Author Topic: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)  (Read 34360 times)

LurkerNoMore

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #25 on: February 02, 2012, 08:48:11 AM »
Obviously not a lawyer, you don't spend enough time dealing with facts. I didn't vote Obama. Oh, btw, the sun came up this morning.. oughta post that on another thread.. its about as newsworthy as your other trillion threads


LOL!!!

Notice that except for the sympathy post from Skip here the thread was nothing more than the crybaby talking to himself until you came along? 
When you notice that happening, it's best to just leave him alone and let him and the voices in his head finish their conversation.

Soul Crusher

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #26 on: February 02, 2012, 09:05:36 AM »

LOL!!!

Notice that except for the sympathy post from Skip here the thread was nothing more than the crybaby talking to himself until you came along? 
When you notice that happening, it's best to just leave him alone and let him and the voices in his head finish their conversation.



Whatever - why do you even bother posting if you do nothing but stalk other posters? 

Agnostic007

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #27 on: February 02, 2012, 09:18:09 AM »
Except for us and about 2 other posters you would be all alone here.. you should be happy to see us!

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #28 on: February 02, 2012, 10:35:27 AM »
Obama takes heat from Catholic leaders

Comments By David Jackson, USA TODAY Updated 22h 7m ago

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/02/obama-takes-heat-from-catholic-leaders/1


By Haraz N. Ghanbari, AP






It sounds like President Obama may have some work to do with Catholic voters.

Catholic leaders have been criticizing the White House ever since the Department of Health and Human Services proposed new regulations Jan. 20 on insurance coverage for women's contraceptive services.

An exemption covers only "religious employers" that hire mostly members of the same faith -- but not Catholic colleges, hospitals, or social service agencies, despite the church's objections to birth control.

As National Journal notes: "The explosion of anger from American church leaders was immediate. On Sunday, bishops in at least 125 of the 195 dioceses in the country had letters of protest read from the pulpit at all Masses. Four bishops -- in Phoenix; Cincinnati; Green Bay, Wis.; and Lubbock, Texas -- warned of civil disobedience.

"'We cannot -- we will not comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second-class citizens,' said the letter from Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix," reported the Journal.

Mitt Romney picked up the theme after winning the Florida Republican primary, saying that "President Obama orders religious organizations to violate their conscience. I will defend religious liberty and overturn regulations that trample on our first freedom."

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the administration believes its proposal "strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious beliefs and increasing access to important preventive services. We will continue to work closely with religious groups during this transitional period to discuss their concerns."

Carney also cited "robust partnerships" with the Catholic Church and other communities of faith.

"The administration has provided over $2 billion to Catholic organizations over the past three years in addition to numerous non-financial partnerships that promote healthy communities and serve the common good," Carney said.

If the dispute becomes an issue in this year's election, the Catholic vote is not insignificant.

As George Condon reports in National Journal:

The numbers contain the political warnings. Fifty-five of the bishops represent dioceses in what will be battleground states in the election -- seven from Michigan; six each from Florida and Pennsylvania; five each from Ohio and Wisconsin; three from Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, Arizona, and Colorado.

Additionally, the clout of the Catholic vote is unquestioned. Since 1972, only once has a candidate won the presidency despite losing the Catholic vote, according to network exit polls. That lone exception was 2000 when Democrat Al Gore won 50 percent of Catholics but lost in the Electoral College to Republican George W. Bush, who got 47 percent of Catholics. If Hispanic Catholics are excluded and only white Catholics counted, the winning streak is unbroken: From 1972 to 2008, the candidate who got the most votes from white Catholics won the election.

In 2008, Obama trailed Republican John McCain among all Catholics for most of the campaign, but made a late surge to overtake him. Gallup showed him winning Catholics 53 to 47 percent. The media exit polls had him winning 54 to 45 percent.

The political clout is enhanced by the reality that the battleground states often have the highest concentrations of Catholics. In 2010, there were 77.7 million American Catholics, 25 percent of the population. And Catholics are the big swing vote in the key political states. In 2008 numbers compiled by the Official Catholic Directory, Catholics made up 41 percent in New Jersey, 32 percent in Nevada, 30 percent in Illinois and Wisconsin, 28 percent in Pennsylvania, 25 percent in New Mexico, 24 percent in New Hampshire, 22 percent in Michigan, 21 percent in Minnesota, 18 percent in Ohio, 17 percent in Iowa, and 13 percent in Missouri and Florida.

See photos of: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney


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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #29 on: February 02, 2012, 11:48:13 AM »
 ???

