war on religion – Page 2 – Convert Journal

Obama’s war on religion (update #6)

Sunday, April 29, 2012 A.D. 1 Comment

More and more people are beginning to understand the staggering implications of the war on religious liberty. It has united all of the Catholic bishops, together with leaders of other religions and other people of good will who simply want to preserve and protect the constitution.

This is not a war we started or want, but it will not end until the unprecedented attack on our basic freedom is neutered, one way or another. President Obama’s mandate is carefully crafted to protect everyone except Christian ministries. He could literally end this tomorrow if he so wished.

My last summary was 4 weeks ago. This is the latest update. To see the whole series, click here.

Face the Nation

On April 9th, Cardinal Dolan appeared on Face the Nation:

Missouri Rally

Archbishop Robert Carlson (Archdiocese of St. Louis) spoke at the Rally for Religious Liberty in Missouri on March 27th. Check-out this brief clip:

Chelsea Zimmerman has some good coverage of the event. A longer version of the video is available here.

“Balancing” rights

On April 26th, Kathleen Sebelius testified before a congressional hearing on the “balance” she used against religious liberty. This video starts out a little slow, but things pick-up after 2 minutes:

Religious Liberty

The Newark, NJ Newman Center produced this video on Religious Liberty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiDAeIkEX9E

Obama’s war on religion (update #5)

Sunday, April 1, 2012 A.D. 2 Comments

Last week the Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of ObamaCare’s so called “individual mandate”. 26 states, along with the National Federation of Independent Business and two individuals, are plaintiffs. The issue is: does the federal government have the power to force people to buy health insurance.

No decision is expected until the end of June and it could go either way. Based solely upon the questions asked by the justices, it appears that a majority are leaning against the Obama administration. One of the topics they explored is if they in fact decide for the plaintiffs, what should be the scope of their finding (severability). This could range from blocking only the individual mandate to overturning ObamaCare in its entirety.

According to recent polls, the majority of Americans oppose ObamaCare. Few would argue that reform is desperately needed in healthcare, but this law on the whole will make things far worse. Rasmussen reports only 39% of the public now supports the law while CBS reports support at only 36%.

I stand with the majority for a multitude of reasons, but primarily because of its use against religious freedom. Even if, by some miracle, Obama decides to reverse course on his HHS mandate and not force Catholics to act against their conscience – the underlying threat remains. Nothing stands in his way from reversing course again after the November elections. Nothing stops any future (Democrat) president from doing likewise. How many other ways can this law be used to attack the Church?

If the court overturns the law completely (pray for that), it will be up to congress to pass a new law that passes constitutional muster. Of course, without complete control of both houses of congress as he had in his first 2 years, there is no chance that such an expensive, freedom quashing, bureaucrat regulated, healthcare system destroying law would be again passed. Most importantly, Obama’s HHS mandate attack on religious freedom will be DOA.

The constitution’s commerce clause says: [the Congress shall have power] “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.” If the supreme court somehow interprets that as granting the federal government the power to force citizens to purchase insurance, the matter will be far from dead. There are other suits behind this one. There are several challenges on religious freedom grounds. There is the November election – where we can fix this at the source.

My last summary was 2 weeks ago. This is the latest update. To see the whole series, click here.

Cardinal Dolan’s Interview

On Wednesday, Cardinal Timothy Dolan (President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops) was interviewed by Bill O’Reilly:

Naturally, the left is not pleased with the slow but steady impact we are having. One of Obama’s surrogates appeared in a later discussion and as Father Z notes “stages a spittle-flecked nutty”:

Monica Crowley (a radio talk show host) does a good job laying out the issues His Eminence raised. Obama’s man is Christopher Hahn, a former aid to Democrat senator Chuck Schumer. In response to Hahn’s question “who cares (what the bishops think)?” she replies “I do!”

Among other lunacy, Hahn argues that in these tough economic times recreational sex is necessary because it is affordable – especially with free contraception. He goes on to quote scripture (out of context, of course), speaks of dogma he says we created ourselves in the 15th century and gives us advice on church attendance. Obviously little effort was made to hide his seething bigotry, contempt and hatred for the Church.

We all know that the Obama administration thinks this way. The surprising part is that this guy actually said it.

Obama’s war on religion (update #4)

Sunday, March 18, 2012 A.D. 3 Comments

Obama’s brazen assault on religious liberty remains intransigent. His political calculus has apparently determined that faithful Christian voters are not part of his base. Yet, this issue is so much broader than one demographic. This is yet another extralegal step, disregarding the Constitution of the United States and his oath of office. It certainly is not the first one (e.g. refusing to enforce laws he personally disagress with like the Defense of Marriage Act).

Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

US Constitution, Article II, Section 1

The possible resolutions are:

Obama reverses course and either drops this mandate or provides at least minimal conscience protections that he has promised again and again.
This administrative action is overridden by a law, with a veto proof majority. This has already been tried but failed in the Democrat controlled senate.
The courts rule against it. This seems very probable, but will take a long time.
Obama is not reelected. It is a certainty that a different administration will correct this.

This issue is too important not to cover, but I also want to keep my normal publishing schedule of Tuesday and Friday open for my regular content. Therefore, beginning today this update (and any future ones on this topic) will be published on Sundays as needed.

My last summary was 2.5 weeks ago. This is the latest update. To see the whole series, click here.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

First Amendment to the United States Constitution

Obama’s war on religion (update #3)

Tuesday, February 28, 2012 A.D. 4 Comments

Devotees of the liberal, mainstream media might think the world has moved on from all that HHS mandate ruckus. Their muted or non-existent news coverage is almost magical, much like how they make the massive March for Life rallies seem insignificant. In fact, both are related and opposed to the culture of death they are committed to. The truth is, this war is far from over.

My last summary was 2 weeks ago. This is the latest update. To see the whole series, click here.

Respect for Rights of Conscience Act

This is a piece of legislation that should be totally unnecessary. Yet, it may be the fastest means to reverse the precipitous dilution of religious liberty in America. Cardinal Timothy Dolan (president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) and Bishop William Lori (chairman of the USCCB Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty) support senate amendment 1520. It’s purpose is to ensure that those who participate in the health-care system “retain the right to provide, purchase or enroll in health coverage that is consistent with their religious beliefs and moral convictions.”

More information is available at the National Catholic Register in Cardinal Dolan Backs Respect for Rights of Conscience Act: Contact Your Legislator Now.

Additionally, Cardinal Dolan joined with over 500 religious leaders and scholars in signing yesterday a joint statement rejecting the unconstitutional mandate. Those signing this statement include Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Latter-Day Saints, Jews, Muslims, and others. The list of signers includes people from across the political spectrum – liberals, conservatives, and people fitting into neither category.

7 states file suit

Seven states join the growing list of organizations suing the Obama administration to overturn his trampling of religious freedom. More state attorney generals are likely to follow.

The states (so far) are Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas. The suit argues (the somewhat obvious point) that the mandate violates both the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Catholic Lane has the story.

We are all Catholic now

Baptist minister and former governor, Mike Huckabee began a speech recently thanking President Obama for uniting his opposition. Most memorably, Huckabee – echoing JFK’s “we are all Berliners now” sentiment – declared “we are all Catholic now.”

2,500 religious leaders oppose Obama’s mandate

The Family Research Council has released a letter signed by over 2,500 pastors and evangelical leaders opposed to the president’s HHS mandate that tramples religious freedom and conscience rights. Baptist Press has the story.

The National Clergy Council declares a “state of emergency”

The National Clergy Council representing Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical and Orthodox leaders has declared a state of emergency exists due to the president’s extraordinary attack on religious liberty. Lutheran pastor Dr. Normund Lund said “Protestants are beginning to close ranks and join our Catholic friends on this issue.” He noted that the situation is so serious, that this is “an issue worth fighting and dying for.”

Francis Cardinal George on persecution and martyrdom

Father John Zuhlsdorf wrote an excellent summary of observations made by His Eminence Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago:

In February of 2012, Cardinal George reflected on the seriousness of the Obama administration’s health-care mandate:

At the present moment, Catholics in this country are facing challenges to our institutional existence and our mission that we thought would never arise here. — The laws that used to protect us are now being used to weaken and destroy us, and this quite deliberately.

Shortly, thereafter, when the Obama administration and the media touted the fact that the Catholic Bishops are alone on the contraception issue and that most Catholics aren’t supporting them in this battle, Cardinal George wrote:

This is the first time in the history of the United States that a presidential administration has purposely tried to interfere in the internal working of the Catholic Church, playing one group off against another for political gain. What isn’t always understood is that the Bishops of the Church make no attempt to speak for all Catholics; they never have. The Bishops speak for the Catholic and apostolic faith, and those who hold that faith gather around them. Others disperse.

A few days later on at a press conference held at Loyola University on February 18th, he told the Chicago Tribune about the devastating effects of the HHS mandate for Catholic institutions:

The long-term effect is that the Catholic Church will be stripped of the institutions that are her instruments for public service. We will lose hospitals, we will lose universities. That’s not the country I was born in. — Something monumental is happening here.

Particularly chilling is the Cardinal’s assessment of the degree to which he believed religious freedoms (in the United States and other Western societies) were endangered. After the passage of legislation that enabled Civil Unions in Illinois, his eminence stated:

I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.

