion-inducing drugs — a violation of their deeply held religious beliefs.
Politics
and the President's Pill: Are They Healthy for Women?. Announcing that insurance companies
would pay for contraceptives on Friday [2/10/2012], President Obama added that doctors "put women on
contraceptives as a way to prevent and reduce the risk of ovarian and other cancers." Days earlier,
Nancy Pelosi said that peoples' complaints about the contraceptive mandate and religious freedom were
not the issue and emphasized that "this is about women's health." There is an issue, though,
regarding the mandate that lies beyond the grave religious and constitutional issues therein: do
contraceptives harm women's health?
Can Obama Order Grocers to
Give Away Bread? Last August, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a proposed regulation
that would force virtually all health care plans to cover sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved
contraceptives, including those that cause abortion. Because Obamacare mandates that all Americans must purchase
health insurance, this regulation would require Catholics — whose church teaches that sterilization, artificial
contraception and abortion are wrong — to act against the teachings of their faith. Obama was
unambiguously attacking the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.
Catholic bishops
fight for authority over U.S. flock. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is a powerful institution, at
least on paper. But a recent debate over contraception coverage has exposed a deep divide between the 271 active
bishops and the rank-and-file U.S. Catholics who are supposed to follow their moral authority. It also has raised
questions about why some prominent Catholic intuitions ignore the bishops' teachings — and whether the bishops
will be able to reassert their authority.
The
Contraceptive Mandate's Shaky Justification. The first thing to understand about the Department of Health and
Human Services' birth-control mandate, and the last, is that it is an assault on both faithful Christians and the Constitution
by leftists who consider themselves at "war" — their word — with bourgeois America. It has nothing
to do with guaranteeing access to contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients.
Catholicism and Freedom: A Moment of Truth.
The recent stand-off between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church is producing an effect that may prove to be
more historically significant than the immediate battle over freedom of religion. A problem that has been growing
within the Church for decades has finally burst into the light: the conflict between Church leaders and a significant
portion of the flock on the subject of political freedom.
Communism by insurance mandate. One theory for why
Barack Obama pushed the contraception mandate right now is that it helps Rick Santorum. Others theorize it's because
Obama is an anti-religious bigot with a left-wing agenda. ... This isn't a Catholic issue or even a religious issue.
Conservatives are falling into the Democrats' trap by denouncing it as such. It's a freedom issue.
Under
the HHS Mandate, the Sisters of Life Cannot Be the Sisters of Life. Every professed member of religious
Sisters for Life take a vow "to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life." But they cannot fully do that,
according to the Obama administration. In a statement, the Sisters explain what the HHS mandate means for them.
Catholic,
Lutheran, Baptist and Jewish Leaders Swear Disobedience to HHS Contraception Mandate. Would you go to
jail — or even close down your hospitals and schools — rather than violate your religious faith,
a Republican lawmaker asked religious leaders at a House hearing on Thursday [2/16/2012]. The answer, given under
oath, was unanimous: They will disobey. "We're not going to violate our consciences," William E. Lori,
the Roman Catholic Bishop of Bridgeport, Conn., told Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) in response to Gowdy's question about the
Obama administration's contraception mandate.
Obama's
Deceptive Hidden Premises. The most evil thing about the Obama administration's recent violation of the
separation of church and state is its deceptiveness. With his order requiring inclusion of contraception and
abortifacient drugs in insurance coverage, the president is smuggling the hidden premises of NARAL, Planned Parenthood,
and other supporters of abortion into U.S. law, and doing so untruthfully. The Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) instruction attacking religious institutions such as hospitals, universities, and programs for the
poor rests on four hidden premises.
At religious freedom hearing
on contraception: 'This is an issue worth dying for'. Religious leaders of different faiths stoked the national
debate over contraception Thursday [2/16/2012], converging on Capitol Hill and charging the Obama administration with attempting
to violate their religious freedoms. Leaders from the Catholic, Jewish, Baptist and Lutheran faiths joined in opposition
to a proposed federal mandate that would require church-affiliated employers to cover birth control in their health plans.
Obama's
Real Motivation For Imposing the Contraception Mandate on the Catholic Church: Dick Morris has an
interesting theory about Obama's true motivation for the contraception mandate in his latest Lunch Alert.
Obama always has an ulterior motive, he notes — you have to read it to know how to defeat the guy.
Morris says that for Obama, the issue is not about infringing upon religious liberty — he thinks Obama's
trying to replace abortion with contraception in the left/right social divide because they're losing the abortion
debate. He wants to polarize the nation to profit his reelection chances over the issue of contraception.
Every Argument In
Support Of The HHS Mandate. With a rebuttal to every one of them.
Overreach: ObamaCare vs. the Constitution.
President Obama's birth control "accommodation" was as politically successful as it was morally meaningless. It
was nothing but an accounting trick that still forces Catholic (and other religious) institutions to provide medical
insurance that guarantees free birth control, tubal ligation and morning-after abortifacients — all of which
violate church doctrine on the sanctity of life.
Attorneys
General Threaten Lawsuit Against Obama's Contraception Mandate. Attorneys General from a dozen
states are considering a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration's contraception mandate requiring
employers to provide insurance that includes free contraception — including sterilization and drugs
that can cause abortion. Led by Nebraska's Attorney General, Jon Bruning (left), the top state lawyers
issued a strongly worded letter to the administration expressing their "strong opposition" to the mandate,
and warning: "Should this unconstitutional mandate be promulgated, we are prepared to vigorously
oppose it in court."
Misconception.
The problem with the contraceptive mandate is not the contraceptive part -- it's the
mandate. The
new health-care law requires every employer with 50 or more employees to provide their workers with health
insurance. It also requires every American who doesn't receive health insurance through work or a government
program to buy insurance themselves or face a fine. But simply providing or buying insurance is not enough to
fulfill the mandate. The insurance must satisfy the government's definition of what qualifies as proper
insurance, including a long list of benefits that the government thinks you should have.
Meet the ObamaCare
Mandate Committee. Offended by President Obama's decision to force health insurers to pay for
contraception and surgical sterilization? It gets worse: In the future, thanks to ObamaCare, the
government will issue such health edicts on a routine basis — and largely insulated from public view.
This goes beyond contraception to cancer screenings, the use of common drugs like aspirin, and much more.
The Sacred Dogma of the Left.
The church's allies — evangelical Christians, Tea Partiers, and other non-Catholic conservatives — are
motivated by a conviction that, theology aside, the Obamacare edict forcing the church to pay for procedures it
finds morally objectionable is an unconstitutional trespass on the free exercise of religion. But what
is it that motivates those on the left? Why do they care so deeply about the kind of insurance coverage
Catholic employers provide? ... For the left, the fight isn't about social justice or the proper scope of the
state. It's about the contraceptives. It's about sex.
The Editor says...
One group is concerned about upholding the Constitution and preserving freedom for future generations, while
another group is primarily motivated by fornication while trying to avoid parenthood. Which group consists
of rational, sober-minded thinkers, and which group is wildly out of step with the majority of Americans?
Obama's religious
bigotry. ObamaCare passed Congress with only Democrat votes — not one Republican voted
yea on one of the most expensive bills in the history of the nation. Obama's signature effort he so proudly
campaigned on and signed into law forces Catholic organizations to provide birth control and abortion-inducing
drugs through their employee health insurance plans, despite the fact that it is not supported by the Catholic
Church. Such blatant religious bigotry and arrogance by the president is, predictably, enraging to Catholics
and threatens to derail Obama's already-eroding support nationally.
Paul
Ryan: Obama contraception ruling reveals 'paternalistic, arrogant' attitude. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on
Sunday [2/19/2012] blasted the Obama administration's moves to mandate religious affiliated groups to provide
contraception coverage as "paternalistic" and "arrogant." "What we're getting from the White House on this
conscience issue, it's not an issue about contraception, it's an issue that reveals a political philosophy the
president is showing that basically treats our constitutional rights as if they were revocable privileges from
our government, not inalienable rights from our creator," said Ryan on NBC's Meet the Press.
Pelosi,
Boxer and Judas — Obama Lied At Notre Dame. The House Minority Leader says self-insurance
is no protection against the government's contraceptive mandate, while California's junior senator says people
have a right to be insured but no right to practice their faith.
Death
of a nation. It was bad enough when the Congress told all citizens of this country that we did not
control our own health destiny — that we either accepted the dictates of the government or would be fined
accordingly. But now, to be told that the state controls not only our medical choices but also our moral
choices — that is really too much to bear.
The Left's Hatred of Religion.
This HHS controversy has me thinking that our fundamental right of religious liberty has suffered a drastic deflation
in value from 1791 until now. For that matter, how could it be otherwise in a nation where so many Americans
despise religion? Examine the rationalizations of commentators defending the Obama faux-compromise on the
HHS mandate and you'll see what I mean. Joan Walsh at Salon writes that she was raised Catholic, but has
since turned into "a secular feminist liberal Democrat."