LurkerNoMore

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #30 on: February 02, 2012, 12:00:20 PM »
Except for us and about 2 other posters you would be all alone here.. you should be happy to see us!

Probably not.  Then he could spew his deranged bullshit all day long and never get called on it.

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #31 on: February 02, 2012, 12:02:16 PM »
Probably not.  Then he could spew his deranged bullshit all day long and never get called on it.

So you agree with your messiah obama ordering religions to do things that go against their core beliefs?


LurkerNoMore

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #32 on: February 02, 2012, 12:08:53 PM »
My "messiah"?

Perfect example of the deranged thinking I noted above.

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #33 on: February 02, 2012, 12:41:10 PM »
Obama's birth-control gamble
By: Glenn Thrush
February 2, 2012 04:38 AM EST
 


http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=31782273-29C6-4152-AB78-5A7BDD2A28AF





President Barack Obama and his senior aides were more than a little concerned before he announced his controversial decision requiring Catholic hospitals and universities to provide contraception in employee health plans.

Obama — in recognition of the issue’s sensitivity to the church — picked up the phone to personally break the news to two influential Catholic leaders: New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Sister Carol Keehan, head of the largest Catholic health association in the country and a pivotal supporter of Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

The president’s tone was polite but not contrite, a person briefed on the calls told POLITICO: He explained that while his health care law exempted Catholic churches from the requirement, he wouldn’t carve out other Catholic institutions even though the Vatican views artificial birth control as contrary to the will of God.

Aides say Obama’s move, which has sparked thunderous denunciations as he prepares to address the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday, was motivated by personal conviction and his long-held belief that all health plans need to provide birth control to women.

But the January decision was also a hard-headed election-year calculation with acute political risks — a bow to the concerns of womens’ rights groups that could alienate white Catholics, many of them critical independent voters in battleground states.

The handling of the issue offers a hint of Obama’s approach to governing and campaigning in 2012: When confronted with a position close to his heart — and dear to the base — Obama is increasingly inclined to side with people who will vote for him even if it means enraging those who might, but probably won’t, vote for him.

“Who are we going to really lose over this? Ron Paul voters?” asked a senior aide to a Senate Democrat, who thinks the administration should have handled the situation more quietly by punting a decision until after Election Day. “Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. … Catholics who don’t believe in condoms aren’t going to vote for Barack Obama anyway. Let’s get real.”

Added Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), an abortion-rights advocate who supports the provision: “I don’t think people’s minds will be changed by this debate. As for the president, leadership can’t take the election year off.”

The vast majority of Americans back the use of contraception, and about three-quarters of Catholic women in recent polls part with the Church on its prohibition of condoms and the pill. But the political danger isn’t about pills or piety, it’s that the decision — made by the president himself after months of internal discussion — will be interpreted as a dangerous nanny-state intrusion into the religious freedom of Catholics.

“This is going to hurt him not only among Catholics or religious voters … because it reflects a pattern of overreach,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) who has introduced legislation that would exempt Catholic institutions from the policy.

“I hate to question people’s motives … but I think this is certainly indicative of an ideology that the policy goals of an administration trump religious freedom,” added Rubio, a devout Catholic at the top of the GOP vice presidential shortlist. “Is this really necessary? This is not a key provision of the health care bill. … Why is this a fight they would pick?”

Rubio, who opposes abortion rights, told POLITICO that he and his wife personally adhere to the church’s dictates on contraception. (“I can tell you that none of my children were planned,” he said with a chuckle.)


He said he would never impose his beliefs on the general population but believes that Catholic institutions, as extensions of the church, have the First Amendment right to not offer birth control to workers.

If a non-Catholic employee asks for birth control, that worker could “always … pay for it yourself” or “work in other places,” he said.

Rubio’s hardly alone in his view: Newt Gingrich decried the administration’s “war against religion,” and Mitt Romney also denounced the decision.

“Governor Romney is committed to repealing Obamacare and repealing the Obama administration’s rule requiring that religious employers furnish birth control, even when doing so would violate their beliefs,” Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in an email. “This is a direct attack on religious liberty and will not stand in a Romney presidency.”

While the eyes of political Washington were on the Florida GOP primary last week, the lenses at Fox were focusing on a powerful Catholic backlash against the Obama administration.

An outraged Dolan called the president’s decision “an unprecedented line in the sand” and penned a homily accusing HHS of promoting “sterilization and contraception.” Dolan added: “Never before in our U.S. history has the federal government forced citizens to directly purchase what violates our beliefs.”

