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President Barack Hussein Obama’s War On Religion Has Begun, But Where Will It End? Speak Out NOW, Or Your Voices May Forever Be Silenced. Live Free Or Die!!!

By Denny on | From 777denny.wordpress.com

BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: Obama’s War On Religion Causes Firestorm “It’s becoming a thorny problem for the White House and it appears to only be getting worse,” the article says one Democratic strategist explains. “The politically astute move would be to modify this thing, and quick.”

According to the article, “a former senior administration official” is quoted as saying, “I don’t see how they couldn’t” (change the mandate) coarse). “ It’s pretty bad .”

“I just don’t think this is a fight that should have been picked and I think it needs to be fixed,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) said. “I have every confidence that the administration will do so.”

“In imposing this requirement, the federal government is violating a First Amendment right that has stood for more than two centuries,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said in a floor speech. “And it is doing so in a manner that affects millions of Americans and harms some of our nation’s most vital institutions.”

“What this IS saying is that ALL Catholic institutions (Including CHURCHES, Hospitals, universities, poverty outreach centers, etc.) that have employees, MUST also offer – by government decree – insurance that covers contraceptives, abortifacients, and surgical birth control electives – - – - – -

“All which directly go against Catholic doctrine, as well as strip away over heretofore 200 years of Constitutional protection under 1st Amendment rights, going so far as to implicitly declare that ‘THERE IS NO SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE, WHEN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DECREES NONE SHALL EXIST, AT ITS DISCRETION‘!

“In summary…this decree by HHS / Obama Care Law does all of the following:

“1. Sets an UNCONSTITUTIONAL precedent by implicitly declaring ‘null & void’ / vacating OUR rights and protections of the First Amendment not only for the Catholic Church but, any private institution or individual – if it goes unchallenged and is allowed to stand

“2. Sets an UNCONSTITUTIONAL precedent of allowing the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SOLE DISCRETION AS TO WHEN IT WISHES TO SUSPEND ‘SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE‘

“3. If unchallenged / allowed to stand, this UNCONSTITUTIONAL precedent will then leave the door wide open for the further and absolute destruction of our U.S. Constitution protection by protection, right by right, or en masse.

“This abhorrent, gross, frightening, incredible, and unbelievable over-reaching of the Constitutional Authority WE THE PEOPLE have granted to the Executive and Legislative branches is one more PRIME EXAMPLE of just what was meant by the statement “…[Fundamental Transformation] of this country…”" –Bob Aloo

Obama’s War On Religion Stokes Election-Year Fight “This attack … on religious freedom in our country cannot stand and will not stand,” Boehner vowed in his speech on the floor of the House.

Boehner said, “Americans of every faith and political persuasion have mobilized in objection” to Obama’s new rule, which he explains “constitutes an unambiguous attack on religious freedom.”

“This rule would require faith-based employers … to provide services they consider immoral,” he said, including, “sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs and devices, and contraception.”

President Obama is ordering a War on Religion through his Administration, Obamacare legislation and through other parts of the Federal Government. Similar leaders in the past and certainly Communist and dictatorial leaders today in Cuba, China and elsewhere forbid the practice of religion that is not sanctioned by the State. Communist governments and Fascist States are responsible for over 100,000,000 deaths in the last 100 years. Will millions more people of faith have to be persecuted AGAIN? Is Obama trying to fundamentally “change” America into a Communist State? YES!! Speak out now while you still have a voice that can actually accomplish some good, while later your voice will simply be snuffed out with no one to help. Please SPEAK OUT NOW, won’t you? Thank you, 777denny

The following is a repost of an article by Dennis Lohouse in the deaconlohouse blog:

WHITE HOUSE MISREPRESENTS ITS OWN CONTRACEPTIVE MANDATE

The Obama administration, to justify its widely criticized mandate for contraception and sterilization coverage in private health plans, has posted a set of false and misleading claims on the White House blog (“Health Reform, Preventive Services, and Religious Institutions,” February 1). In what follows, each White House claim is quoted with aresponse.

Claim: “Churches are exempt from the new rules: Churches and other houses of worship will be exempt from the requirement to offer insurance that covers contraception.”