Obama's War on Religious
Liberty. Obama and the liberals have overplayed their hand. By baring their teeth, these
lackeys for the Left have awakened Democratic voters to the real contempt that liberals hold for religious values.
All 181 U.S. Catholic bishops oppose Obama's mandate, and Rasmussen polling estimates that 65 percent of
Catholic Americans also oppose it. There are about 75 million American Catholics, most of whom have
traditionally been Democratic voters but wouldn't hesitate to cross party lines to defend their church leaders.
The
Catholic Betrayal of Religious Freedom. It was not surprising that ill-educated Catholics in
Congress rushed to embrace President Obama's "accommodation" on the HHS mandate on sterilization and contraception
(including possible abortifacients), or that the faux accommodation was defended, if risibly, by another embodiment
of Catholic Lite, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. One does not look to Senator Patty Murray, or to Representative
Rose DeLauro or Nancy Pelosi, or to Secretary Sebelius, to learn anything about Catholic doctrine or the history
of the Church's teaching on moral issues.
Nemo dat quod non habet, as the scholastic philosophers
used to say: No one gives what (s)he does not have.
Evangelicals
join Catholics in opposing birth control rule. Speaking at the National Religious Broadcasters
convention in Nashville [2/20/2012], Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said more than 2,500 pastors
and evangelical leaders have signed a letter to President Obama asking him to reverse the mandate.
Battle
lines are drawn over whether Obama is waging a war on religion. President Obama's public clash
with U.S. Catholic bishops in recent weeks over the issue of health insurance coverage for birth-control services
has ignited a wider debate over whether the administration's policies such as gay marriage, abortion and
employment-discrimination laws are running roughshod over religious freedom.
Why
Won't Republicans Stop Obama's Arrogant, Paternalistic, Totalitarian Overreach? I really don't
understand why Republicans keep allowing Obama to usurp congressional and constitutional authority. ... Now, we
have the Obama administration's outrageous contraception mandate, in which, to use Charles Krauthammer's words, "the
president of the United States has just ordered private companies to give away for free a service that his own
health and human services secretary has repeatedly called a major financial burden."
Obama,
Not Santorum, is the Theocrat. [Scroll down] Obama and his unaccountable thugs in HHS
declare who is and who is not a religious organization; what is and what is not permissible religious belief.
And debate is cut off.
God has spoken. Go forth and do His will. Those who fear a theocracy
might note that it is Obama who is setting himself up as God, not Rick Santorum.
Obama's Law of Contraception.
It is not just the Catholic Church. We will all now be forced to pay for free contraceptives for everybody —
and abortion, sterilization, and anything else Il Duce decides we must pay for — through the
individual and employer mandates of Obamacare. Prepare to dig into your pocket to pay for partial-birth
abortions in a second Obama term.
Commerce Is the
Culture War. If you believe that the Obama administration's decision to force Catholic institutions to pay for
and offer (directly or indirectly) products the church finds morally objectionable is an assault on religious freedom and
free speech, you probably also realize the importance of consumer choice. After all, when government dictates what
people buy and sell, it dictates much more.
Obama the
Lawbreaker versus the Catholic Church. It is the Obama administration that is refusing to obey the law.
The administration is the trespasser on rights. Its people are, in fact,
lawbreakers. The law being
broken is our Constitution. The Constitution is America's
paramount law, meaning that not only does it trump
statutory laws contrary to it, but it supersedes any Obama administration mandate in violation of it.
Obama's
More Deferential to Afghan Muslims Than American Catholics. President Obama's decision to order Roman
Catholics to act against the teachings of their faith by forcing Catholics to buy insurance that pays for sterilizations,
artificial contraceptives and abortifacients was not made by mistake. Obama did it with long and careful
premeditation — fully understanding that the Catholic Church would (correctly) perceive the regulation as a very
serious and direct attack on the free exercise of religion by Catholics.
100% of Catholic Bishops
Oppose Obama's Contraceptive Mandate. All 181 Catholic bishops in the United States oppose and have publicly
denounced a regulation issued by the Obama administration that would require every health insurer to offer contraceptives,
including those that induce abortion, free of charge. The bishops oppose the mandate because, they argue, it is a
violation of religious liberty under the First Amendment — in this case, the federal government forcing
individual Catholics to subsidize products and services that are contrary to their religious beliefs.
Ideas
Have Consequences and Obama's Have Bad Ones. President Obama's recent attacks on religious freedom through
ObamaCare have far broader implications than the immediate crisis. The attacks not only strike at the very rights of
conscience our Founding Fathers sought to protect via the First Amendment. The threat is also due to the underlying
hostility to pregnancy and children that the president encoded into federal law.
Seven states sue to block
contraception mandate. Seven states filed a lawsuit Thursday [2/23/2012] to block the federal government's requirement
that religious organizations offer health insurance coverage that includes free access to contraception for women. The
attorney generals of Texas, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Carolina jointly filed the lawsuit in a
Nebraska US District Court.
Obama's Apologies.
So the president refuses to apologize for forcing Catholics to violate their religious beliefs or pay a tax penalty.
But he immediately apologizes because a few of our soldiers inadvertently violated Muslims religious beliefs by trying to
dispose of already-desecrated Korans.
Obama's
bad moves on infanticide come back to haunt him. [Scroll down] On March 30, 2001, Illinois State Senator
Patrick O'Malley introduced three pieces of legislation aimed at protecting an infant who had survived an
abortion outside the mother's womb. ... ["]This is essentially very simple. The Constitution does not
say that a child born must be viable in order to live and be accorded the rights of citizenship. It
simply says it must be born. And a child who survives birth is a US citizen, and we need to do everything
we can here in the state of Illinois and, frankly, in the other 49 states and in the halls of Washington, DC,
to make sure that we secure or and protect those rights. So if this legislation is designed to clarify ...
and reaffirm the rights that are entitled to a child born in America, so be it, and it is constitutional.["]
President Obama's
Theology: Is It Phony? President Obama frequently professes his Christian faith and argues confidently
that his policies are rooted in biblical truths. So when his administration issued a mandate requiring Catholic
institutions to provide contraception and abortion-inducing pills to their employees, conservatives demanded an
explanation. Why would someone who professes faith in God try to force Catholics to obey government over God
(as they believe God to have spoken on the issue)?
A Forced Marriage of
Church and State. During the Middle Ages, the political power advantage most often lay with the Church.
Such was the power of the Church that pope Gregory VII forced Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV to stand in the snow
and to kneel before the pope begging forgiveness as an act of penance for defying the Holy See. But this time,
the power advantage lies with President Obama and the executive branch, not the Catholic Church.
Is this still America?
Under the sweeping powers of Obamacare, the state has forced Catholic institutions to choose between their God
and their government by demanding that they violate their own beliefs and provide birth control to their employees.
Their insulting rationalization? Most Catholic women are bad Catholics and don't follow the teachings of the church
anyway. What's more, the government has deified itself to determine which organizations are Catholic enough
to be exempt.
Chicago's
Cardinal Warns Of An ObamaCare Gulag. The ex-head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops compares
the administration take on freedom of worship to the Soviet Union's and says its contraceptive mandate will force
church hospitals to close.
Holder:
1st Amendment Allows Gov't to Force Catholics to Buy Sterilization-Contraception-Abortion Insurance. The
Justice Department will defend against any legal challenge to the new Obama administration mandate to force employers to
provide abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception, even if it goes against their conscience, Attorney
General Eric Holder told a House subcommittee Tuesday [2/28/2012].
Senator:
HHS Reg Will Make College Pay $246M Fine to Exercise Its Religion. Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), speaking on the House
floor on Wednesday [2/29/2012] said the HHS regulation requiring free contraceptive coverage would make Creighton University pay a
$246 million fine to exercise its religion.
The Editor says...
That's a little too much personification for my taste, although I see the Senator's point. People have rights, and
churches have rights, but can a college "exercise its religion"?
Senator: Obama's Acting Like U.S. Is USSR.
Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) said Wednesday [2/29/2012] that President Barack Obama is acting like the U.S. is the Soviet Union in
ordering that all health-care plans must cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause
abortions, but that when those plans are provided by religious institutions that have a religious objection to those things the
insurance company must offer them for free.
More
about President Obama's Potential as a Marxist Dictator.
Top U.S. Bishop to All Bishops:
'We
Did Not Ask for This Fight, But We Will Not Run From It'. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of
New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, sent a letter on Friday [3/2/2012] to all
the Catholic bishops of the United States reasserting the conviction of the Catholic Church that it will not
yield to the Obama administration's command — issued in the form of a Health and Human Services regulation
implementing the president's health-care plan — that Catholics and Catholic institutions must violate
the teachings of their faith by purchasing and providing health insurance plans that pay for sterilizations,
contraceptives and abortifacients.
Obamas
Unholy Attack On Bearing False Witness. The mix of politics and religion can be an intoxicating
cocktail. Just now you can smell the incense everywhere, from Martha's Vineyard to Washington, D.C.
