President Obama and his radical-feminist enforcers have had it in for Catholic medical providers from the get-go. It’s about time all people of faith fought back against this unprecedented encroachment on religious liberty. First, they came for the Catholics. Who’s next?
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.
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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. Femme dinosaur Eleanor Smeal gloated over the news that the administration had rejected church officials’ pleas for compromises: “At last,” she exulted, the Left’s goal of “no-cost birth control” for all had been achieved.
As always, tolerance is a one-way street in the Age of Obama. “Choice” is in the eye (and iron fist) of the First Amendment usurper.
Like the rising number of states that have revolted against the individual health-care mandate at the ballot box and in the courts, targeted Catholics have risen up against the Obamacare regime. Arlington (Va.) bishop Paul Loverde didn’t mince words, calling the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services order “a direct attack against religious liberty. This ill-considered policy comprises a truly radical break with the liberties that have underpinned our nation since its founding.” Several bishops vowed publicly to fight the mandate.
Bishop Alexander Sample of Marquette, Mich., asserted plainly: “We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law.”
It’s not just rabid right-wing politicos defying the Obama machine. Pro-life Democratic senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania denounced the “wrong decision.” Left-leaning Bishop Robert Lynch threatened “civil disobedience” in St. Petersburg, Fla., over the power grab. Lefty Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote that Obama “botched” the controversy and “threw his progressive Catholic allies under the bus” by refusing to “balance the competing liberty interests here.”
White House press secretary Jay Carney blithely denied on Tuesday that “there are any constitutional-rights issues” involved in the brewing battle. Yet, the Shut Up and Hand Out Abortion Pills order undermines a unanimous Supreme Court ruling issued just last week upholding a religious employer’s right to determine whom to hire and fire. And two private colleges have filed federal suits against the government to overturn the unconstitutional abortion-coverage decree.
Hannah Smith, senior counsel at the nonprofit law firm the Becket Fund, which is representing the schools, boiled it down for Bloomberg News: “This is not really about access to contraception. The mandate is about forcing these religious groups to pay for it against their beliefs.”
This specifically anti-Christian mandate thing kind of encapsulates in one small but very important issue what's wrong with having Obama as President. Please vote in November for whoever the Republicans nominate. None of their guys are anywhere near as bad. Get all your friends to do the same.
In 1934 the German Ambassador to Rome Fritz von Papen signed the Concordat with the Papacy. The agreement stipulated the German government would not interfere with the privileges, property or teachings of the Catholic Church. The same day Reichs Chancellor Hitler decreed that all Christians in the Reich would be subordinated to Nazi racial doctrine and both Catholic and Protestant churches placed under strict state supervision. The sanctity of confession and church as sanctuary was violated. Bonaparte signed the 1804 Concordat and then put the Pope under house arrest. First claim you are the defender of religious liberty then contradict it with a hyprocricy that is breath taking. History repeats itself because Historians repeat themselves. Moral degeneracy flourishes because the State itself is morally bankrupt. Euphanisms sugar coat Hell: The Final Solution, Pro-Choice. I believe in Pro-Choice defined as letting the fetus reach frutition and be allowed an entire lifetime of choices. Not Pro-choice as licence for satisfying whim. Abortion is Pre-Solution. Fetuses are not finger nails, nor enemies of the State. If you can't feed em, need em, then don't breed em. Abstinance folks. It works. Abortion? If it is but a trifle to be determined by state dictate then why is there emotional wreckage years later?
Apart from the important religious liberty issue we should also be concerned about the Feds essentially requiring insurance companies to cover contraception and abortion at "no cost". What's next? "Free" sex change operations? "Free" penile implants?
That's what you get when you "pass the bill to find out what's in the bill". What gets me is these people act all surprised that this is being rammed down their throat when NR, and others were screaming about it when the bill was introduced!
Obama and his crew have clear statist and totalitarian tendencies, but Obama is also a cringing political coward. He will only attempt what he thinks he can get away with.
The Bishops should simply state they have no intention of following HHS guidelines, and dare Obama and his apparatchiks to do their worst. They WILL back-down.
A truly EXCELLENT column from Michelle! I think she clearly shows the totalitarian nature of the very extremely radical secular (that is, Marxist) ideology that the Obama-messiah and his Party stand for. She also shows that the Catholic hierarchy have finally realized that there can be no compromise with that ideological monster. This is now, very clearly, a fight for the very soul of America and western civilization. I call upon all true conservatives, all real Americans, and all genuine Christians to work for the nullification of the Left as a political force in America. Bring it on. Let the battle begin!
"She also shows that the Catholic hierarchy have finally realized that there can be no compromise with that ideological monster."
I disagree.
