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It’s kind of bizarre to watch Pres. Obama campaign this year against a “do-nothing Congress” that he blames for blocking his agenda from being enacted. After all, for his first two years in office, the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and Obama got everything he wanted.
Then the bill came due in the 2010 midterms, and Democrats endured historic losses at both the federal and state levels. Republicans were elected by huge margins to stop Obama in his tracks, and now he’s blaming them for carrying out that mandate.
The truth is that Obama has governed as a devout ideologue from Day One, pushing a radical agenda designed to “fundamentally transform America,” and he has accomplished a great deal of what he wanted in his first term (ObamaCare, the $1 trillion Stimulus, the bail-outs, a boom in dependence upon food stamps and other government programs, the rejection of the Keystone pipeline deal and the tens of thousands of jobs it promised along with all the domestic oil production, a slew of oppressive environmental and other regulations against businesses, et. al.).
But his appetite for destruction remains unchecked, so he pushes for ever more taxing, ever more borrowing, ever more spending, and ever more social deconstruction. You know, the “fundamental change” he promised all along.
There is really no other way to explain the brazen nature in which he announced new regulations through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) forcing religious institutions to provide insurance coverage to all their employees which includes abortion-inducing drugs like the morning-after pill and sterilization, as well as birth control.
Nor is there any other way to explain the fact that he would make the announcement just a few months out from an election in which he is running for a second term and Democrats nationwide will find themselves saddled with whatever policies he might propose.
This has been widely interpreted as a War on Catholicism and all of its institutions, which is certainly true. But that’s only partially true. It is actually a War on Religion which is not limited to Catholicism, Protestantism or any specific creed, but targets all people of faith and conscience across the country, a frontal assault on our rights of free speech and personal conscience as well as our religious liberties.
Fundamentally, this is an attack against the core principles of our founding documents, the cherished rights of our Constitution and Declaration of Independence which untold millions of Americans have fought and died over the past two-and-a-half centuries to uphold and preserve.
It’s kind of bizarre to watch Pres. Obama campaign this year against a “do-nothing Congress” that he blames for blocking his agenda from being enacted. After all, for his first two years in office, the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and Obama got everything he wanted.
Then the bill came due in the 2010 midterms, and Democrats endured historic losses at both the federal and state levels. Republicans were elected by huge margins to stop Obama in his tracks, and now he’s blaming them for carrying out that mandate.
The truth is that Obama has governed as a devout ideologue from Day One, pushing a radical agenda designed to “fundamentally transform America,” and he has accomplished a great deal of what he wanted in his first term (ObamaCare, the $1 trillion Stimulus, the bail-outs, a boom in dependence upon food stamps and other government programs, the rejection of the Keystone pipeline deal and the tens of thousands of jobs it promised along with all the domestic oil production, a slew of oppressive environmental and other regulations against businesses, et. al.).
But his appetite for destruction remains unchecked, so he pushes for ever more taxing, ever more borrowing, ever more spending, and ever more social deconstruction. You know, the “fundamental change” he promised all along.
There is really no other way to explain the brazen nature in which he announced new regulations through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) forcing religious institutions to provide insurance coverage to all their employees which includes abortion-inducing drugs like the morning-after pill and sterilization, as well as birth control.
Nor is there any other way to explain the fact that he would make the announcement just a few months out from an election in which he is running for a second term and Democrats nationwide will find themselves saddled with whatever policies he might propose.
This has been widely interpreted as a War on Catholicism and all of its institutions, which is certainly true. But that’s only partially true. It is actually a War on Religion which is not limited to Catholicism, Protestantism or any specific creed, but targets all people of faith and conscience across the country, a frontal assault on our rights of free speech and personal conscience as well as our religious liberties.
Fundamentally, this is an attack against the core principles of our founding documents, the cherished rights of our Constitution and Declaration of Independence which untold millions of Americans have fought and died over the past two-and-a-half centuries to uphold and preserve.
Well, until Obama came along, that is. Now he wants to trash these cherished rights, but only for the people he vehemently disagrees with — primarily people of faith. And it’s all being done in accordance with his monstrous “health” overhaul. As the Wall Street Journal wrote of the new regulations: “Behold the soul of ObamaCare.”
Under the Obama HHS rules, religious institutions would be forced by government fiat to provide “services” that are not only contrary to the teachings of their respective religious faiths, but anathema to them. Obama is telling them: “You must and you will provide abortion drugs that destroy human life, because I say so!” And he is saying the same thing to all employers, religious or not, who oppose abortion, sterilization or birth control.
Never mind the First Amendment of our Constitution, which guarantees us freedom of religion, or the federal law providing a “conscience clause” allowing health-care workers to refuse to provide services like abortion which they find morally objectionable. Obama says that the holy writ of ObamaCare supersedes them all — and Scripture, too, which teaches "thou shalt not murder" (Ex. 20:13).
For the Catholic Church, which teaches against birth control as well as abortion and sterilization, this policy threatens to close down all Catholic hospitals, schools, charities and services to the poor, because Catholic leaders simply won’t comply with this immoral, unjust, tyrannical law. This is why Obama, back when he was formulating this new policy, assured Cardinal-Designate Timothy Dolan he had nothing to worry about and personally promised him that Catholics would “get most of what they wanted.” What a crock that turned out to be.
Now, Cardinal-Designate Dolan justifiably accuses Obama of “stabbing Catholics in the back.” He says Obama flat-out lied to him and that the president is not to be trusted.
Not surprisingly, therefore, much of the liberal media coverage of this issue has focused entirely upon birth control and contraceptive devices, in many instances eliminating all reference to morning-after pills, sterilization or anything else. By doing so, they hope to make Obama look eminently reasonable and his critics seem irrational by comparison — since a majority of Americans, including many Catholics, support and even use birth control. But that is just a ruse.
Regardless of what anyone thinks of birth control, the Catholic Church teaches against it. And that means, under our Constitution, the Catholic Church should be protected from ever having to pay for or even to promote it as a policy. Otherwise, religious freedom in this country is over. We can just tear up the Constitution and ignore those pesky Founders of ours whom Obama keeps incessantly complaining about.
As far as Obama’s so-called “compromise” is concerned, the Catholic hierarchy and religious leaders of other faiths have rejected it out of hand. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement calling it “unacceptable” and stating that the only fair resolution would be for Obama to rescind the edict in its entirety — something he has made clear he has no intention whatsoever of doing.
The Bishops wrote that the revised regulation “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.”
As Cardinal-Designate Dolan observed: “It is the place of the church, not the government, to define its religious identity and ministry.” And that is true of all churches, religious faiths and institutions.
Of course, Obama claims (as liberals always do when it comes to killing babies) that “women’s health” is at stake. Oh, really? Well, whether Obama realizes it or not, pregnancy is not a disease. Furthermore, the last time I checked, women or men (or teenagers, for that matter) weren’t having a particularly hard time, financially or otherwise, obtaining birth control or contraceptive devices. Planned Parenthood, which gets half a billion dollars from taxpayers every year, hands it out like candy, as do many universities. And that’s just for starters.
No, this is about religious liberty. And about free speech, too — especially after Obama ordered military chaplains not to read a letter opposing the policy from the bishops to Catholics serving in our armed forces. And it's about what kind of country we will be, and what kind of country we will pass on to the next generation.
Obama has thrown down the gauntlet in his War on Religion, and in an even broader sense in his war on our rights of religious liberty and free speech and personal conscience.
We’ll find out in November if he’s allowed to finish off those rights for good.
e-mail: tom3264@msn.com, or go to tom's Facebook page to send a message