For a Left that obsesses over a wall of separation between church and state, when death comes and health-care
bills need rallies, there is little hesitation to break out the devotional smells and bells. But the
loss of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, one of the most prominent Catholic politicians in the United States, a
leading proponent of the president's health-care-reform push, should not obscure a pivotal fact: Barack
Obama has put himself at war with the Catholic Church.
The Obama Inquisition.
Clearly, [Thomas] Jefferson was making clear to the Baptists that the "wall of separation" was designed to protect
Religion from the State, not to protect the State from Religion. President Obama shattered this two-century
consensus. He mandated that Catholics must violate their religious convictions to pay premiums for health care
plans that cover contraception, abortion-inducing drugs such as Ella, and sterilization, all of which Catholic
doctrine teaches to be harmful and immoral. Those who refuse to comply will be persecuted by crippling fines.
The Obama Abomination.
President Obama gave America a preview of his warpath against organized religion and people of faith when he undid
parts of a President Bush Executive Order protecting health care providers from being required to perform, participate
in, or provide a medical procedure with which they had religious or moral objection. But in the past month alone
the Obama Administration has gone guns-a-blazing, full-force against both religion and the Constitution.
Obama the Apostate. During a recent
conversation about the HHS anti-conscience mandate, a friend who is neither Catholic nor particularly religious asked the
following rhetorical question about the Obama administration: Do these people know who they're messing with?
Her point, of course, was that the Church has spent nearly two millennia crushing attempts by secular rulers to dictate
the way it carries out its charitable ministries.
The Left
Finally Goes for the First Amendment. The short-sighted may see Mr. Obama's 1st Amendment challenge
as a botch politically, an election year goof that's going to cost Democrats in November. That may well be,
but that estimate fails to appreciate that the president and the left aren't about one election; they're about
radically altering the nation — its morality, society, culture, and adherence to faith. That's a
long-term project, with its beginnings in the early 20th century.
Democrats
sneak Uncle Sam into your bedroom. Under the sweeping powers of Obamacare, Health and Human Services
Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is empowered to reach into our churches and direct how they will practice their religion.
Yawn. Just another day under President Obama's authoritarian regime.
Obama
Says Accusations of Waging War on Religion are "Puzzling". President Obama when asked about the
attacks from conservatives that he is waging a "war on religion" said that he finds it "puzzling," particularly
because of his first job as a community organizer in Chicago, working with churches where he says he spread the
"social gospel."
The Sebelius savings plan.
There's something perverse about a government $15.5 trillion in the red espousing a strategy to "save money" by
discouraging the birth of human beings. That's what Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius is
advocating through the implementation of President Obama's contraception mandate.
Carney to
bishops: Birth control decision is final. On Feb. 10 Obama announced a new regulation that
forces religious groups to financially support activities they abhor, but that the government supports.
In particular, the president directed religious organizations to provide insurance policies that offer free
contraceptives. But "government has no place defining religion and religious ministry," said the Mar. 14
statement by the top-level administrative committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
US Conference of Catholic Bishops
Fights Obama War on Religion. Yesterday [3/14/2012], the Administrative Committee of the US Conference
of Catholic Bishops issued a public statement denouncing what it called "an unwarranted government definition of
religion." The Conference spelled out what the debate over President Obama's birth control mandate is about.
If our government
can do this, what can they not do? It's always fascinating when people on either side of a partisan
divide give each other gifts. Case in point: President Obama's approval of a rule ordering Catholic
institutions to offer insurance policies covering birth control, sterilization procedures and the morning after
pill — all contrary to church teachings. No one has fully explained why Obama took this step.
Obama and People of Faith.
In his hubris and haste, the president has tipped his hand, showing all Americans of faith just where their free exercise
of religion stands in Obama's imperious new world.
Bristol calls Obama out. Unable to
run for re-election on his pathetic record of spending $5 trillion more than we have, of the worst unemployment in
30 years and the loss of not one but now two wars, President Obama must divert attention from his sorry
presidency. He embraced Rush Limbaugh's calling a 30-year-old anti-Catholic campaigner a "slut." Bristol
Palin who has been called worse called Obama on it.
Hellfire
and Brimstone Straight From the Pulpit. The announcement in January by the Obama Administration that as part of
ObamaCare all employer provided healthcare insurance policies — even those of religious organizations — would
have to provide contraception, sterilization, and even abortifacient drugs awoke a fervor among people of faith, particularly
Catholic clerics, that had been virtually silent for at least two generations.
Obama's
War on Catholic Church Began at His First Job. One of the least explored periods of Barack Obama's life is the period
between his graduation from Columbia University in 1983 and his arrival at Harvard Law School in 1988. This was a crucial,
formative time for the young Obama. It was during these years that Barack Obama, "community organizer," forged his identity
and the relationships that would bring him to the White House. And he did so hand-in-hand with the radical Catholic left in
Chicago.
Church, Sex, and Society. The
Church's present weakness hasn't escaped the Obama administration. It is cynically exploiting the disconnect between
the Church's teaching and a voting bloc called "Catholic," thereby freezing and isolating Church leadership and others who
recognize the wisdom behind the Church's teaching.
Bishop:
Obama following path of Hitler and Stalin. In a homily delivered Saturday [4/14/2012], Bishop Daniel R.
Jenky of the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois challenged President Obama's HHS mandate, suggesting that the president was
following the same path as Hitler and Stalin. "Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate
some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health
care," Jenky said. "In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama — with his radical, pro
abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path," Jenky added.
Will Obama
Fine Catholic Institutions Into Oblivion? "You don't want to buy it, fine. We'll fine
you into oblivion." That, says a lawyer representing a number of Catholic institutions, is what the
Obama administration will say to his clients if the federal courts do not strike down a regulation the
administration has issued that requires all health insurance plans to cover sterilizations and artificial
contraceptives, including those that induce abortions.
Predictably...
Protest
by Catholic activists may hamper Obama reelection bid. President Obama has seen his standing among Catholic voters, a crucial
segment of the electorate, slip in recent weeks, and a looming confrontation with Catholic activists could make it worse.
Catholic Bishops Take on Obama. The United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops has taken a bold stand for religious freedom. In a recent statement, titled "Our First, Most Cherished Liberty," the
bishops call for repeal of contraception coverage mandated by the Department of Health and Human Services. The clarified position sets up a dramatic
confrontation with the Obama administration — and would, if the bishops prevail, help preserve the religious liberty of all Americans.
Sebelius
Admits She Never Consulted the Constitution or Legal Precedent on the Abortifacient Mandate. Watch the video, which is from hearings earlier
today [4/26/2012]. Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina asks the HHS secretary a simple question: When you say that you weighed the balance of the
Constitution versus the administration's contraceptive mandate, what did you mean by that? It turns out that she meant nothing at all by that.
"Balance" is just a word that sounded good. She did not look into past Supreme Court cases regarding religious liberty. She did not look at any
case law at all. She did not even have any sort of legal memo drafted to back up the mandate.
Sex, Lies, and School Bus Rides.
Catholics have always offered a fatter target than, say, Methodists. So no one should be surprised that when Obama took a stab
at religion he chose anti-Catholicism as the fire-hardened tip of his spear. He's simply following the lead of progressive
ideologues, among them Supreme Court justices, who have channeled anti-Catholic bigotry to advance a big-government, secularist
agenda.
Barack Obama: Tearing Catholics to
Pieces. Real leaders build up. Barack Obama tears down. It's what he does. Perhaps I am biased, but
I find the president's goal of splitting Catholics
over their own teaching one of the worst of his divisive offenses.
Cardinal Dolan, Cardinal Wuerl,
Notre Dame Sue Obama Administration. The Archdiocese of New York, headed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., headed by
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the University of Notre Dame, and 40 other Catholic dioceses and organizations around the country announced on Monday [5/21/2012] that
they are suing the Obama administration for violating their freedom of religion, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Why the Bishops Are Suing the U.S. Government .
The main goal of the mandate is not, as HHS claimed, to protect women's health. It is rather a move to conscript religious organizations into a
political agenda, forcing them to facilitate and fund services that violate their beliefs, within their own institutions. The media have implied
all along that the dispute is mainly of concern to a Catholic minority with peculiar views about human sexuality. But religious leaders of all
faiths have been quick to see that what is involved is a flagrant violation of religious freedom.
Dem-backed law may be downfall of Obama birth
control mandate. The biggest legal threat to the White House's birth control mandate could come from a decades-old law that was championed by
liberal Democrats, according to legal experts. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) has been mentioned in nearly all of the more than
30 lawsuits pending against President Obama's administration over the mandate.
Catholics won't go
quietly. Is it really part of Obama's battleground-state strategy to disassemble Franklin Roosevelt's Democratic coalition in the
middle of a tight reelection campaign? Did he think traditional Catholics would depart quietly? Well, they haven't. Forty-three
Catholic institutions, including the University of Notre Dame, Catholic University and the archdioceses of New York and Washington, filed suit
Monday [5/21/2012] in federal court to overturn the mandate.