On Sunday, Atlanta’s archbishop angrily denounced what he called a “direct attack on our religious freedom and our First Amendment rights,” and four clerics vowed unspecified nonviolent resistance.

Yet most damaging to Obama was a scathing Washington Post column on Monday by liberal Catholic E.J. Dionne, typically an ally, who accused the president of throwing “his progressive Catholic allies under the bus” while empowering “those inside the Church who had originally sought to derail the health care law.”

Dionne’s under-the-bus remark was a reference to the conflicts within the church over the federal health law, which sometimes boiled down to a battle between nuns who supported the reforms, including Keehan, and the more conservative priests and prelates, men who dominate the church hierarchy.

Most Catholics don’t support every teaching of their church, but they have been souring on Obama, largely over economic issues. Romney holds a commanding 53-to-40 percent lead over Obama among white Catholics, according to a Pew poll taken early last month. Obama still holds a narrow lead among all Catholic voters, including Hispanics, but his support among white churchgoers has declined steadily since last fall, the poll showed.

Obama beat John McCain by 9 points among Catholics in 2008 after trailing him throughout the year, in part on his strength with Latino voters. That isn’t likely to happen this year, which could be a major factor in western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and New Hampshire, all states with substantial populations of older, white Catholics, already skeptical of Obama’s leadership.

“The Catholic vote is in jeopardy here if the president forces Catholic institutions to pay for contraception,” Kristen Day , executive director of Democrats for Life of America, told POLITICO Pro late last year.


The battle over contraceptive coverage began heating up in August, when HHS outlined the birth control mandate, which was based on the Institute of Medicine’s recommendation that all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives should be covered by insurance with no out-of-pocket costs to patients.

HHS exempted a narrow set of religious employers, such as churches. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pushed hard to exempt hospitals and universities, but Obama, who was deeply involved in the decision, was noncommittal during a meeting with bishops last November.

At the same time, he was coming under increasing pressure from women’s groups to back the birth-control policy, especially after the administration’s decision in early December to maintain restrictions on Plan B, the so-called “morning after” pill.

Planned Parenthood wrote that the question is whether to permit “an organization to refuse to allow its employees to choose which health care services are right for them,” and the National Women’s Law Center argued that the administration didn’t have authorization from Congress to exempt any employers from the coverage requirement.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) confronted Obama during a trip to the Granite State before the GOP primary, urging him to provide contraceptive coverage. Obama told her that he was sympathetic but had made no final decision.

It wasn’t until Jan. 20 that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the administration’s decision, sparking the firestorm from the bishops and the GOP presidential field.

“It’s very disturbing to me that his decision has been distorted and misinterpreted,” Shaheen told POLITICO. “It’s an issue of women’s health. Birth control is nearly universal in the country. I don’t understand why this is such a big issue.”

Despite the furor, some observers noted a lack of real popular fire over the issue.

Scott Alessi, writing on the American Catholic’s website last week, reported that one Wisconsin bishop got a standing ovation for his opposition — but claims that overall reaction generally seemed muted.

Alessi said a request for comment on his Facebook page met with a “tepid response,” including one Catholic who saw the proliferation of small families as proof that most of the bishops aren’t reflecting the real-world behavior of their flocks.

“I wonder how many other Catholics had that reaction, and simply shrugged rather than display the outrage at the Obama administration’s actions that the bishops are counting on,” he wrote.

And one GOP campaign aide said that the issue of contraception — while potentially making the case for Obama overreach — mostly would energize voters already committed to defeating Obama.

“This is about our base, not about independents,” the aide said.
 
 
© 2012 POLITICO LLC
 

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #34 on: February 02, 2012, 12:44:50 PM »
Aides say Obama’s move, which has sparked thunderous denunciations as he prepares to address the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday, was motivated by personal conviction and his long-held belief that all health plans need to provide birth control to women.



________________________ ______



Speechless at the arrogance of this monster.   

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #35 on: February 02, 2012, 01:24:11 PM »
Pelosi Vows to Stand With Obama Against Catholic Church; Says Decision Forcing Catholics to Act Against Faith Was ‘Very Courageous’

By Thomas Cloud

February 2, 2012



http://cnsnews.com/news/article/pelosi-vows-stand-obama-against-catholic-church-says-decision-forcing-catholics-act




(CNSNews.com) - House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) vowed today that she will join with the Obama administration in standing up against the Catholic Church in defending a new regulation that will require Catholic individuals to buy, and Catholic institutions to provide, health insurance plans that cover sterilizations and artificial contraceptives, including those that induce abortions.