Response: This is not entirely true. To be eligible, even churches and houses of worship must show the government that they hire and serve primarily people of their own faith and have the inculcation of religious values as their purpose. Some churches may have service to the broader community as a major focus, for example, by providing directservice to the poor regardless of faith. Such churches would be denied an exemption precisely because their service to the common good is so great. More importantly, the vast array of other religious organizations — schools, hospitals, universities, charitable institutions — will clearly not be exempt. *

Claim: “No individual health care provider will be forced to prescribecontraception: The President and this Administration have previously and continue to express strong support for existing conscience protections. For example, no Catholic doctor is forced to write a prescription for contraception.”

Response: It is true that these rules directly apply to employers and insurers, not providers, but this is beside the point: The Administration is forcing individuals and institutions, including religious employers, to sponsor and subsidize what they consider immoral. Less directly, the classification of these drugs and procedures as basic “preventive services” will increase pressures on doctors, nurses and pharmacists toprovide them in order to participate in private health plans – and no current federal conscience law prevents that from happening. Finally, because the mandate includes abortifacient drugs, it violates one of the “existing conscience protections” (the Weldon amendment) for which the Administration expresses “strong support.” *

Claim: “No individual will be forced to buy or use contraception: This rule only applies to what insurance companies cover. Under this policy, women who want 2 contraception will have access to it through their insurance without paying a co-pay or deductible. But no one will be forced to buy or use contraception.”

Response: The statement that no one will be forced to buy it is false. Women who want contraception will be able to obtain it without co-pay or deductible precisely because women who do not want contraception will be forced to help pay for it through their premiums. This mandate passes costs from those who want the service, to those who object to it.*

Claim: “Drugs that cause abortion are not covered by this policy: Drugs like RU486 are not covered by this policy, and nothing about this policy changes the President’s firm commitment to maintaining strict limitations on Federal funding for abortions. No Federal tax dollars are used for elective abortions.”

Response: False. The policy already requires coverage of Ulipristal (HRP 2000 or “Ella”), a drug that is a close analogue to RU-486 (mifepristone) and has the same effects.1

RU-486 itself is also being tested for possible use as an “emergencycontraceptive” — and if the FDA approves it for that purpose, it will automatically be mandated as well. *

Claim: “Over half of Americans already live in the 28 States that require insurance companies cover contraception: Several of these States like North Carolina, New York, and California have identical religious employer exemptions. Some States like Colorado, Georgia and Wisconsin have no exemption at all.”

Response: This misleads by ignoring important facts, and some of it is simply false. All the state mandates, even those without religious exemptions, may be avoided by selfinsuring prescription drug coverage, by dropping that particular coverage altogether, orby taking refuge in a federal law that pre-empts any state mandates (ERISA). None of these havens is available under the federal mandate. It is also false to claim that North Carolina has an identical exemption. It is broader: It does not require a religious organization to serve primarily people of its own faith, or to fulfill the federal rule’s narrow tax code criterion. Moreover, the North Carolina law, unlike the federal mandate, completely excludes abortifacient drugs like Ella and RU-486 as well as “emergency contraceptives” like Preven.

See A. Tarantal, et al., 54 Contraception 107-115 (1996), at 114 (“studies with mifepristone and HRP 2000 have shown both antiprogestins to have roughly comparable activity in terminating pregnancy when administered during the early stages of gestation”); G. Bernagiano & H. von Hertzen, 375 The Lancet 527-28 (Feb. 13, 2010), at 527 (“Ulipristal has similar biological effects to mifepristone, the antiprogestin used in medical abortion”).3*

Claim: “Contraception is used by most women: According to a study by the Guttmacher Institute, most women, including 98 percent of Catholic women, have used contraception.”