43 Catholic institutions file suits over HHS mandate.
This is a critical moment for religious freedom in the US. If the federal government can define religious expression, then it can control or even outlaw it.
Obama's grand miscalculation with Catholics.
The news Monday that 43 different Catholic entities across the country are suing the Obama administration, in response to the Health and Human Services' rule
mandating employer health care coverage of contraception, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization, comes as a blow to the president's strength among
Catholics, a demographic that helped carry him to victory in 2008.
The Mandate War. [Scroll down] But the debate is
not only about religious institutions; it is about the rights of conscience of employers (Catholic or otherwise) whose convictions require them not to
include contraceptives, abortifacient drugs, and sterilizations in the health-insurance coverage they provide their employees. These men and women,
like the numerous Catholic entities (including dioceses and educational institutions) that are self-insuring, are all put in grave legal and moral peril
by the administration's intransigent determination to impose its concept of "reproductive health" on the entirety of American society — and to
force those who oppose that concept to provide the very means by which the concept is imposed.
Dolan: White House is "strangling" Catholic
church. The spat between Catholic leaders and the Obama administration over its contraception policies is heating up again, with one of the
nation's most prominent Catholic leaders charging that the White House is "strangling" the church over the matter.
Catholic
Institutions Sue To Restore Religious Freedom. Deciding not to go quietly into the secular night of ObamaCare, 43 Catholic
institutions have sued for the right to practice what they preach and they thought the Constitution already guaranteed them. The
43 institutions are situated in 16 jurisdictions from the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., to the University of Notre Dame.
Protecting
our Catholic conscience in the public square. The lawsuit is about religious freedom. As is the norm with such
laws, the HHS mandate includes an exemption for religious organizations. If the religious exemption in this case were reasonable,
there would have been no need for this lawsuit — after all, we are indeed "religious" under any sensible definition. But
this mandate's religious exemption is the narrowest ever adopted in federal law. For example, it doesn't include any organization
that serves the general public. So under this mandate, our Catholic hospitals, schools and social service programs, which serve
all comers, are not "Catholic enough" to be allowed to follow our Catholic beliefs.
Cheer, Cheer for Old Notre Dame. When President Barack Obama
appeared at Notre Dame in 2009 to accept an honorary law degree and deliver the university's commencement address, he did not dodge the
fact that he favored legalized abortion and that Notre Dame — and the Catholic Church to which it belongs — does
not. Obama went so far as to suggest that the wholesale state-sanctioned killing of innocent human beings in their mothers' wombs
was just one of those things that intelligent, well-educated people in a civilized society ought to be able to agreeably disagree about.
Catholic bishops strike
back. In January, the Obama administration hit Catholic employers with arguably the most religiously-oppressive
government directive in modern American history: Provide free abortion drugs and birth control pills in your health insurance
plans, in flagrant violation of your religious beliefs, or face legal punishment. This week the bishops of the Catholic
Church hit back. In one of the largest legal actions to defend religious liberty in U.S. history, Catholic organizations
filed a dozen lawsuits across the country claiming the Obama Health and Human Services Department rule violates the right to
religious freedom set forth in the U.S. Constitution.
Outrage
Over 72 Hours Of Network Silence On Catholic Lawsuit Spreads To Other Christian Leaders. Fury over the
ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts' continued refusal to report the lawsuits Catholic entities have filed against the
Obama administration has spread beyond the Media Research Center watchdog group and Catholic leaders to 11 additional
Christian leaders equally concerned about this decision to deliberately not report national news.
Jealous God Obama Attacks Rival
Religions. The University of Notre Dame conferred an honorary doctorate on Obama, despite his repeated, enthusiastic
votes for infanticide. At Obama's insistence, Georgetown agreed to cover up its cross when he spoke there, so its rival
sanctity would not distract from Dear Leader's divinity. And the Church used its influence to help ram through ObamaCare,
despite the obvious threats that this legal monstrosity posed to its most basic religious freedom. But now, with its
precedent-shattering lawsuit against the federal government, the Church has decided that no more of Obama's tyranny can be
borne. And 60 million Catholic Americans are now forced to choose: are they with Obama or with the Church?
White
House Unsure if Obama's For or Against Banning Sex-Selection Abortions. The White House does not yet know
whether President Barack Obama is for or against banning sex-selection abortions. Asked on Wednesday [5/30/2012]
about where the president stands on a bill proposed in the House that would ban abortions based on the gender of the
unborn child, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said he would have to check.
The Editor asks...
How could the chief White House spokesman
not know the answer to a question like this?
Catholics! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Fighting Obamacare is a hard job but somebody's got to do it. Today, Catholics are doing it. Their lawsuits will help protect
the First Amendment rights of all Americans. So, even if you're not a Catholic, you need to support this legal fight. And, if
you are a Catholic, prepare your shield, because you are marching into battle.
Catholic bishops say fight with
Obama is over freedom of religion. Stung by criticism that they are engaging in partisan attacks in a presidential campaign,
the nation's Roman Catholic bishops insisted Wednesday [6/13/2012] that their fight with President Obama has nothing to do with party politics or
contraception, and everything to do with what they see as a fundamental assault on religious liberty. The bishops did not shrink
from attacking the administration in a dispute that has become their signature issue, one involving what Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton
called "the most serious intrusion of government that we have ever experienced."
Obama ignites Catholic backlash over
mandate. With prayer and calls to Congress, Catholics are mounting a massive 14-day campaign to force the administration to withdraw
its health care mandate on religious institutions.
Rep. Steve King Says Obama Is Governing Like a 'King'.
Pointing to the Health and Human Services regulation that will require virtually all health care plans to cover sterilization, artificial contraception
and abortifacients for free, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said that President Barack Obama is governing like a "king."
Preserving Our Pledge of Allegiance.
[Scroll down] The president's goal, executed through his HHS contraception edict, of splitting Catholics
over their own teaching
is one of the worst of his divisive offenses. As just a crass political move, the sowing of such discord is a manipulative, inappropriate,
and awful use of the office of the president of the United States.
I Called the DOJ Today — So Should You!
You see, it was all over the news yesterday that the DOJ had set up a special hotline number and an email address to report potential civil rights
violations by the government! [...] No. I am not an illegal alien. But if the government has its way, I am soon to be an illegal Catholic.
This because I refuse to be intimidated by and to comply with government agencies that try to force me to buy things the violate my religious beliefs.
Religious Freedom Under the Gun.
The State Department recently announced that it was dropping coverage of religious freedom from its annual Human Rights Report.
The declared reason: to avoid duplicating coverage available in the annual Report on International Religious Freedom.
There may be other reasons. Given the Obama administration's consistent downgrading of religious freedom at home and in foreign
policy, this move may be part of a larger reprioritization in human rights policy in favor of the advancement of lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender rights.
President Obama Promotes a Catholic
Schism. A note in last week's collection basket explained the parishioner's offering was going to the Obama re-election
campaign instead of to God. It's a true story from a local Roman Catholic Parish and I expect it isn't isolated. In a
human moment the priest delivering the homily assured us God wasn't likely intimidated by President Obama's sudden windfall.
The Obama campaign could surely already afford to "go negative" when it comes to the Almighty. Perhaps a note of reply could
be sent to the liberal parishioner: God is undefeated.
Phyllis Schlafly: For Obama, 'no higher
power' than government. Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly told a group of reporters at the Heritage Foundation Tuesday [7/24/2012]
that President Barack Obama believes that loyalty to government trumps even loyalty to God. She cited the mandates set forth by the Affordable
Care Act and the repeal of the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy as two examples of where she said the president has put government ahead of
the institution of religion. "He seems to want to get rid of religion in any public place — a public school, or a public
institution — and to keep it behind the four walls of your own church," Schlafly said.
Another Obamacare Mandate Runs Afoul of the Courts.
If the supporters of Obamacare thought its legal troubles were over after the recent Supreme Court ruling, they learned otherwise last
week. [...] Still, it is significant because it is the first such order against the contraception mandate and it protects a family-run
enterprise whose owners merely seek to operate their company in a way that reflects their religious beliefs.
Pelosi's New
Archbishop Warns: America Could Be Moving Toward 'Despotism'. Recent government attacks on religious liberty have
made him fear the United States might be headed toward "despotism," the newly appointed archbishop of San Francisco — a
city represented by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — warned in a recent speech. "When I saw what was happening
and my eyes were opened, it made me fear that we could be starting to move in the direction of license and despotism," the
Most Reverend Salvatore J. Cordileone said at a May 24 conference on religious liberty at the Ethics in Public
Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
Obamacare
Now Forces Some Americans to Violate Their Religious Beliefs. Today [8/1/2012] is the day when the Obamacare
mandate forcing employer-provided health insurance plans to provide "free" abortion pills, contraception, and sterilizations
kicks in. Most religious charities, hospitals, and universities have been granted a one-year reprieve from the mandate.
"In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences," as Cardinal Timothy Dolan put it
in January when the administration decided there would be no exception for religious institutions that employ or minister to
people other than coreligionists.