The Catholic church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion are morally wrong and the Catholic bishops of the United States have argued that forcing a Catholic individual to purchase a health insurance plan that covers these things--or forcing a Catholic institution to provide such a plan--forces Catholics to act against their consciences and is a violation of the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.




In letters being read from the pulpit in Catholic parishes across the nation, Catholic bishops are saying: “We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.”

At her Wednesday press briefing, CNSNews.com asked Pelosi: “The administration has issued a regulation that will require all health-care plans to cover sterilization and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that induce abortions. This would force Catholic individuals and institutions to act against their consciences. All across the nation, Catholic bishops are saying:--

Pelosi responded: "Is this a speech, or do we have a question in disguise as a speech?"

CNSNews.com continued: “‘We cannot--we will not—comply with this law.’ Catholic bishops are saying they will not comply with this law. Will you stand with your fellow Catholics in resisting this law or will you stick by the administration?”

Pelosi: “First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the administration on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius first announced the proposed regulation in August as part of the initial implementation of Obamacare. The regulation, as proposed, was set to take effect on Aug. 1 of this year. In September, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent public comments on the regulation to HHS. In these comments, the bishops called the regulation an “unprecedented attack on religious freedom” and urged that it be rescinded.

In November, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, met with President Obama and personally explained to him the Catholic Church’s objections to the regulation.

On Jan. 20, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the regulations would go forward and will take effect for most health care plans as of Aug. 1. However, Sebelius gave religiously affiliated non-profit organizations---such as Catholic hospitals, universities, and charitable organizations---an additional year to “adapt” to the mandate. For them, it now set to take effect on Aug. 1, 2013.

Following Sebelius announcement, the Catholic bishops put out a statement calling the regulation “literally unconscionable.” Meanwhile, Catholic bishops around the country have been calling on Catholics to oppose the regulation.

Many of the bishops have published letters that priests are reading to their congregations. The letters explain the Catholic objections to the regulation and call for Catholics to resist it.  Many of these letter include the following passage from the letter Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington, Va., and Bishop Francis DiLorenzo of Richmond, Va., have asked their priests to read at Mass this coming Sunday:

“In so ruling, the Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled either to violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing do). The Administration’s sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply.

“We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.”


OzmO

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #36 on: February 02, 2012, 01:53:40 PM »
If you are in the health business you will do these things.  It has nothing to do wth your religion. If you don't like it get the fuck out of the health business.

PS. Noting of the sort mentioned ever in a church in VA, WI, CA,  and OH.  So the lead article was complete tool laced bull shit.  And I gotta believe you'd have completely different attitude if it was an issue with Muslims.

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #37 on: February 02, 2012, 02:00:26 PM »
If you are in the health business you will do these things.  It has nothing to do wth your religion. If you don't like it get the fuck out of the health business.

PS. Noting of the sort mentioned ever in a church in VA, WI, CA,  and OH.  So the lead article was complete tool laced bull shit.  And I gotta believe you'd have completely different attitude if it was an issue with Muslims.


HOW ABOUT IF YOU DONT LIKE IT YOU PAY FOR IT YOUR FUCKING SELF OR FIND A NEW EMPLOYER! ! ! !



By the way - would you be ok with the Govt forcing a Jewish Deli or a muslim owned resturant to serve pork undert the idea that a resturant is a public accomodation? 


Soul Crusher

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #38 on: February 02, 2012, 02:15:52 PM »
If you are in the health business you will do these things.  It has nothing to do wth your religion. If you don't like it get the fuck out of the health business.

PS. Noting of the sort mentioned ever in a church in VA, WI, CA,  and OH.  So the lead article was complete tool laced bull shit.  And I gotta believe you'd have completely different attitude if it was an issue with Muslims.

My buddy lives in Columbus OH and he heard it.   

Again - why shouldnt the employer get to chose what it will cover?   



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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #39 on: February 02, 2012, 07:40:05 PM »
http://news.investors.com/Article.aspx?id=599733&p=1&ibdbot=1


Screw Obama.     Fuck you disgusting Obama voters.

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #40 on: February 03, 2012, 03:49:38 AM »
Protestants and Jews declare to White House: We stand with Catholics
The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty ^ | 12-22-11 | Emily Hardman
Posted on February 3, 2012 1:00:56 AM EST by dangus

Protestant and orthodox Jewish leaders join in opposition to HHS contraceptive mandate.

