Tag Archives: Religious Liberty

News

Bank of America fires Dr. Frank Turek for his religious and political views

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Dr. Mike Adams explains how Bank of America discriminates against Christians and conservatives.

Excerpt:

In late May of this year Dr. Turek was hired to present at a meeting of your Global Business Management & Analysis Team within Global Wealth and Investment Management. The title of his presentation was called “Why Can’t You Be Normal Just Like Me?” The presentation helps participants adapt to diverse personalities to improve productivity and relationships—the essence of inclusion and diversity. The meeting was scheduled to take place at your Merrill Lynch facility in Pennington, New Jersey on June 17.

Three days before the event Dr. Turek was abruptly fired by an HR representative. Why? She explained that someone Googled his name and discovered that he had written Correct, Not Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone. Marriage was not the topic of his presentation, nor has it ever been in all his years of working with the bank. Moreover, as his book reveals (although no one at the Bank is likely to have read it), Dr. Turek treats all people with respect, whether he agrees with them politically or not. Nevertheless, in the name of “inclusion” and “diversity,” he was immediately excluded for his political and religious viewpoint. Mr. Moynihan, please answer this question: Do you have to have certain political or religious views to work at Bank of America?

I know you cannot really believe that free speech and religion rights vanish when one works with Bank of America. I know that you cannot believe that all political conservatives, Jews, Christians, Mormons and Muslims should be fired for their deeply held beliefs. But that is how the Bank of America policy of “inclusion” was applied to Dr. Turek. He was fired because of his personal political and religious beliefs—beliefs that are undoubtedly shared by thousands of your very large and diverse workforce. Or is it really diverse?

Dr. Turek was previously fired by the HR people at Cisco Systems for the same reason. Cisco is another company that either silences or fires Christians for their views. No free speech is allowed if it offends certain groups. Bank of America also supports illegal immigration.

How would same-sex marriage affect your life?

BONUS: Frank Turek explains how to talk about the same-sex marriage issue without sounding like a jerk.

News

New study finds that 86% of doctors unwilling to perform abortions

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Wes from Reason to Stand sent me this article from the Freakonomics blog.

Excerpt:

A new study released by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, from main author Debra Stulberg, surveys 1,144 ob-gyns (1,800 were initially approached) to see how many provide abortion services. Though legal, abortion is much harder to come by than one might expect: while 97% of ob-gyns reported having encountered women seeking an abortion, only 14% said they were willing to perform the service.

And here is the breakdown by religious affiliation:

  • 40.2 percent of Jewish doctors say yes, compared with
  • 1.2 percent of Evangelical Protestants
  • 9 percent of Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox
  • 10.1 percent of Non-Evangelical Protestants
  • 20 percent of Hindus
  • 26.5 percent of doctors who said they had no religious affiliation

Naturally evangelical Protestants (like me!) are the best.

I do not recommend the Freakonomics book for learning about economics, and I would recommend John Lott’s book “Freedomnomics” as an antidote to anyone who has read Freakonomics, particularly on the issue of whether abortion reduces or increases crime rates. The authors of Freakonomics are liberal, while John Lott is conservative. You can read a popular article about his refutation of Freakonomics here, or read the research paper here.

But the main thing is that Democrats do not like the idea that you would be allowed to stop them from being happy by having a will of your own. For Democrats, you exist to serve the will of the state – both by paying taxes, and if necessary by killing babies. You are not there to have your own plan and your own family and your own life, as Republicans believe. And they really don’t like you making them feel bad by resisting what they think of as good. They don’t want anyone to say that what they are doing is wrong. They would just like everyone to pay for what they are doing and to help them do it and to help them feel good about doing it after they’ve done it – and they don’t care what you think.

Now consider this 2009 article from the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

During the last months of the Bush administration, the feds adopted a new rule that could allow health-care workers to refuse to provide birth control on moral grounds. Now the Obama administration is moving to reverse that rule, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Existing federal law allows health-care workers to refuse on moral grounds to provide abortions. The new rule strengthened and extended those protections. While some groups, such as the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, supported the move, many others, including several state attorneys general and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, opposed the rule.

There have been recent reports of women being denied emergency contraception, which is federally approved for use within 72 hours of intercourse, the Trib says.

The Obama administration will start the process of reversing the rule today. Final action won’t be taken until after the public is allowed a 30-day comment period.

The Democrats went on record in 2009 as being opposed to conscience protections.

Excerpt:

The Senate on Thursday night rejected an amendment from a pro-life senator that would have provided conscience protection on abortion for doctors and medical centers. The amendment comes at a time when President Barack Obama is considering overturning further protections.