Obama's Coercive Secular State. The
absence of free contraceptives, abortifacients, STD testing, and sterilizations, among other Sebelius-decreed "essential" services,
constitutes a "war on women," says President Obama. "It's a scary time to be a woman," warbles a stooge in one of his campaign
ads. Obama's arrogance is bottomless. Even as he violates the freedom of the religious — reducing them to the
status of serfs in his planned secularist and socialist state — he has the gall to cast them as the victimizers.
Obama's Poison Pill. What does
back-to-school season have to do with the "contraception rule" from the White House? The very existence of some schools is threatened, now
that the Department of Health and Human Services' mandate for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs has gone into effect.
Hadley Heath, a senior policy analyst at the Independent Women's Forum, points to Pius X High School in Lincoln, Neb., which has sued the
federal government. The school's administrators are "arguing that Pius X would be forced to choose between compliance and shutting its
doors entirely," says Heath. "The Obama administration shouldn't be in the business of reducing choices for the 5-plus million students who
are currently attending religious K-12 schools."
Obama at Iftar Dinner: 'Of All Rights We Hold
Sacred, Foremost Is Freedom of Religion'. President Barack Obama — whose administration is being sued by multiple Catholic dioceses,
universities, charities and family-owned businesses for violating their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion — told a group of
Muslims dining at the White House on Friday [8/10/2012] that freedom of religion is "foremost" among the God-given rights of man and that he intends to defend it
both within the United States and abroad.
More
about Obama and the Muslims.
Baptists vs. Sebelius. Last week, the Obama administration
did it again. In a new bulletin, the Department of Health and Human Services implied that there are more faith-based entities who can apply for a "safe harbor"
from its controversial "contraception" mandate. "Every time the administration opens its mouth it changes its rules to attack religious freedom in a different
way," Matt Bowman, a lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom says of the bulletin. "Washington bureaucrats have no business continually picking and choosing
what faith is and who is allowed to practice faith," he continues.
Obama's dark side. At the root of liberalism's empty sentiments is the
reality that the state can't control an uncertain world and solve all of our problems. At some point, a higher power comes into play. That's why our
money has "In God We Trust" stamped on it. Instead of embracing the moral foundation of America, the Obama government is pursuing all-out religious persecution.
The most direct threats at the moment are the provisions in Obamacare that force religious institutions to provide abortion, contraception and other services
against the dictates of their faith.
Obama
Catholic Support Cut In Half. In 2008 Barack Obama carried 54% of the Catholic vote. Today only 27% of Catholics support Obama.
There are over 77 million Catholics in the United States.
Trashing the Constitution.
Constitution Day is Monday, Sept. 17, so I compiled a non-exhaustive list of the ways Barack Obama has violated the Constitution. [...] [For
example,] Violating religious freedom. Mr. Obama's Department of Health and Human Services ignored the First Amendment by issuing a
Soviet-style order to Catholic and other faith-based institutions to violate their beliefs and provide insurance covering abortifacients,
contraceptives and sterilizations.
Excommunication Should Be the Church's Next Option.
Although I may not be the best Catholic I can be, at least I know my religion. It drives me crazy when politicians like Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen.
John Kerry, VP Joe Biden and Gov. Andrew Cuomo who consider themselves Roman Catholics express such ignorance of its dogma. I blame their pastors
for continuing to serve them in spite of their public heresy promoting issues that are against Church doctrine. But it is also very unnerving to
hear President Obama twist Christian ideology to suit his campaign rhetoric.
Catholic Ethicists: Immoral For Catholic
Business Owners to Obey Obamacare. The National Catholic Bioethics Center has published an analysis saying that it will be immoral for
a Catholic who owns a private business to purchase health insurance for his or her workers under Obamacare and its implementing regulations —
which mandate that insurance plans bought by businesses and individuals must cover sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved
contraceptives, including those that can cause abortions.
Catholic
group: Federal agency violates religious freedom of colleges. A Catholic education group alleges that a federal
agency has interfered in labor relations between Catholic universities and their faculty, jeopardizing religious liberty.
Recently, the National Labor Relations Board forced one of the schools, Duquesne University, to hold a vote on allowing faculty
to unionize — in violation of the First Amendment, according to Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman
Society. "What the Supreme Court has said is the very fact of the NLRB getting involved in these personnel issues is going to
entangle the NLRB, a federal agency, in religious issues," Reilly said in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Attacking the church of the Left. Mass-attending
Catholics rightly perceive that President Obama launched a direct attack on their church. Their bishops have informed them. Evangelicals and
other people of faith have mobilized to support Catholics against the Obamacare regulations that will oblige Catholic hospitals, schools and human welfare
agencies to close rather than provide the morning-after pill, sterilization, and other drugs and procedures prohibited by Catholic doctrine.
Catholics are angry, and they will vote that anger in key swing states like Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, Virginia, Iowa and Colorado.
Black Christians: Shame! Shame! Shame!
Massive governmental controls hidden in ObamaCare include forcing Christian institutions to fund abortion services against the teachings of their
faith. Think about that: the federal government demanding that Christians betray their biblical beliefs. Forty Catholic groups are
fighting back by suing the Obama administration.
Joe Biden, 'Practicing Catholic'. Like many
liberals, whether it's a game of constitutional Twister or flexible religious creed, Joe fashions his faith to accommodate his personal beliefs.
Therefore, the vice president and the enthusiastically pro-abortion Barack Obama both feel comfortable calling themselves Christian. Mr.
Biden identifies with Roman Catholicism but doesn't let that identity get in the way of his support of policy that directly contradicts church
teaching on the sanctity of life.
Catholic Bishops Call Biden A Liar On
ObamaCare. The leaders of the vice president's church are calling him out for denying the Affordable Care Act's threat to religious liberty and
the institutions that provide needed social services.
In new ad, Biden boasts he is a 'practicing
Catholic'. In a new ad for 'Catholics for Obama,' Vice President Joe Biden boasts he is a "practicing Catholic" and explains that Obama's
platform matches his understanding of Catholic doctrine.
Judge backs
Catholic firm over contraception mandate. A Catholic-owned family business in Michigan does not have to comply
with the provision of the new U.S. healthcare law that requires private employers to provide employees with health insurance
that covers birth control, a federal judge in Detroit has ruled.
Catholic Bishop: Joe Biden 'Ought
Not to Be Receiving Communion'. Roman Catholic Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs, who holds a Doctorate in Sacred
Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, says that Vice President Joe Biden should know that he ought
not to receive communion.
Obama's Unprecedented Collapse Among
Catholic Voters Puts Midwest in Play. Yesterday [10/31/2012], the Romney campaign told reporters that it expected to win at least some of
the "blue states" in which it is now competing with Obama in the Midwest, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The
campaign did not give a specific reason for its optimism, but one thing these states have in common is a high proportion of Catholic
voters. And Catholic voters have shifted dramatically towards Mitt Romney.
Green Bay Bishop Warns "Cafeteria"
Catholics. Bishop David Ricken of the Catholic Diocese in Green Bay, Wisconsin has been roundly criticized for
saying in a letter to his flock, that they could jeopardize their souls by voting for pro-abortion political candidates, as
well as other issues considered non-negotiable aspects of faith. Ricken, along with other Roman Catholic bishops across
the U.S.A., are taking a stand against political positions that are characterized as intrinsically evil. Far from imposing
a theocracy on society, Bishop Ricken is connecting the dots that have been obscured under the iron boot of ridicule and political
correctness. Ricken spells out that it is dangerously hypocritical for individuals to compartmentalize between political
and moral issues.
Obama Appeases Muslims, Offends Catholics.
While Obama thinks we should bend over backwards for Islamism to practice whatever 7th century idiocy it imposes, including female mutilation and
Sharia Law, which judges the testimony of a woman half as worthy as that of a man, he imposes policy that offends and curtails the ability of Catholics
to practice their religion as they see fit.
Obama: Snuffing out religious freedom.
The liberal assault on religious freedom paints a target on the backs of all people of faith. The 2012 election presents a stark choice between
pro-life candidates and those who support the murder of the unborn and who believe government dictates should rule over the minds, hearts and souls
of Americans.
Re-elected, Obama takes aim at religious liberty. As an old saw has it, "your
right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose." The Obama administration says your right to live as a Christian ends if you go into business.
Democrats are crowing about a second Obama term, and the Left's culture-war troops are emboldened by their trouncing of social conservatives.
Religious conservatives need to plant their spears and brace for the coming federal assault on religious liberty.
Catholic bishops pledge defiance on
HHS mandate. If the Obama administration hoped that the election results and the narrow split in Barack Obama's favor among
Catholic voters would force the US Conference of Catholic Bishops into retreat on the HHS contraception mandate, the USCCB's unity
yesterday [11/13/2012] had to be a bit disappointing.
Conference
of Catholic Bishops on HHS Mandate: We Will 'Not Obey What We Consider to Be Immoral'. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of
the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, says the Roman Catholic Church will continue to resist the Obama administration requirement that
religiously affiliated hospitals, charities and colleges provide health insurance covering sterilization, contraception and abortifacients.