Today, more than 40 non-Catholic religious organizations including Protestant-affiliated colleges, National Association of Evangelicals, Focus on the Family, Assemblies of God, Northwest Nazarene University, and Eastern Mennonite University, sent a letter to the White House demanding religious protection against the newly issued HHS contraceptive mandate.

“We write not in opposition to Catholic leaders and organizations. We write in solidarity.” Says the coalition letter. “Leaders of other faiths are also deeply troubled by and opposed to the mandate and the narrow exemption.”

In a letter sent December 21, 2011, the group expressed deep concern about the contraceptive provision in the Health and Human Services mandates, which includes the most narrow “religious employer” qualifications excluding protection of most-faith based organizations.

“We are all deeply concerned about the narrow exemption, including proposals made to expand it while still leaving unprotected many faith-based organizations.” The letter continues, “We believe that the Federal government is obligated by the First Amendment to accommodate the religious convictions of faith-based organizations of all kinds, Catholic and non-Catholic.”

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty currently represents Belmont Abbey College, a private Catholic College, and Colorado Christian University, a non-denominational Christian University, in the first lawsuits against this unprecedented mandate.

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #41 on: February 03, 2012, 05:36:14 AM »
Contraception mandate outrages religious groups
Feb 3, 7:13 AM (ET)
By RACHEL ZOLL



 
(AP) In this Oct. 31, 2011 file photo, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is...
Full Image
 
 


The Obama administration's decision requiring church-affiliated employers to cover birth control was bound to cause an uproar among Roman Catholics and members of other faiths, no matter their beliefs on contraception.

The regulation, finalized a week ago, raises a complex and sensitive legal question: Which institutions qualify as religious and can be exempt from the mandate?

For a church, mosque or synagogue, the answer is mostly straightforward. But for the massive network of religious-run social service agencies there is no simple solution. Federal law lays out several criteria for the government to determine which are religious. But in the case of the contraception mandate, critics say Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius chose the narrowest ones. Religious groups that oppose the regulation say it forces people of faith to choose between upholding church doctrine and serving the broader society.

"It's not about preventing women from buying anything themselves, but telling the church what it has to buy, and the potential for that to go further," said Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, representing some 600 hospitals.

Keehan's support for the passage of the Obama health care overhaul was critical in the face of intense opposition by the U.S. bishops. She now says the narrowness of the religious exemption in the birth control mandate "has jolted us." She pledged to use a one-year grace period the administration has provided to "pursue a correction."

The U.S. Health and Human Services Department adopted the rule to improve health care for women. Last year, an advisory panel from the Institute of Medicine, which advises the federal government, recommended including birth control on the list of covered services, partly because it promotes maternal and child health by allowing women to space their pregnancies. The regulation includes a religious exemption if an organization qualifies. Under that provision, an employer generally will be considered religious if its main purpose is spreading religious beliefs, and if it largely employs and serves people of the same faith. That means a Catholic parish likely would qualify for a religious exemption; a large church-run soup kitchen probably would not.

Employers that fail to provide health insurance coverage under the federal law could be fined $2,000 per employee per year. The bishops' domestic anti-poverty agency, Catholic Charities, says it employs 70,000 people nationwide. The fine for the University of Notre Dame, the most prominent Catholic school in the country, could be in the millions of dollars.

HHS says employers can appeal a decision on whether they qualify for an exemption. But Hannah Smith, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said, "The mandate vests too much unbridled discretion in the hands of government bureaucrats."

Mandates for birth-control coverage are not entirely new for religious groups. Twenty-eight states already require contraceptive coverage in prescription drug plans. Of those states, 17 offer a range of religious exemptions, while two others provide opt-outs of other kinds. However, opponents of the HHS regulation say there is no state mandate as broad as the new federal rule combined with a religious exemption that is so narrow.

Even in states where the requirement already exists, the issue is far from settled.

Wisconsin's 2009 contraception mandate did not include a religious exemption, but allowed an exception for employers who self-insure. While some dioceses in the state were able to self-insure, others couldn't afford to do so. The Diocese of Madison, Wis., ended up offering a policy with birth-control coverage, but asked employees to follow church teaching and not use the benefit. Local bishops continued to lobby state lawmakers for an exemption. But leaders knew a national health care overhaul was in development and hoped the federal law would be an improvement, said John Huebscher, executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state's bishops.

In California, whose religious exemption served as the model for the Obama administration, dioceses and some church-run agencies were able to self-insure, said Carol Hogan of the California Catholic Conference, but that option is for the most part unavailable under the federal health care law. Church-run groups could have stopped offering insurance to their employees, but considered that option unfair to workers.