Response: This is irrelevant, and it is presented in a misleading way. If a survey found that 98% of people had lied, cheated on their taxes, or had sex outside of marriage, would the government claim it can force everyone to do so? But this claim also mangles the data to create a false impression. The study actually says this is true of 98% of “sexually
experienced” women. The more relevant statistic is that the drugs and devices subject to this mandate (sterilization, hormonal prescription contraceptives and IUDs) are used by 69% of those women who are “sexually active” and “do not want to become pregnant.” Surely that is a minority of the general public, yet every man and woman who needshealth insurance will have to pay for this coverage. The drugs that the mandate’s supporters say will be most advanced by the new rule, because they have the highest copays and deductibles now, are powerful but risky injectable and implantable hormonal contraceptives, now used by perhaps 5% of women. The mandate is intended to change
women’s reproductive behavior, not only reflect it.*

Claim: “Contraception coverage reduces costs: While the monthly cost of contraception for women ranges from $30 to $50, insurers and experts agree that savings more than offset the cost. The National Business Group on Health estimated that it would cost employers 15 to 17 percent more not to provide contraceptive coverage than to provide such coverage, after accounting for both the direct medical costs of potentially unintended and unhealthy pregnancy and indirect costs such as employee absence and reduced productivity.”

Response: The government is violating our religious freedom to save money? If the claim is true it is hard to say there is a need for a mandate: Secular insurers and employers who don’t object will want to purchase the coverage to save money, and those who object can leave it alone. But this claim also seems to rest on some assumptions: That prescription contraceptives are the only way to avoid “unintended and unhealthy pregnancy,” for example, or that increasing access to contraceptives necessarily produces significant reductions in unintended pregnancies. The latter assumption has been castinto doubt by numerous studies (see http://old.usccb.org/prolife/issues/contraception/contraception-fact-sheet-3-17-11.pdf). *

Claim: “The Obama Administration is committed to both respecting religious beliefs and increasing access to important preventive services. And as we move forward, our strong partnerships with religious organizations will continue.”4

Response: False. There is no “balance” in the final HHS rule — one side has prevailed entirely, as the mandate and exemption remain entirely unchanged from August 2011, despite many thousands of comments filed since then indicating intense opposition. Indeed, the White House Press Secretary declared on January 31, “I don’t believe thereare any constitutional rights issues here,” so little was placed on that side of the scale.

The Administration’s stance on religious liberty has also been shown in other ways. Recently it argued before the Supreme Court that religious organizations have no greater right under the First amendment to hire or fire their own ministers than secular organizations have over their leaders – a claim that was unanimously rejected by the Supreme Court as “extreme” and “untenable.”

The Administration recently denied a human trafficking grant to a Catholic service provider with high objective scores, and gave part of that grant instead to a provider with not just lower, but failing, objective scores, all because the Catholic provider refused in conscience to compromise the same moral and religious beliefs at issue here. Such action violates not only federal conscience laws, but President Obama’s executive order assuring “faith-based” organizations that they will be able to serve the public in federal programs without compromising theirfaith. 2/3/12

Morning Bell: Obamacare Awakens A Sleeping Giant “It is a rare moment indeed when faith denominations of all stripes unite together in common cause, and it is rarer still when that cause is a political one, with a sole piece of legislation as its principal target. But when that law eviscerates the very foundation of religious liberty in America as protected under the First Amendment, it should not be surprising that Catholics and Jews, evangelical Christians, and mainline Lutherans alike find common cause in defense of their liberties.

“Such is the case with the firestorm of opposition to Obamacare and the Obama Administration’s attack on religious liberty. Under a new Obamacare mandate issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the White House is mandating that virtually all religious employers, with the exception of churches, provide health care coverage for contraception — including abortion-inducing drugs — thereby trampling upon their constitutionally guaranteed free exercise of religion. And it is this mandate that has caused a vehement response in churches and synagogues across the country.

“Yesterday, the head of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, warned that the nation’s 70 million Catholics are ready to go to war with the Administration’s dictates, saying ‘Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church. This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions, and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets.”’ – Mike Brownfield

Opinion: End These Health Mandates Now — David Addington “So employer group health plans must cover all FDA-approved contraceptive methods — including contraception, sterilization procedures and what the FDA calls “emergency contraception,” like morning-after pills.

“This contraception mandate commands many religious institutions to do exactly what their religious beliefs command them not to do.

“For example, the Roman Catholic catechism commands that “human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception.” The papal encyclical on human life prohibits “direct interruption of the generative process already begun,” “sterilization,” and “any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation.”

“A Catholic institution cannot comply with this contraception mandate without violating the tenets of its faith. So the “Obamacare” statute leaves many religious institutions, which must follow the tenets of their faiths, with no alternative but to stop making group health insurance available to their employees – and pay any fines for failure to do so.” — DAVID ADDINGTON