Wake Up! What Freedom Will Obama Force You to Do Next?
Wake up! The Obama Administration and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have launched a massive effort to mandate that all Americans pay for contraception, sterilization and abortion-causing drugs. Why? What dreaded disease in women’s health does this mandate protect us from? The Pill, the day after pill, the abortion pill and sterilization don’t protect women from AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases. So what dreaded disease are the Obama Administration and the HHS trying to save us from? Oh yeah! It must be the dreaded disease of pregnancy. But wait, why is this mandate such a big deal? Well, I’ll tell you. It doesn’t matter how many good Catholic women or women of other religions use contraception, the Catholic Church is pro-life in their teachings and principles and shouldn’t have to provide or pay for it. Not for any of their employees working at any Catholic run institution or employees of any religious organization. We shouldn’t have to pay for any of theses services with our tax dollars either. I paid for my own and would never have asked someone else to cover the cost for my choices, and generally speaking, using any of these services are choices, not necessities.
Wake up! This is NOT about women’s health or some obscure war on women. This is about the Federal Government telling protected organizations what they can and can’t do.
Wake up! If they can do this to Catholics and other organizations of conscience today, then who will they boss around tomorrow? This is another in the series of slippery slopes toward the loss of our rights as Americans.
Once again I say, wake up! There was a mandate released last month that will violate our civil liberties and free exercise of religion by forcing every American and every U.S. employer, regardless of religion or conscience, to pay for abortion-causing drugs, like Ella, in health insurance plans.
“The Con” – a video presented by AUL:
Can you believe that two weeks ago, Secretary for the Health and Human Services Department, Kathleen Sebelius, admitted during a Congressional hearing that this Mandate is needed because, “reducing pregnancies will cut health care costs”? Are you kidding me? That’s insane. Contraceptives are available now on the cheap and some free and pregnancies have not gone down at all. Personally, I think these progressives are the racists because they think poor black and Hispanic women can’t get birth control unless it’s free.
Wake up! This mandate, due to take effect this summer, will violate the very principles our nation was founded on – your freedom of religion and conscience! Maybe you don’t think so. Let me give you an example of the administration picking and choosing which freedoms different religions can have.
(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
The Northern Arapaho Tribe in Wyoming filed a federal lawsuit last year contending the refusal to issue permits for killing bald eagles violates tribal members’ religious freedom. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken the unusual step of issuing a permit allowing an American Indian tribe to kill two bald eagles for religious purposes. Federal law prohibits the killing of bald eagles, the national bird, in almost all cases. The government keeps eagle feathers and body parts in a federal repository and tribal members can apply for them for use in religious ceremonies. The lawyer for the tribe revealed in a legal filing this week that the federal agency had issued the permit on Friday. The report states that the federal permit will allow the Northern Arapaho to kill up to two bald eagles off the reservation.
Now, I don’t have any problem with Native Americans killing bald eagles for their religious ceremonies. What I do have a problem with is the government picking and choosing which religion is deserving of exceptions to federal laws. It’s okay for the Arapaho Tribe to have an exemption from the law, but not the Catholics or other Christian religions.
Wake up! If the president has the authority to violate our constitutional rights in this way, what else can he do? This time President Obama is targeting Catholics and pro-lifers, but next time he could target a group that you or I belong to.
If this mandate stands, then what limit will be put on the government as far as controlling our lives?
(h/t Studentsforlife.org)
» Obama Steamrolled by Catholic Church – Big Government
» Obama Steamrolled by Catholic Church – Big Government
I’ve decided to share the article written by J. Christian Adams in Big Government.com because his writing is so much better than mine. Here are some excerpts from his article:
- 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.
- The fight between American churches and Obama isn’t like the birth control debates of 1962. It isn’t a “war on contraception.” It echoes different fights from different years.
In 1941, when Adolph Hitler was at the peak of his power, the Catholic Church publicly challenged Hitler’s euthanasia program against the handicapped. Munster Bishop Clemens von Galen courageously delivered a series of sermons against the Gestapo, the closing of Catholic institutions, and most of all, the T-4 euthanasia program. Through the summer of 1941, von Galen waged a war of conscience against Hitler, in the open, and with the imprimatur of the Catholic Church.
Heinrich Himmler wanted von Galen dead, and sent the Gestapo to arrest him. The Bishop asked the Gestapo agents for a moment, and changed into his full bishop’s regalia – putting on his mitre, episcopal ring, pectoral cross, and carrying his crozier – then presented himself for arrest. The Gestapo agents promptly left without him, and von Galen spent the remainder of the war alive.
Earlier, in 1933, Hitler intervened in the internal affairs of the German Protestant churches by forcing the church to conduct leadership elections. The corrupt elections resulted in the installation of pro-Nazi church officials who sapped the church’s moral authority. It was this government-caused division within the church that launched the resistance of Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He worked covertly to preserve “intact churches” as compared with the “destroyed churches” tainted by government interference in matters of conscience.
He continues with more interesting comparisons and examples of why President Obama was steamrolled by the Catholic church.
Update: Supreme Court sides with church on decision to fire employee on religious grounds
I got this article from Fox News. There were stories about this on many blogs, but I decided to just go straight to a news source. I think what amazes me the most is that the vote was unanimous.
Supreme Court sides with church on decision to fire employee on religious grounds
Published January 11, 2012| FoxNews.com
The Supreme Court has sided unanimously with a church sued for firing an employee on religious grounds, issuing an opinion on Wednesday that religious employers can keep the government out of hiring and firing decisions.
In the case of Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, Cheryl Perich, a “called” teacher, argued that the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School of Redford, Mich., had discriminated against her under the Americans With Disabilities Act by refusing to reinstate her to her job after she took leave for narcolepsy.
But the high court found that Perich’s was properly classified as a “minister,” meaning she falls within the “ministerial exemption” from many employment laws.
“Because Perich was a minister within the meaning of the exception, the First Amendment requires dismissal of this employment discrimination suit against her religious employer,” reads the ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts. “The EEOC and Perich originally sought an order reinstating Perich to her former position as a called teacher. By requiring the Church to accept a minister it did not want, such an order would have plainly violated the Church’s freedom under the Religion Clauses to select its own ministers. …
“The exception … ensures that the authority to select and control who will minister to the faithful is the church’s alone,” the ruling reads.
Roberts added that this particular case is based on the ministerial exception’s use in dismissing the discrimination claim but does not bar other types of suits alleging breach of contract or “tortious conduct” by religious employers. The applicability of the exception to other circumstances would be dealt with separately “if and when they arise,” he wrote.
The high court’s decision overturned an earlier decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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