The bishops have responded sharply to the regulation, launching a nationwide campaign against the mandate.

Bishops in more than 140 dioceses issued statements that were read at Mass last weekend. Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., called the requirement "a radical incursion on the part of our government into freedom of conscience." Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh wrote that "the Obama administration was essentially saying 'to hell with you,' particularly to the Catholic community by dismissing our beliefs, our religious freedom and our freedom of conscience."

The Becket Fund had previously filed two federal lawsuits over the regulations on behalf of Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic liberal arts school near Charlotte, N.C., and Colorado Christian University, an evangelical school near Denver. Both challenge the mandate as a violation of several freedoms, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says the government cannot impose a substantial burden on the free exercise of religion. The fine for Belmont Abbey would be more than $300,000 for the first year, and more than $500,000 for Colorado Christian, Smith, the Becket Fund counsel, said.

Many conservatives are also supporting legislation by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., that would codify a series of exceptions to the new health care law on religious and conscience grounds

For religious-affiliated employers, the requirement will take effect Aug. 1, 2013, and their workers in most cases will have access to coverage starting Jan. 1, 2014. Women working for secular enterprises, from profit-making companies to government, will have access to the new coverage starting Jan. 1, 2013, in most cases.

Workplace health plans will have to cover all forms of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration, ranging from the pill to implantable devices to sterilization. Also covered is the morning-after pill, which can prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex and is considered tantamount to an abortion drug by some religious conservatives.

There is no mandate to cover abortions. But that is little comfort to Catholic leaders, since the regulation violates other church teachings.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday that the administration will not reconsider the decision.

---

Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington contributed to this report.




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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #42 on: February 03, 2012, 06:16:41 AM »
His Abominations Accelerate
By Quin Hillyer on 2.3.12 @ 6:08AM




Obama's the man leading the Occupy the Oval Office movement.

The Republican presidential campaign thus far has been so bizarre and, frankly, depressing, that some of us have failed to adequately cover worrisome developments on a number of other important fronts. By ineptness and, worse, by deliberate design, Barack Obama daily makes this nation weaker abroad, less free (and more authoritarian) at home, economically more feeble, and in the civic realm more bitterly divided than ever. Meanwhile, ominous developments crowd the world stage. In short, we're in a big heap of trouble.

The recent litany of Obama's odiousness begins with his growing, unambiguous war against traditional Christianity. He has now left no room for any pretense otherwise to be believed. Right on the heels of a unanimous Supreme Court, including his own two appointees, smacking down his administration's attempt to kill the "ministerial exemption" for employment practices of faith-based institutions, an unchastened Obama has decided that even faith-based organizations must provide insurance that covers contraception -- even including abortifacients.

This is not just a narrow policy disagreement; it is, as Bishop David A. Zubik of Pittsburgh wrote, the president's way of saying "To Hell With You" to people of faith -- "To hell with your religious beliefs. To hell with your religious liberty. To hell with your freedom of conscience." Zubik continued: "This is government by fiat that attacks the rights of everyone -- not only Catholics; not only people of all religion. At no other time in memory or history has there been such a governmental intrusion on freedom not only with regard to religion, but even across-the-board with all citizens."

Obama's broadsides, plural, against religious liberty are only a part of his radical transgressions against the U.S. Constitution. Conservatives are rightly up in arms about Obama's illegal recess appointments. Obamacare, of course, contains several anti-Constitutional abominations, including the "individual mandate" and the Independent Payment Advisory Board. Meanwhile, his administration is flagrantly violating precedent by trying to force explicit hiring quotas on the Fire Department of New York, in a case in which a key amicus brief was filed on January 24 at the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

And so on.

Abroad, this man leading the Occupy the Oval Office movement is even worse. He threw away a clear victory in Iraq and may be doing the same in Afghanistan. His fecklessness regarding Iran, perfectly in line with his long record of favoring Shia interests, is now leading to a crisis of the first order. His strange mishandling of the Egyptian revolution has left the United States with very little leverage in a country that for more than three decades was a major American ally, and has left Coptic Christians scared to death. He long ago insulted allies such as Israel and Great Britain, repeatedly and with malice aforethought. He seems to have no real relationship of any positive nature with any allied foreign leader, perhaps with the exception of those in Brazil, whose oil exploration he subsidizes while blocking tens of thousands of jobs that would come from domestic energy production he has snuffed out. And he seems hell-bent on a mission to starve the American armed forces to dangerous thinness.

