Have you all heard that the Obama administration is forcing religious organizations to cover contraception?
Excerpt: (links removed)
HHS has issued a rule that requires non-exempt health care plans to cover all FDA-approved contraceptives, sterilization, and related education and counseling.
On the ground that certain FDA-approved contraceptive methods can sometimes “cause the demise of embryos both after and before uterine implantation,” many institutions also believe that the rule forces them to cover abortion.
Paying for, providing, educating about, or otherwise participating in abortion, contraception, and/or sterilization violates the religious or moral conscience of many individuals and institutions. Coupled with Obamacare’s new health care coverage mandates, the HHS rule therefore represents one of the broadest attacks on freedom of conscience ever in this country.
The rule includes an exemption for religious employers. But as Heritage stated in public comments submitted to HHS in 2011, the exemption “is too narrow to accommodate properly the interests protected by First Amendment freedoms.”
Indeed, according to The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the exemption is based on “the stingiest definition” of a religious organization ever to appear in federal law. The definition likely would not protect many religious charities, hospitals, colleges, nursing homes, universities, and others.
The exemption also fails to protect individuals who object to enrolling in or contributing to plans that cover the morally controversial items now mandated by law.
The HHS contraceptive mandate powerfully illustrates the principle that freedom of conscience in health care goes hand in hand with more personal control and freedom of choice over health care decisions.
Why would I want to get coverage for contraception? I’m chaste. It’s wrong to force me to pay for contraceptives, when I don’t want them or need them. And I don’t want to lower the cost of premarital sex for other people by handing them free condoms. Medical insurance should not be a form of wealth redistribution or social engineering. I don’t want to subsidize the lifestyle choices of others. And I don’t want to normalize behaviors that I don’t agree with by making everyone pay for them.
In any case, let’s see what Rick Santorum thinks.
Here is an excerpt from an interview where Rick Santorum reacts to this attack on religion by the secular leftist Obama administration:
HH: Now I want to talk to you about two substantive issues, Senator Santorum. The first are these new regulations from the Obama administration. I read the letter from Archbishop Olmstead of Phoenix on the air. Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles has written a new article in First Things. It’s shocking, actually, what’s going on. Should this be a centerpiece of whoever the nominee’s campaign is?
RS: I talked about it in every speech I’ve given today. And here’s what I said, though, Hugh. I said that I took issue with the Catholic Bishops Conference, because Hugh, you may remember, they embraced Obamacare.
HH: Yes.
RS: They embraced it and said…here’s what I said to them. Be careful when you have government saying that they can give you rights, that you have a right to health care, and government’s going to give you something, because once you are now dependant on government, they, not only can they take that right away, they can tell you how to exercise that right, and you can either like it or not. And that’s the problem. That’s what the Catholic Bishops Conference didn’t get, that there’s no free lunch here, folks. If you’re going to give people secular power, then they’re going to use it in a secular fashion. And that’s why, you know, I hate to say it, but you know, you had it coming. And it’s time to wake up and realize that government isn’t the answer to the social ills. It’s people of faith, and it’s families, and it’s communities, and it’s charities that need to do this as it has in America so successfully for so long.
The funny thing is that most Catholics voted for Obama. So Rick Santorum is really calling them to account for that. He sounds so much like an evangelical Protestant, no wonder we like him so much.
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Rick Santorum is pro-America and pro-constitution.
Love and God’s blessings, John and Charlene
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What do you mean he sounds so much like an Evangelical Protestant? He’s sound like a good Catholic.
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Well, he’s actually thought through his beliefs, and he is a fiscal conservative.
Look, he supports capital punishment:
http://www.issues2000.org/Domestic/Rick_Santorum_Crime.htm
That means he actually takes the Bible seriously… I think he’s probably an evangelical Protestant.
Catholics mostly support Obama, so they are for abortion and gay marriage.
(Note: this is me being a troll)
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:P
But seriously, I have read posts saying he supported unions and that he is not that strong a fiscal conservative based on his past voting record. Have you posted about them? I do think he’s the better of the Republican candidates left, though.
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He’s 80% fiscal conservative. And he is aware of the missing 20% and understands the full fiscal conservative view. He backed away from his one or two protectionist votes. He’s 80% good on fiscal policy, 100% good on social policy and 100% good on foreign policy.
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Are you implying that being in favor of the death penalty is a sign of taking the Bible seriously? What’s your argument for that? Remember Jesus’ attitude toward the adulteress? (and his words to those that were going to stone her?)
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The Bible teaches capital punishment:
https://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/wayne-grudem-explains-what-the-bible-says-about-capital-punishment/
The story of the adulteress is not in the earliest manuscripts of John, so you can’t quote it:
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2008-04-24/news/is-the-woman-caught-in-adultery-really-part-of-scripture/
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Thank you for the links. I haven’t been able to open the pdf outline of Grudem’s sermon, so I cannot comment on that at the moment. I am interested in listening to it later. However, even if one were to agree in principle with capital punishment, we as fallible human beings should not take the risk of taking an innocent person’s life. Also, it seems to me the most one could say is that the Bible does not condemn it, but to go as far as to identify Christianity with support of the death penalty… isn’t that going too far? As for the adulteress, it’s certainly interesting to learn about this issue, but as some of the commenters in the link you kindly sent me write, it is an old controversy that has not been settled one way or the other. Also, I am a Catholic, so my view of inspired scripture is quite a different one, it does not simply depend on the most recent manuscript discovery. I hope you don’t mind my sending you a link of my own, since I found the discussion here most illuminating and respectful, and these people say it far better than I could. So in case you’re interested: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/02/the-tradition-and-the-lexicon/
Thank you and God bless
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