When America's Catholic bishops cease their grasping for government-paid health care and do a thorough housecleaning of statists from the USCCB bureaucracy, then and only then will there be evidence the bishops "have finally realized" they're dealing with a monster. Alas, I don't expect any such virile action from Catholic bishops in my lifetime.
I am tempted to describe Sebelius's power grab as the camel's nose under the tent, but that is an inaccurate metaphor. It is more like slashing the canvas and pushing in the entire dromedary. If it is constitutionally acceptable to force Catholic schools and hospitals to provide "free" contraception and abortion to employees, what is to prevent the state from declaring the Catholic Church must accept gay marriage, women priestesses and nearly any sexual inclination imaginable? This is
an existential threat aimed at the heart of
the Catholic Church...and at the first
ammendment rights of all Americans.
Those among you who smirk at the
predicament in which the Church has found
itself would do well to consider the implications for such a perverted interpretation of our constitution.
It's long past time for these linguini-spined archbishops to publicly excommunicate Sibelius, Pelosi, and their like. Publicly, like on national television! Then, enforce it!
As a public-relations executive, I find this idea to be excellent. This, if done publicly and broadly, would generate widespread global news--likely forcing the mainstream media to cover it.
No law forces the RCC to accept federal tax dollars. If the Vatican feels so strongly about right-to-life issues let it fund the Catholic hospitals. Melt down a little gold, Your Holiness.
The hospitals/colleges/organizations in question have been established by the Catholic Church. The extent of government money seems to be in paying bills (medicare/medicade which are forms of insurance) and tax write-offs (if you make the hospital take people that don't/can't pay it only seems reasonable they can write off the loss). The big mistake by the Catholic hospitals was encouraging government involvement. Let's face it, we all want to be paid for services rendered. They also mistakenly thought that Obamacare would increase access (dirty little secret, we all have access to healthcare by Federal Law. We din't have mandated access to health insurance).
The most obscene part of this mandate beyond the religious aspects? Preventive care is intended to stop communicable diseases (vaccinations). A mandate might make sense for vaccinations from a public health standpoint (also because they mandate school participation and vaccinations are required for school). Since when is preventing pregnancy a Doctor's job? When did pregnancy become a disease? Pregnancy is a condition that based on a specific activity. If you don't want to get pregnant, don't engage in the activity, just like you cut out the twinkies when you are on a diet. If you want to engage in the activity then you are basically saying yes to pregnancy.
But that's just the thing. This isn't resting on a hook of federal funds. It's part of the ipse dixit reasoning of the ACA. The Church is being treated as an employer or insurance provider here, not as a recipient of federal funds subject to funding conditions.
So, if you were curious, private employers falling under the ACA will also be required to provide contraception & abortifacients in the plans they make available to their employees. Doesn't have anything to do with accepting federal funds.
So the next recourse is that nobody made the Church get in the business of caring for the sick, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry or sheltering the poor.
And that's absolutely correct. Nobody *makes* Christians do that but Jesus asked that we choose to do so in His name. The only punishment for failing to ensure these employees and volunteers who perform this function, is that the employees will be placed in a government insurance exchange that provides abortifacients and the faith-based service provider will be fined an amount commensurate with the number of employees to be insured by the state... So either way the faith-based institutions are going to be paying to provide services they find morally abhorrent.
Asking people of faith to disavow one moral principle in order to to engage in a basic tenet of their religious practice strikes me as placing a very high burden on religious belief and practice, and as something that violates the First Amendment as applied, if not facially.
But then, of course, nobody is making us be Catholic... We can always just disavow Christ and his words to us, and this whole ugly and unpopular controversy will go away... right?
Under Obamacare that won't matter. When we are all forced into government-run healthcare, everyone will be subject to it, regardless of whether they accept any federal money or not. This is the first step to a single payer system, in which there are no private insurance plans or hospitals. Our "jobs president" wants to kill off all private religious institutions and all those jobs.
Yes, of course you are right. The ACA would have been a republican plan in the 1970s or 1980s, but then it wouldn't have been the first step to a single payer. So we don't judge laws by their actual substance, but by what we think the we lead to. That makes oh so much sense.
Leishac said: “Under Obamacare that won't matter. When we are all forced into government-run healthcare, everyone will be subject to it, regardless of whether they accept any federal money or not. This is the first step to a single payer system, in which there are no private insurance plans or hospitals. Our "jobs president" wants to kill off all private religious institutions and all those jobs.”
You hit it on the head. It religious issue is of absolutely no import to the admistration! The only reason that the Catholic institutions are in the limelight is due to their being the operators of what is quite possibly the largest network of heathcare facilities in this country. IF, by virtue of this controversy, the Catholic entities were to go out of business rather than comply, anyone seeking healthcare services would, by default, avail themselves to the only remaining alternative, the 'single payer system' offered through the 'Obamacare' approach.
That is their intention, their plan, and they will, unfortunately, succeed!