Killing the private college-loan industry. Hobbling private for-profit colleges. Illegally seizing auto companies. Whoring for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Turning public policy over to thuggish union bosses and destroying jobs in South Carolina to do so. Turning the Justice Department into a thoroughly corrupt, lawless, racialist, hyper-politicized, gun-running, vote-fraud-enabling, bullying arm of the left wing of the Democratic Party. Regulating the life out of almost every aspect of the economy. Buying political support by funneling taxpayer money to failing private alternative-energy companies. Lying with the Supreme Court sitting in front of him about what they decided in the Citizens United case. Lying about so many things that one loses count. Roiling racial tensions every chance he gets.

This is a man who has no interest in serving the United States that most of us know and love. Instead, he's a man who, by hook and definitely by crook, serves the despicable vision of the utterly foreign America he wants to impose on us.

Four more years of this guy in power, and we are doomed. He is a menace, and, by every legal means possible, he must be stopped -- and his maladministration reversed and thoroughly buried.


 
About the Author
Quin Hillyer is a senior editor of The American Spectator and a senior fellow at the Center for Individual Freedom.












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Soul Crusher

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #43 on: February 03, 2012, 02:50:01 PM »
The Military Is Now Telling Catholic Chaplains What They Can And Can't Say About The Obama Administration

Michael Brendan Dougherty | 18 minutes ago | 245 | 8

Jon Terbush / Business Insider

 


The emerging conflict between the Catholic Church and the Obama administration may have a new front: in the U.S. military itself.

The Catholic Church is fighting mad about an HHS ruling that would have them buy insurance for things they consider sinful–contraception, sterilization and abortion.

All the bishops in the country sent out a letter to be read in their parishes promising that the Church "cannot-and will not-comply with this unjust law."

Even Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who is in charge of Catholic military chaplains sent out the same letter. 

But after he did the Army's Office of the Chief of Chaplains sent out another communication forbidding Catholic priests to read the letter, in part because it seemed to encourage civil disobedience, and could be read as seditious against the Commander-in-Chief.

More than one Catholic chaplain who spoke to us off the record confirmed that many chaplains disobeyed this instruction and read the letter anyway. Others sought further instructions from their Archbishop.

Now after much behind-the-scenes bureaucratic wrangling, a new version of the letter will be read, one that was edited of the language about "unjust laws."

A new statement issued this afternoon from Archbishop Broglio's office acknowledged the interference this way:

Archbishop Broglio and the Archdiocese stand firm in the belief, based on legal precedent, that such a directive from the Army constituted a violation of his Constitutionally-protected right of free speech and the free exercise of religion, as well as those same rights of all military chaplains and their congregants.

Following a discussion between Archbishop Broglio and the Secretary of the Army, The Honorable John McHugh, it was agreed that it was a mistake to stop the reading of the Archbishop's letter.  Additionally, the line: "We cannot-we will not-comply with this unjust law" was removed by Archbishop Broglio at the suggestion of Secretary McHugh over the concern that it could potentially be misunderstood as a call to civil disobedience.

 It's an issue that Catholic chaplains are taking very seriously privately. We obtained a confidential letter sent to the chaplains that  prepares priests to contact the Military Archdiocesan lawyer in case of more interference or any punishment.

The Archdiocese believes that any attempt to keep a chaplain from freely teaching and preaching the Catholic faith, for which you were endorsed, is a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution.  If any of you are in any way punished or slated for punitive action, I ask that you kindly call our Archdiocesan Attorney, John L. Schlageter, Esq. at 202-719-3635 and he will immediately place you into contact with a Religious Freedom Law Firm that will be most willing to take your case free of charge.

The letter also tries to clarify to priests that, the Archbishop's letter "concerns a moral, not a political issue."

While it is true that soldiers do not have an unlimited right to free speech or political action, the military does not want to strain relations with the Catholic Church and its chaplains who provide services to many service-members of all faiths.

DEVELOPING



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-military-is-now-telling-catholic-chaplains-can-and-cant-say-about-obama-administration-2012-2#ixzz1lMUVUK22


Soul Crusher

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #44 on: February 03, 2012, 05:22:28 PM »

Obama ruling requires Catholic institutions to violate church teaching
By Melinda Henneberger
President Obama quoted C.S. Lewis on Thursday morning, and normally that would have made my day. The president is good at talking about his Christian faith, as he did at a National Prayer Breakfast, and ought to do more of it if he wants to relieve Americans of some of their most basic misconceptions about him.