Father Barron: HHS mandate is anti-Catholic and un-American

Father Robert Barron, creator of the highly acclaimed Catholicism project says that the HHS mandate is anti-Catholic and un-American:

One small state battle for conscience rights won

Washington state’s governor (Christine Gregoire) decided to force all pharmacies to dispense abortifacients regardless of conscience rights. The State Board of Pharmacy resisted but caved after she threatened to replace board members if necessary.

Pharmacies routinely refer customers to other facilities for a broad range of reasons, but in Washington, that was not allowed. Every pharmacist must dispense “Plan B” or else.

This week, a federal court in Tacoma struck this down. This is so far over the line that a federal court in a generally liberal area agreed. This, with a judge who is not sympathetic to Catholic values.

The case was argued by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Pay attention to them, they do a lot of good. I consider them to be a moral version of the ACLU. See their complete comments on the case: Court Strikes Down Law Requiring Pharmacies to Dispense the Morning-After Pill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9KdfnoGwvw

Where is our apology?

Last week, President Obama apologized to Islamic extremists and the Muslim world in general for an offensive, but innocent action made by mistake. Our president cares deeply about the religious sensitivities of some. Faithful Christians, protected by our constitution and his own promises — not so much. Mr. President, where is my apology?

Obama’s war on religion (update #2)

Tuesday, February 14, 2012 A.D. Leave a Comment

Nothing has changed.

You may be surprised by that statement, given the promotion in the media of Obama’s “compromise.” There is no compromise and none was offered. In fact, if anything Obama has doubled-down on his position. Catholics, individually and institutionally, must fund abortifacients (drugs to induce abortions) and sterilizations.

This post is part of a series covering this very important topic. To see the whole series, click here.

No compromise offered

As you recall, we find it a direct assault on our freedom of religion to be forced to purchase contraceptive (including abortifacient) and sterilization coverage.

Obama said, fine. Those with objections do not have to purchase such coverage. However, the insurance plans they do purchase MUST include these exact, same coverages “for free.” Obviously all insurance plans will be priced accordingly.

He must think we are that stupid. Obama is saying “look at it this way, you are not directly paying for these abhorrent coverages, but instead they will be included in the only insurance plans that will be legally available to you; you can pretend that you are not paying for them.”

This changes absolutely nothing. It does, however, give those Catholics who love Obama more than Christ and His Church some political cover to choose Obama. This has worked before for him, but this time – maybe not so well.

The bishops respond

Today, the President has done two things.

First, he has decided to retain HHS’s nationwide mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacients. This is both unsupported in the law and remains a grave moral concern. We cannot fail to reiterate this, even as so many would focus exclusively on the question of religious liberty.

Second, the President has announced some changes in how that mandate will be administered, which is still unclear in its details. As far as we can tell at this point, the change appears to have the following basic contours:

It would still mandate that all insurers must include coverage for the objectionable services in all the policies they would write. At this point, it would appear that self-insuring religious employers, and religious insurance companies, are not exempt from this mandate.

[…]

We just received information about this proposal for the first time this morning; we were not consulted in advance. Some information we have is in writing and some is oral. We will, of course, continue to press for the greatest conscience protection we can secure from the Executive Branch. But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today’s proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. In a nation dedicated to religious liberty as its first and founding principle, we should not be limited to negotiating within these parameters. The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.

We will therefore continue?with no less vigor, no less sense of urgency?our efforts to correct this problem through the other two branches of government. For example, we renew our call on Congress to pass, and the Administration to sign, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. And we renew our call to the Catholic faithful, and to all our fellow Americans, to join together in this effort to protect religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all.

Bishops Renew Call To Legislative Action On Religious Liberty

Many, many individual bishops have continued to speak out.

Mr. President, you are trying to resolve the wrong problem. Your HHS new federal rule governing mandated health care services is not just about women’s services and who pays for them.

Rather, the real question is what protections and guarantees are afforded Americans and our various institutions by the Constitution. Your ill-placed focus should be frightening to all Americans.

Freedom of conscience and religious liberty are not concessions grudgingly granted by the Federal Government–either directly, or by way of exemption or exception. Our nation was founded on those basic and inalienable rights as the bedrock of who we are as Americans. Our Constitution was written precisely to reject and to avoid the dreadful English model whereby the king and the government are the granter of all rights–as well as the single power to withdraw, limit, or negate those rights.

As a Catholic American, I am outraged not only by your incredulous contortions to justify your untenable position, I am insulted that you would think that Americans who value and treasure our Constitutional freedoms would even question your overreaching infringement on individual freedom of religion and freedom of conscience.