Disobey The Mandate. The requirement of the Health & Human
Services mandate to force employers to provide insurance coverage for birth control and abortions — without question — violates the conscience
and deeply held beliefs of committed Christians and pro-life voters. The administration, assuming they have a "mandate," believe now is the time to enforce THE
mandate. Never mind that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops felt so assaulted by the requirement that they hauled the Obama administration into
court. Never mind that dozens of additional faith-based institutions have joined the cause. Never mind that President Obama's most loyal base —
African American church goers — violently disagree with the plank, the administration presses ahead.
White House Thanksgiving ceremony:
Barack Obama's open mockery of the Sign of the Cross. Obama, who is
left-handed, made the sign of the cross with his left hand, which out of respect for the centuries-long Christian practice, no one ever does. [...] Obama
departed from the usual "presidential pardon" granting the turkey a "special dispensation" in words as he twice made his left-handed Sign of the Cross.
There were lots of giggles from the two Obama daughters and lots of gobbling from the turkey recorded during the ceremony now on YouTube.
Dividing Catholics
from their church. "Catholicism teaches that it is a sin to use, provide, or otherwise support contraception." These
words are not from the Catholic Catechism or a sermon by a Catholic bishop. They are excerpted from the preliminary injunction U.S.
District Judge Robert H. Cleland issued last month. [...] The judge stated the Catholic teaching on contraception as an undisputed
fact of the case Weingartz v. Sebelius. The Obama administration is not arguing that the Catholic Church does not actually teach
this, but rather that the administration has the authority to tell Americans they can no longer practice Catholicism.
New York Judge Slaps
Down Obama Justice Department. The Obama administration has been consistently arguing, since announcing a year's grace period for some
religious organizations to figure out how to violate their consciences and obey the HHS mandate, that the controversy over religious freedom and the
mandate is over and the Catholics are happy. That, as has been pointed out here before, ignores all the lawsuits pending. And that they
are not just from Catholics.
Obamacare
could drive Little Sisters of the Poor out of the US. A religious order of nuns is concerned about its future
presence in the United States because of Obamacare's impact on its charitable operations. The Little Sisters of the Poor
told The Daily Caller that it may not qualify for a long-term exemption from Obamacare's healthcare mandate. The law
requires the order to provide government-approved health insurance to its 300 sisters who tend to the elderly in 30 U.S. cities.
Can Little Sisters Be Saved From ObamaCare?
A federal appeals court has reinstated lawsuits from two religious colleges against the HHS contraception mandate, saying promises to rework it aren't enough.
Can a group of nuns helping the poor be protected?
Bishops won't be Obama's pawn.
Good for the Catholic bishops. About a week ago, with much fanfare, Team Obama announced a "compromise" to the contraceptive mandate it aims to impose
on employers. Thursday [2/7/2013], the bishops said they've seen the offer and it doesn't amount to much: The administration's highly restrictive
view of what qualifies as a religious ministry still puts Catholic universities, charities and hospitals at risk.
Bishops to Administration: You Can't
Force Lay Catholics to Act Against Faith. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement
on Thursday [2/7/2013] signaling to the Obama Administration that the bishops will not make a separate deal to exempt Catholic institutions from an Obamacare mandate
that requires health-care plans to cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs that leaves lay Catholic business owners and individual employees
still subject to the mandate.
Catholic Bishops To Obama — See Ya In
Court. Catholic bishops reject the Obamacare iteration on forced contraceptive coverage.
America's new government-imposed religion.
Catholic adoption agencies have been forced to close their doors in Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., because their religious beliefs about marriage
were deemed unacceptable by their jurisdictions. A graduate student in Michigan was expelled from a counseling program because her religious beliefs about
marriage were deemed unacceptable by school officials. Christian pharmacists in Illinois were told to find other professions because their religious beliefs
regarding when life begins were deemed unacceptable by the state.
Pro-Abort
Biden on Election of Pope: 'Catholic Church Plays an Essential Role in My Life'. After the election of Pope Francis I
on Wednesday [3/13/2013], Vice President Joe Biden issued a statement talking about the importance of Catholicism to him personally
and how much he is looking forward to working with the pope. As vice president, Biden has advanced causes directly contrary to the
teachings of the Catholic Church — favoring, for example, the legalized killing of children in the womb and legalized
same-sex marriage.
Outsourcing the Poor. [Scroll down]
Meanwhile, secular liberals, opinion leaders, and the news media want to remove the Catholic Church as a moral obstacle to abortion,
homosexual marriage, and other liberal goals. They embrace Islam, although Muslims also oppose abortion, homosexuality and homosexual
marriage. They oppose the Catholic Church because Catholics oppose abortion, homosexuality, and homosexual marriage. Thinking
things through has never been a liberal strength.
Catholic Bishops
to GOP House: Repeal Obamacare Reg in CR or Other 'Must-Pass' Bill. The Catholic bishops of the United States are asking the
Republican-controlled House of Representatives to do something concrete and effective — rather than merely symbolic — to repeal a
regulation the administration has issued under Obamacare that will force Catholics and other Christians to act against their faith in
purchasing or providing health-care plans that cover sterilizations, contraceptives, and abortion-inducing drugs.
Somewhat related:
State
Dept. 'Would Take Very Seriously' Request to Monitor Papal Elections. The State Department said on Friday [3/15/2013] that
the U.S. government "would take very seriously" a request from the Organization for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) that
it monitor the papal election in the Vatican. Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said she did some "digging" on this issue following
Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee's question on Thursday regarding whether the Obama administration believed that the election of Pope
Francis had met international standards.
An Extreme Position on Extremism. The Defense
Department came under fire Thursday [4/4/2013] for a U.S. Army Reserve presentation that classified Catholics and Evangelical Protestants
as "extremist" religious groups alongside al Qaeda and the Ku Klux Klan. The presentation detailed a number of extremist threats
within the U.S. military, including white supremacist groups, street gangs, and religious sects.
Army Labeled
Evangelicals as Religious Extremists. A U.S. Army training instructor listed Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism
as examples of religious extremism along with Al Qaeda and Hamas during a briefing with an Army Reserve unit based in Pennsylvania, Fox
News has learned. "We find this offensive to have Evangelical Christians and the Catholic Church to be listed among known terrorist
groups," said Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty. "It is dishonorable for any U.S.
military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterization."
White House fights Catholic Church
subpoena on birth control. The Obama administration has gone to court to try to block a subpoena from the Roman Catholic
Archdiocese of New York seeking White House documents about the government's requirement of insurance coverage for birth control.
Don't Fire Until You See The
Whites of Their Cassocks. When I first saw the headline, I assumed it must all be a little less obviously bone-crushingly stupid or at
any rate more nuanced once you got into the story. But I invite you to look at the accompanying poster for the Equal Opportunity training brief
issued by the Army Reserve in Pennsylvania. It lists "extremist" groups, starting with "Evangelical Christianity" at Number One, "Al
Quaeda" (misspelled under any Roman rendering of Arabic) at Number Five, "Hamas" at Six, and "Catholicism" rounding out the Top Ten.
Somewhat related:
Thou Shalt Not be Catholic.
It was prescience, not paranoia, that prompted some social commentators to predict that gay activism would become the principle threat to religious
freedoms in America. A recent incident at George Washington University provides the latest confirmation. In 2010, the University of
Illinois fired a Catholic professor who taught courses on Catholicism in the school's religion department after a student accused him of hate speech
because the professor affirmed what the Catholic Church taught about homosexual practice.
German home-schooling family fights to stay in US.
While the White House and many lawmakers push to grant legal status to immigrants who crossed the border illegally, the Romeike family thought they followed the
rules — but now face deportation. They are devout Catholics who emigrated from Germany in 2008 to home school their six children in Tennessee.
As Uwe Romeike told Fox News, it is illegal to do that in Germany.
The Editor says...
The government allows millions of unwelcome people to sneak across the Mexican border, then rewards them with food stamps. The Romeike family came to America
seeking freedom, and Barack H. Obama and his evil minions want to throw them back over the fence. This is just one more anti-Catholic decision Obama has
made, and there will be many more.
Noted
Catholic Scholar Claims IRS Audit Triggered by Criticism of Obama. Anne Hendershott, an eloquent opponent of the Obama administration,
states that she has reason to believe she was targeted by the IRS for an audit following publications that were critical of President Obama and
Catholics who supported him.
More
about the use of the IRS as a weapon.
This is an original
compilation, Copyright © 2013 by Andrew K. Dart
Obama vs Weingartz Supply:
Religious freedom is fine as
long as it stays in church. [Scroll down] Well, listen to what Obama administration attorneys argued in a federal court in
Michigan last month. According to them, a private business that isn't obviously a religious organization has no right to exercise
religious freedom. The case was brought against the Affordable Care Act by the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of Legatus, the nation's
largest organization of Catholic business leaders, as well as Weingartz Supply, a family-owned business that sells and services outdoor power
equipment. The plaintiffs, who have a moral objection to abortion, objected to being ordered by the federal government to provide
abortifacients for their employees as part of the health-care mandate.