But more than I want to hear him tell how the Rev. T.D. Jakes drops by the Oval now and again, I want to know why he repaid Sister Carol Keehan, who carried health-care reform around on her back for him, with a betrayal that could lose him the Catholic vote and his reelection bid.

If that’s what happens, he’ll have no one to blame but himself, after a recent edict by his Health and Human Service Department effectively denied conscience protections to church-run schools, hospitals and social service agencies, which under his Affordable Care Act must provide free contraception to employees, in violation of church teaching.

To review, there would be no Affordable Care Act without Keehan, the president of the Catholic Health Association, who incurred the wrath of the bishops for standing up for the legislation, and for the truth that there isn’t any abortion funding in it.

There would be no Affordable Care Act if not for Democratic abortion foes in the House, notably Bart Stupak (Mich.), who for his trouble was reviled by his fellow party members, accosted by critics in airports and sent at least one death threat. He also lost his job over it, deciding to retire after the fight, at the end of his term.

So, too, will there be no Affordable Care Act if Catholics swing the other way in the fall.

President Romney won’t be forcing nuns to dole out free diaphragms in violation of their religious freedom and the Constitution that guarantees it.

In fact, under him there won’t be any health-care reform at all. (Yes, I refuse to call that reform the O-word, although I might change my mind if the president doesn’t make it up to Sister Carol).

Newt Gingrich often says that Obama has “declared war on the Catholic Church.” Mitt Romney, too, talks about the president’s “assault on religion.’’ But the worst part is that they aren’t making this up.

Before Jan. 20, that sort of talk struck me as a close cousin of the imagined “war on Christmas,” a holiday that, last I checked, we celebrate from Halloween through the Epiphany.

But now the Obama administration has handed his critics an example of an action that fits nicely with the narrative that he’s a secularist who looks down on believers.

I wasn’t going to write about this, because E.J. Dionne and Michael Gerson have laid out many of the problems already — and when those two gentlemen agree, doesn’t that give the White House just a little pause?

Yet here we are, two weeks after the ruling, and I see no dawning appreciation that it’s time to respond any more meaningfully than this:

The White House posted a blog item on its Web site that answers the criticism by pointing out that “churches are exempt.” Yes, but church-run schools, hospitals and social service agencies are not. And that’s where the feed-the-hungry work goes on. As Obama so aptly noted at the prayer breakfast, that work is precisely what Jesus called us to do, time after time, in the Gospels.

(The coup de grace, though, is that only outfits that serve their own kind are exempt from the requirement. As retired Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington has asked, are workers in soup kitchens supposed to start asking not “Are you hungry?” but “Are you Catholic?”)

The White House Web site also notes that “no one will be forced to buy or use birth control.” No, just to give it away, as part of employee health packages.

It notes, too, that “contraception is used by most women,” Catholics included. Again, true but not remotely the issue, which is the religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Catholic swing voters turned out for Obama in 2008, favoring him 54 percent to 45 percent over Republican John McCain. But they may not do that again in November after last Sunday, when New York Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan — who met with Obama in November and was assured that the president appreciated the importance of conscience protections — joined archbishops all over the land in having letters denouncing the Obama administration decision read at Sunday Mass.

I do not agree with my colleague Michael Gerson that the decision is a “transparently anti-Catholic maneuver” or a radical power-grab, “delivered with a sneer.” But Sister Carol deserves better. And if she doesn’t get it, those will have been some mighty high-priced condoms.

Melinda Henneberger is a Post political writer and anchors ‘She the People.’ Follow her on Twitter at @MelindaDC.

By    Melinda Henneberger  |  07:57 PM ET, 02/02/2012








you lay down w Satan, you wake up w demons. 

OzmO

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #45 on: February 03, 2012, 08:05:32 PM »
My buddy lives in Columbus OH and he heard it.   

Again - why shouldnt the employer get to chose what it will cover?   




We are talking about a health care provider.  Not employers, or food service.  Try and keep up 3333.

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #46 on: February 03, 2012, 08:08:39 PM »
We are talking about a health care provider.  Not employers, or food service.  Try and keep up 3333.

No, this applys to everyone.   Obama lied to and betrayed the Catholics on this, no different than he does w everyone.   

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #47 on: February 03, 2012, 08:19:00 PM »
No, this applys to everyone.   Obama lied to and betrayed the Catholics on this, no different than he does w everyone.   

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Re: Obama is attacking Religious Freedom in America (Just like everything else)
« Reply #48 on: February 04, 2012, 11:29:04 AM »
I don't agree with this at all.  The government should not be dictating what religious hospitals do, especially when it violates their faith.  

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