Your “accommodation” actually makes the entire matter far worse. Every effort must be undertaken to reverse your ill-conceived revocation of our Constitutional rights.

I encourage all Catholics and millions of others of good will in our country to challenge candidates for election to Congress and to the presidency to take a strong stance in favor of guaranteeing and protecting our nation’s Constitutional rights.

I fear, Mr. President, that either you “don’t get it,” or even worse, you do “get it” and are intentionally trampling upon and reversing our Constitutional rights.

Cardinal Roger Mahoney

The current administration prides itself on being measured and deliberate.

The current HHS mandate needs to be understood as exactly that. Commentators are using words like “gaffe,” “ill conceived,” and “mistake” to describe the mandate. They’re wrong.

It’s impossible to see this regulation as some happenstance policy. It has been too long in the making.

Despite all of its public apprehension about “culture warriors” on the political right in the past, the current administration has created an HHS mandate that is the embodiment of culture war. At its heart is a seemingly deep distrust of the formative role religious faith has on personal and social conduct, and a deep distaste for religion’s moral influence on public affairs. To say that this view is contrary to the Founders” thinking and the record of American history would be an understatement.

Critics may characterize my words here as partisan or political. These are my personal views, and of course people are free to disagree. But it is this administration – not Catholic ministries, or institutions, or bishops – that chose the timing and nature of the fight. The onus is entirely on the White House, which also has the power to remove the issue from public conflict.

Catholics should not be misled into accepting feeble compromises on issues of principle. The HHS mandate is bad law; and not merely bad, but dangerous and insulting. It needs to be withdrawn – now.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput

Bishop Edward J. Slattery comments:

Catholics in the Democrat party have an exceptionally terrible record on life and family issues. One stood against the lack of of conscience protections in Obamacare and speaks-out now.

I am enormously disappointed by today’s announcement. All the facts indicate that the ‘new’ mandate is the same as the ‘old’ mandate. New words, same policy.

Our understanding of the new policy is now limited to a Fact Sheet put out by the White House. This document says ‘Religious organizations will not have to provide contraceptive coverage or refer their employees to organizations that provide contraception.’ But the health care law says that all employers must provide health insurance for their employees or pay a penalty. And according to the White House these same insurance plans that employers must provide ‘will be required to provide contraception coverage to these women free of charge.’ So religious organizations have to provide health care coverage from insurance companies that are required to provide abortion drugs, sterilization, and contraception. What changed? This is the same policy.

We need a rule that protects religious liberty by allowing employers to provide health insurance coverage that does not include abortion drugs and other services that violate their conscience and religious doctrine. Instead we got a so-called compromise that is no compromise at all and provides no options for those with profound religious and moral objections to providing these services. To say that the insurer and not the employer is required to provide the coverage is a fiction. There is no accommodation for religious liberty. The rule remains coercive and still violates the long-standing tradition of protection for conscience rights in federal law.

Rep. Dan Lipinski
Catholic Democrat from Illinois

Could we compromise if one were actually offered?

Consider this analogy: Obama comes and takes your car away. He just comes and steals it. It was your car, you paid for it, but now it is gone. You object strenuously to this theft.

Obama has heard your complaint of theft and has “compromised.” Instead of theft, your car has been involuntarily donated to him. You should no longer be upset that your car was stolen, it has simply been redistributed in the interest of other transportation needs.

Sr. Keehan (see below) praises Obama for responding to your opposition to theft. You still object saying nothing has changed. The media talks about your bishop forcing his transportation view on everyone else. This is where we are now.

Would you be happy if Obama offered a real compromise vs. word games and redefinitions?

Would you be satisfied if he offered to return the contents of your car? How about if he met you half-way, offering to return the engine, drive train and wheels? Would it make any difference to you if it were only other people’s cars?

[The Ironic Catholic offers another analogy: Religious Institutions Forced to Pay for Employees’ Slaves]

The big lie continues

Obama’s friends in the mainstream media continue to discuss this falsely as a contraceptive issue (see my piece from Friday).

Now, in addition to the misrepresentation of the issue, the liberal media can trot out a handful of dissident Catholics to thank Obama. In fact, the administration had Sister Carol Keehan queued-up to support his “compromise” before the announcement. You may recall that Keehan earns over $1M per year as president of the Catholic Health Association, is a die-hard Obama supporter, and has made a career for herself opposing both Church teaching and authority. Father Z calls her the Magisterium of the Nuns.

Speaking of liberal media, few can claim to be more biased than MSNBC. Their brains must have exploded when they invited author Eric Metaxas to talk about his new book and he compared Obama to Nazi Dietrich Bonhoeffer (the subject of said book). Talk about going off their narrative…