Obama
Admin Argues Gov Can Violate Religious Beliefs. Some private companies are claiming the HHS contraception mandate is a
denial of their First Amendment rights. In response to dozens of lawsuits brought against the Obama administration the mandate, the
Department of Justice has argued two points that have stunned constitutional experts. A case was brought earlier this month by the
Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) on behalf of Legatus, the nation's largest organization of Catholic business leaders, and by Weingartz
Supply, an outdoor power equipment company.
Obama vs Hercules Industries:
This Denver
Family Is Not Entitled to Religious Freedom, Obama's DOJ Argues. As the president of the United States was asserting his support for
religious freedom at the United Nations Tuesday [9/25/2012], his Department of Justice was filing an appeal in the case of the Newland family of Denver,
who were granted a preliminary injunction in July to protect their Hercules HVAC business — for now — from the Department of Health
and Human Services abortion-drug, sterilization, contraception mandate. DOJ argues that when the Newlands lost their religious liberty when they
made the free decision to enter the "the marketplace of commerce." That is not exactly the "unwavering support" for religious liberty President
Obama claims.
DOJ: Family Can't Run Their
Business as Catholics. William, Paul and James Newland and their sister, Christine Ketterhagen, who together own Hercules Industries,
have no right to conduct their family business in a manner that comports with their Catholic faith. The federal government can and will compel
them to either surrender their business or to engage in activities the Catholic faith teaches are intrinsically immoral. This is exactly what
President Barack Obama's Justice Department told a U.S. district court in a formal filing last week.
Catholic business
owners score win against ObamaCare mandate. The Catholic family that owns a Colorado-based company won a court victory in their battle
to stop the Obama administration from requiring them to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception, a
mandate they say violates their religious beliefs and First Amendment rights. Hercules Industries, a Denver-based heating ventilation and air
conditioning manufacturer that employs nearly 300 full-time workers, got an injunction in federal court which stops enforcement of the
controversial ObamaCare mandate.
A Religious Freedom Election.
William Newland and his siblings, self-insuring owners of Hercules Industries, a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning
manufacturing company, did not appreciate being ordered by the federal government to violate the precepts of their Catholic faith.
With the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom, the family members and their business (an S corporation in Colorado) sued,
claiming (in addition to constitutional arguments) that the free birth control rule violates their rights under the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act (RFRA).
Catholic
business owners score win against ObamaCare mandate. The Catholic family that owns a Colorado-based company won a court victory
in their battle to stop the Obama administration from requiring them to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization
and contraception, a mandate they say violates their religious beliefs and First Amendment rights.
Hercules shows strength, halts Obama abortion pill mandate. A federal court
issued an order Friday [7/27/2012] that halts enforcement of the Obama administration's abortion pill mandate against a Colorado family-owned business
while an Alliance Defending Freedom lawsuit challenging the mandate continues in court. The mandate forces employers, regardless of their
religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy
penalties.
Federal court allows company to ignore
birth-control mandate. A federal court said Friday [7/27/2012] that a Colorado-based company does not have to comply with the Obama
administration's birth-control mandate because of the employer's religious beliefs. Several businesses and religious groups have sued over the
policy, which requires most employers to provide contraception coverage in their healthcare plans. Friday's temporary injunction is the first
time a court has ruled against the policy.
Judge blocks contraception
mandate in religious liberty lawsuit. A federal judge in Colorado relieved a private company owned by Roman Catholics of the requirement
to provide employees with contraception, pending further litigation of the contraception mandate. "A preliminary injunction is an extraordinary
remedy; accordingly, the right to relief must be clear and unequivocal," Judge John Kane — an appointee of President Jimmy Carter's —
wrote as he explained his order today. "On balance, the threatened harm to Plaintiffs, impingement of their right to freely exercise their
religious beliefs, and the concommittant public interest in that right s[t]rongly favor the entry of injunctive relief."
DOJ to Colorado Family: Give Up Your Religion or
Your Business. The Justice Department last week presented the Newland family of Colorado — who own Hercules Industries, a
heating, ventilation and air-conditioning business — with what amounted to an ultimatum: Give up your religion or your business.
"Hercules Industries has 'made no showing of a religious belief which requires that [it] engage in the [HVAC] business," the Justice Department said
in a formal filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.
Obama vs Hobby Lobby:
Hobby Lobby sues over
morning-after pill coverage. Christian-oriented Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday [9/12/2012]
challenging a mandate in the nation's health care overhaul law that requires employers to provide coverage for the morning-after
pill and similar drugs.
A New Front for Religious Liberty. An arts and
crafts business with more than 500 stores across the country launched a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services' (HHS) implementation of Obamacare's contraceptive mandate Wednesday [9/12/2012], the Becket Fund announced.
Hobby Lobby is the first non-Catholic business to file a lawsuit objecting to the mandated coverage of certain contraceptive
drugs that it considers abortion inducing.
Hobby Lobby sues over HHS mandate.
The largest business yet, a Christian-owned and operated 500-store chain of arts and crafts retail stores, filed a lawsuit Sept. 12
against the Obama administration's rule requiring employers to provide without co-pay abortion-inducing drugs coverage in its health
care insurance plan. David Green, the founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby said, "By being required to make a choice between sacrificing
our faith or paying millions of dollars in fines, we essentially must choose which poison pill to swallow." The lawsuit was filed
in the federal District Court of Western Oklahoma.
Supreme Court
won't block Obama health law's contraception mandate. The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to block the Obama administration's
contraception mandate from taking effect. Justice Sonia Sotomayor rejected a request for an emergency injunction that would have shielded
employers from the mandate.
Sotomayor says no to Hobby Lobby
request to block contraceptive mandate. Attorneys for the government claim the drugs do not cause abortions and that the United States has
a compelling interest in mandating insurance coverage for them.
Supreme
Court Refuses Hobby Lobby Contraception Mandate Request. The U.S. Supreme Court has refused a request by national retailer Hobby
Lobby for an emergency injunction to block implementation of the Department of Health and Human Services' contraception mandate, an element of
President Obama's notorious Affordable Healthcare Act that requires employers to provide their workers with free access to birth control,
including contraceptive drugs known to induce abortion.
Supreme Court denies
emergency injunction in contraception case. The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday [12/26/2012] denied Hobby Lobby's request for an
emergency injunction to block the health reform law's contraceptive coverage requirements and said it will not decide the case before lower
courts have ruled.
Hobby Lobby faces millions in fines
for bucking Obamacare. Craft store giant Hobby Lobby is bracing for a $1.3 million a day fine beginning January 1 for
noncompliance with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare.
Hobby
Lobby Defies Obama Administration with Civil Disobedience for Religious Liberty. Now that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has denied
Hobby Lobby's application for an emergency injunction protecting them from Obamacare's HHS Mandate on abortion and birth control, Hobby Lobby has
decided to defy the federal government to remain true to their religious beliefs, at enormous risk and financial cost.
Michelle Malkin: We need to
support Hobby Lobby for fighting against Obamacare. Malkin says we should make an effort to support them since they are on the front lines
fighting against this illegal Obamacare mandate.
The Seventh
Circuit Blocks the HHS Mandate for a Private Business. Late yesterday afternoon [12/28/2012], the Seventh Circuit granted an
emergency injunction against the HHS mandate — preventing its enforcement against an Illinois business and its owners. My
colleagues at the ACLJ represent Korte & Luitjohan Contractors, Inc., a family-owned, full-service construction contractor. The company
is located in Highland, Ill., and employs about 90 workers. The brief opinion is worth a read in its entirety, but two parts stand
out. First, the court disagreed with the Tenth Circuit's recent decision rejecting Hobby Lobby's request for a similar injunction.
Hobby Lobby and
the Loss of America's Soul. Currently, Hobby Lobby is the largest religiously-owned non-Catholic business
to have filed a lawsuit against the HHS birth control directive. Yet, despite the fact that they've been founded
and run on Christian principles, Oklahoma U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton ruled that Hobby Lobby and Mardel are not religious
organizations and therefore subject to the federal birth control dictate.
Hobby
Lobby CEO open letter: "Honoring God is more important than turning a profit". It's worth pointing out that the mandate
doesn't exempt actual religious organizations either, such as Catholic charities, Presbyterian hospitals, Lutheran schools, and so on.
Why? That's the crux of the issue: the Obama administration is attempting to redefine religious expression to only those
activities which take place within the four walls of a place of worship, or those activities restricted only to those of a single faith.
That means that Catholic hospitals would qualify only if they refused to treat and employ any non-Catholics, for instance. Can
you imagine those lawsuits?
Hobby Lobby postpones fines
despite Supreme Court ruling. Hobby Lobby executives announced last week they found a temporary reprieve from the fines the
company faces for defying the government's mandate to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs. Despite the
Dec. 26 decision by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who ruled the popular arts and crafts retail chain must comply
with the requirement or face financial penalties starting Jan. 1, Hobby Lobby will have a few more months to fight for its
rights, fine-free.