Sen Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, sponsored an amendment to the Senate budget bill that would protect the right of conscience for health care workers.

His budget amendment was to “protect the freedom of conscience for patients and the right of health care providers to serve patients without violating their moral and religious convictions.”

However, the Senate rejected the conscience amendment on a 56-41 vote with most of the chamber’s Democrats voting against it along with a handful of pro-abortion Republicans.

Three Democrats joined most of the Senate Republicans in voting for the Coburn amendment.

[…]The amendment comes at a time when Obama is considering rescinding the Provider Conscience Clause that further protects the rights of health workers.

President Bush put the provision into place to provide more enforcement for the three federal laws that make it so medical professionals and facilities are not required to do abortions.

However, President Obama has proposed overturning those conscience protections and will likely do so after a 30-day public comment window expires on April 9.

Earlier this year, Obama succeeding in overturning many of Bush’s protections for individuals whose morality differs with the morality of the government.

Excerpt:

After two years of struggling to balance the rights of patients against the beliefs of health-care workers, the Obama administration on Friday finally rescinded most of a federal regulation designed to protect those who refuse to provide care they find objectionable on moral or religious grounds.

Be careful who you vote for. If free enterprise and capitalism strike you as unfair, then pick up a book by Thomas Sowell or Arthur Brooks and read about it until it makes sense to you. Don’t vote to violate your own conscience because you have a mistaken view of which economic system helps the poor most. Similarly with foreign policy. If opposition to war causes you to vote Democrat, then pick up a book by Frank Gaffney or Douglas Feith and learn about how a strong military is needed to prevent war. Don’t vote to violate your own conscience because you have a mistaken view of which foreign policy helps peace most.

News

Can you rely on government to defend your Christian values?

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Here is a story from the UK, and appears in the UK Telegraph. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

Last month, the Equality and Human Rights Commission warned that British courts had failed to safeguard the rights of Christians who wanted to wear the cross at work, and urged judges to be more sensitive to religious discrimination.

The watchdog said it would call on the European Court of Human Rights to support the principle that employers should make “reasonable adjustments” to accommodate the religious beliefs of their staff.

However, a document posted on the commission’s website disclosed that the watchdog, which is chaired by Trevor Phillips, had abandoned the plan.

Traditionalist Christians claimed that the commission had dropped its support for religious freedom in the face of criticism from secular campaigners and gay rights groups.

The controversy erupted after the watchdog was granted permission to intervene in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, in the cases of Nadia Eweida, Shirley Chaplin, Lillian Ladele, and Gary McFarlane.

All four are Christians who are bringing legal action against the United Kingdom because they believe that British laws have failed to protect their human rights, specifically the right to freedom of religion.

Mrs Eweida, a check-in clerk at BA, was barred from wearing a small crucifix at work while Mrs Chaplin, a nurse, was banned from working on wards after she failed to hide her cross.

Miss Ladele was a registrar who lost her job at Islington town hall, in north London, after saying her beliefs meant she could not officiate at civil partnership ceremonies. Mr McFarlane was sacked for refusing to give sex therapy counselling to gay couples.

Last month, the commission promised to argue in the European court that existing laws had been interpreted in ways that are “insufficient to protect freedom of religion”. It proposed that employers should be able to reach “reasonable accommodations” with their staff to “manage” how workers manifest their beliefs.

However, the watchdog has now launched a public “consultation” on the arguments it should make and has abandoned the plan to call for a new “reasonable accommodation” principle to be introduced, arguing that “this idea needs more careful consideration”.

Don Horrocks, from the Evangelical Alliance, said the Commission had been “successfully intimidated against proceeding as they initially announced”.

“Being forced to be morally complicit in activities which directly violate people’s religious conscience involves fundamental human rights principles,” he said. “There is likely to be a deep sense of injustice within religious communities.”

The gay rights organisation, Stonewall, said it was “deeply disturbed” by the commission’s original plan to support Christians “who have refused to provide public services to gay people”.

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, said last night that it was “perfectly reasonable” for workers to be able to wear a “discreet” cross or other “symbols of identification” at work. “That is very different from saying ‘I wish to work in a public service but to exempt myself from delivering public services to people who have paid for them.’”

A spokeswoman for the Commission said: “Our job is not to take sides in political arguments between activist groups, it is to make sure people do not face unjustified discrimination.”

So what do we learn from this? The Equality and Human Rights Commission was created by the Labour Party, with arch-feminist Harriet Harman playing a key role in its administration. The goal of the commission was to fix unfair discrimination and other injustices. But apparently, they don’t mean discrimination against Christians. So we shouldn’t vote for parties on the left – they don’t stand up for Christians.