All but over. [Scroll down] Hobby Lobby asked the
administration and the courts to delay any fines (estimated at $1.3 million per day) until the appropriate courts could hear its
appeal. But Hobby Lobby's request was immediately and robustly denied. If all this is not a blatant denial of an American
citizen's freedom to exercise his or her deeply held religious beliefs, it's hard to imagine what the federal government might do to be
offensive. The Constitution couldn't be clearer. It doesn't clutter the landscape with possible exceptions. It says
bluntly and succinctly that neither Obamacare nor any bureaucrat spouting forth an "executive action" may include any provision that
restricts the free exercise of someone's religious beliefs.
For-Profit
Businesses Have Right to Religious Liberty Too, Lawmakers Tell Court in Hobby Lobby Case. Republican
members of Congress have weighed in on the legal battle being waged over the Obamacare mandate requiring employers
to provide contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs to employees. Eleven senators and congressmen filed an
amicus brief, also known as a friend-of-the-court brief, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit on Tuesday
[2/19/2013] in support of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a Christian-owned and operated corporation that opposes the mandate
based on its owners' religious beliefs. Hobby Lobby filed suit against Health and Human Services and Secretary
Kathleen Sebelius.
US appeals court grants
Hobby Lobby full hearing. A federal appeals court has granted Hobby Lobby's request for the entire court to hear its
challenge of a federal requirement that it provide insurance coverage for the morning-after pill and similar emergency contraceptives.
Obama's position on abortion casts doubt on his claims of Christianity.
There is another
nearby page on which abundant empirical
evidence is offered to contradict Barack Obama's claim to be a Christian. In my opinion, no Christian would
support the practice of fetal homicide, yet Obama seems almost enthusiastic about it.
Obama
Praises Planned Parenthood In Video Message To Supporters. "For you and for most Americans, protecting women's
health is a mission that stands above politics," President Obama says in a video message to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
Obama's Views Not Consistent With
Christianity, Conservative Says. Americans should question Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) commitment
to Christianity based on his "disregard" for unborn life, well-known black conservative author and activist
Star Parker said. "Based on his disregard and disrespect for human life, we should question his
insistence that he's a Christian. It is inconsistent with the biblical world view to think that not
only is abortion okay, but he goes so far as to support partial-birth abortion," Parker told CNSNews.com in
an interview.
Obama: Premature Babies Aren't
People. On the federal level a similar bill passed 98-0 garnering a yea vote from pro-abortion
stalwart Barbara Boxer. But back in Illinois, Barack Obama had problems with this type of legislation.
He spoke on the floor of the Illinois Senate in opposition to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act —
in fact, he was the only senator to do so. The following year he spoke against the born alive bill again.
As a rabid proponent of legalized abortion, Obama voted against the bill or worked for its defeat on three
separate occasions.
Obama
Lied About Abortion Record. Newly discovered documents from the Illinois state archives prove
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has lied about his opposition to legislation requiring health
officials to provide care to babies who survived abortion as an Illinois state senator. … Now there's
documentation showing Obama did vote against a version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act that contained
language to protect abortion rights identical to the bill that passed 98-0 in the U.S. Senate.
Influential Evangelical
Lobby Attacks Obama's Christian Credentials. [Scroll down] Obama's progressivism, however,
leads him to conclusions that are morally untenable, if not reprehensible, to Evangelicals and other
traditionalist Christians. He approves of same-sex romantic and sexual relationships, as do his
church, his pastor and his denomination. He supports abortion for any reason, by any method, at any
stage of pregnancy including during the birth process. In an E-mail under his wife Michelle's signature,
his campaign for US Senate championed Roe v. Wade and partial-birth abortion. In 2002 as an
Illinois legislator, Obama even voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act, which would have protected
babies that survived late-term abortion.
Obama's Christian
Creds Vs. Abortion and Infanticide: This, "I don't want them
punished with a baby," is
perhaps the most self-revelatory statement Barack Obama has uttered in public since he began his campaign
for the Presidency. … Because it goes to the personal. It goes to the extent of wholehearted approval of
killing one's own grandchildren if they happen to have been conceived
inconveniently.
The Gospel According to Obama: As
the saying goes, faith without works is dead. Obama's sanctimonious chatter about religion only underscores
how little he understands about how those concepts are viewed by the most faith-conscious Americans, for whom
actions will speak louder than words alone.
NARAL Pro-Choice Obama: One
reason that the national board of NARAL, the pro-abortion lobbying organization, endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, and encouraged
its state membership to do the same, was a series of behind the scenes conversations between the Obama campaign and NARAL.
"The message was, get on board or risk losing influence," says an Obama strategist. "We needed one of these [feminist
or pro-abortion] groups to step up and walk away from Hillary.
Barack Obama, Man of Faith.
Obama the Christian is a devout believer in unlimited abortion rights. He denies the existence of Hell.
He came to Christianity through social organizing with activist religious [people]. His devout Christianity
derives from the secular humanist "values" his atheist mother imbued him with. He believes, with all his
heart, in the separation of church and state — except when he campaigns in black churches, in violation of that
separation, and in violation of the tax code. Obama wears his religion on his sleeve in black churches,
but in dealing with the mainstream media, attacks the same behavior, at least as far as white, conservative
Christians are concerned.
Infanticide candidate for president.
On abortion, Obama is an extremist. He has opposed the Supreme Court decision that finally upheld the
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act against that form of infanticide. Most startlingly, for a professed humanist,
Obama — in the Illinois Senate — also voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.
I have reported on several of those cases when, before the abortion was completed, an alive infant was suddenly
in the room. It was disposed of as a horrified nurse who was not necessarily pro-life followed the doctors'
orders to put the baby in a pail or otherwise get rid of the child.
Barack
Hussein Obama Refused: "I Did Not Want To Concede". As an Illinois state senator, Barack
Hussein Obama refused to support legislation to protect babies that survived late-term abortions, claiming "I
did not want to concede." To what was Obama referring? His statement was in reference to babies that
were fully outside their mothers' wombs. Thus, Obama did not want to concede the fact that babies who
survived a late term abortion were in fact "persons." He was the only senator of the Democrat Party to
speak against baby protection legislation. He was the only legislator from either side of the political
isle that took his position.
Reaction to Obama — babies are God's
gift, not a 'punishment'. Pro-life advocate Wendy Wright says presidential candidate Barak Obama's recent
comment that he wouldn't want his daughters to be "punished with a baby" reveals much about where the Democrat stands on
the issue of the sanctity of all human life — and shows his true persona.
The Editor says...
Senator Obama's words directly contradict the Bible, which says,
"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward."
Psalm
127:3
Barack Obama celebrates birth of Roe vs. Wade abortion
decision. [Scroll down] So instead today [1/22/2010] the Democratic chief executive
issued a special statement celebrating the 37th birthday of the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade abortion
decision. He particularly hailed the hallmark decision's granting of the "fundamental constitutional
right to choose whether to have an abortion."
If Obama were a Christian, would he act like this?
No
media at Obama abortion-order signing. A day after a lavish bill signing White House ceremony on
health care reform, President Obama will sign an executive order barring the law from allowing federally funded
abortion, but he'll do so behind closed doors and with no media allowed. ... Not even a photographer will be
allowed into the Oval Office to capture the moment.
Barack Hussein Obama is a
Fraud. Obama is not a Christian. I do not what his true faith, if any, is. I do
know he is a hypocrite and a liar. ... I do not consider it Christian to abort and kill unborn babies.
It certainly is not Christian to kill babies after they have survived an abortion and are born alive.
Obama continually voted to do this very thing when he was in the Illinois legislature.
Obamination. [President Obama] is
the first U.S. president in my memory to issue a statement in favor of abortion on the anniversary of Roe v.
Wade. Of all the cherished utterances of our beloved leader the last three years, perhaps none is so divisive
and offensive as ... his tribute to the judicial fiat that has resulted in the deaths of more than 40 million
Americans, and a testament to his twisted views.
The President at the Prayer
Breakfast. [Scroll down] He had the gall to come to the prayer breakfast to proclaim that
"we can't leave our values at the door" after ripping up the "conscience clauses" so that people of faith and
personal religious convictions must pay for abortions as part of ObamaCare and all employers must provide
abortifacients to their employees under the new HHS mandates regarding health insurance coverage.
Somewhat related:
Why
Is Obama Offering All Women Free Sterilization? Human beings often sterilize dogs and cats, presumably because
they do not believe canines and felines can develop disciplined reproductive habits and they see the proliferation of puppies
and kittens as bad. But when human beings fix dogs and cats, they do not focus exclusively on one gender. Male
dogs and cats are at least as likely as females to get their reproductive organs short-circuited. Does the Obama
administration look at women — but not men — as creatures akin to dog and cats? Does it believe
women lack the hearts and minds and souls to fully control the destiny of their own families? Do they see the
proliferation of human babies as bad?
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