Another HHS revision: free contraception for everyone except Rachel Maddow’s parents?

Does the Obama administration need to revise the HHS birth control mandate again?  Free contraception for everyone but Rachel Maddow's parents?

A clip of Rachel Maddow defending contraception was played at the CPAC conference in Washington:

Maddow:

"You could try to make this an issue of 'Oh, Democrats hate religion.'  But the fact is churches were exceptions from the beginning.  This is about providing health insurance.  And the Republican Party is waging war on contraception at this point."

In response Cal Thomas remarked:

"I'm really glad that you played the Rachel Maddow clip because I think that she is the best argument in favor of her parents using contraception...and all the rest of the crowd at MSNBC too for that matter."

Thomas later apologized directly to Maddow who graciously accepted his apology.

But...

Maddow asked a legitimate question:  Is this a war against contraception or a war against freedom of religion?

And rude as it was, Thomas' comment  raised a legitimate point:  If contraception is so darn beneficial for society that it has to be offered to all women for "free," why is it so offensive to offer to particular people?

Contraception:  Not In My Back Pocket!

Scholars call Obama's revised HHS birth control mandate 'cheap accounting trick'

President Obama's "compromise" on the controversial birth control mandate that violates the freedom of religion is a pretense.  University leaders penned a letter calling the revision a "cheap accounting trick."  

Catholic Vote:

This so-called “accommodation” changes nothing of moral substance and fails to remove the assault on religious liberty and the rights of conscience which gave rise to the controversy.  It is certainly no compromise.  The reason for the original bipartisan uproar was the administration’s insistence that religious employers, be they institutions or individuals, provide insurance that covered services they regard as gravely immoral and unjust.  Under the new rule, the government still coerces religious institutions and individuals to purchase insurance policies that include the very same services. 

The simple fact is that the Obama administration is compelling religious people and institutions who are employers to purchase a health insurance contract that provides abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization.  This is a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand.  It is an insult to the intelligence of Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other people of faith and conscience to imagine that they will accept as assault on their religious liberty if only it is covered up by a cheap accounting trick.

Finally, it bears noting that by sustaining the original narrow exemptions for churches, auxiliaries, and religious orders, the administration has effectively admitted that the new policy (like the old one) amounts to a grave infringement on religious liberty.  The administration still fails to understand that institutions that employ and serve others of different or no faith are still engaged in a religious mission and, as such, enjoy the protections of the First Amendment. 

The letter was signed by:  Catholic University of America President John Garvey, Professor of Law at Harvard University Mary Ann Glendon, Princton University Professor Robert P. George, University of Notre Dame Professor O. Carter Snead, and Hertog Fellow, EPPC Fellow Yuval Levin.  

Obama's accommodation to HHS mandate: make abortion drugs 'free'

Does President Obama think we’re stupid, or what?

Worried about the furor his heavy-handed HHS mandate caused, President Obama tried to appease the masses Friday by informing us that faith-based organizations will still offer contraception in their healthcare coverage, but they won’t have to pay for it.  It will be “free.” 

Pro-life advocates say the "accommodation" to the mandate makes it "even worse."

Lifenews reports:

"The revised Obama mandate will make religious groups contract with insurers to offer birth control and the potentially abortion-causing drugs to women at no cost. The revised mandate will have religious employers refer women to their insurance company for coverage that still violates their moral and religious beliefs. Under this plan, every insurance company will be obligated to provide coverage at no cost."

 Obama misses the point entirely.  The problem with dispensing morning after drugs to women is not the price tag; it’s the fact that it kills babies. 

Apparently Obama still believes in the gospel of Planned Parenthood, which preaches abortion, sterilization, condoms, and contraception.

While Obama clings to Planned Parenthood and the birth control mentality, the rest of us cling to our First and Second Amendment rights:  freedom of religion and freedom to bear arms.

Remember the "cling to guns or religion" sermon?

Let freedom ring and let's cling!  

Hope and change: President Obama to announce change to HHS mandate on birth control

An anonymous source says on Friday President Obama “will announce a plan to accommodate religious employers,” regarding his unpopular HHS mandate on birth control.  Obama is responding to the mandate that faith-based organizations must offer sterilization, contraception, and abortion-inducing drugs to their employees.  Political and religious leaders including 171 Roman Catholic bishops say this violates the religious liberties of hospitals, schools, and charities who oppose such “healthcare” on ethical grounds.

Obama, a Harvard Law school graduate, finally found the First Amendment to the Constitution:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Either that, or Obama has found polls showing the unpopularity of his decision to preach the gospel of Planned Parenthood to the Catholic Church. Far from dividing the women’s vote from the Republican base, Obama has united freedom-loving Republicans and Democrats.

From an AP source:

“The issue also pushed social issues to the forefront in an election year that had been dominated by the economy. Abortion, contraception and any of the requirements of Obama's health care overhaul law have the potential to galvanize the Republicans' conservative base, critical to voter turnout in the presidential and congressional races.”

This time, no doubt legislators will actually examine his plan before agreeing to it.  Except for maybe Nancy vote-first-read-later Pelosi:

Supreme Court to decide if widow's twins conceived by IVF after husband's death have right to Social Security benefits

Do women have the right to use a man’s sperm without his knowledge or consent?    Do children conceived by IVF have the legal right to benefits, such as Social Security?  Can society force a man to pay child support for twins conceived with his stolen sperm?  Why would a doctor who oversaw more than 1000 IVF procedures now denounce the industry?  And how will this impact same-sex couples? 

Life Legal Defense Foundation reports: 

The Supreme Court is hearing a case, Astrue v. Capato, No. 11-159, in which a widow seeks Social Security survivor benefits for the twins conceived by IVF and born after her husband’s death. Lower federal courts are divided on the question whether such posthumously conceived children are entitled to benefits under the Social Security Act, and the Supreme Court is expected to settle the question in a ruling this spring.
“We felt this was an educable moment for the Court,” said Catherine Short, counsel of record on the brief. “There’s a huge dearth of appreciation for the ugly underbelly of IVF.”

This has particular significance for same-gender couples since they cannot conceive children without the help of other people such as a sperm donor or birth mother.  Will the IVF industry target same-sex couples?

The brief emphasizes that children conceived by IVF are fully human and entitled to love and respect just like any other children. But the brief also cautions the Court that IVF comes with a package of very significant downsides, including physical and emotional risks to both the IVF child and the genetic mother, the routine creation and destruction or freezing of untold numbers of “spare” human embryos, the deconstruction of the family, and the unleashing of an exploitative industry that can prey upon vulnerable women.

Physical and emotional risks, destruction, deconstruction of the family, exploitative industry....Is it just me, or does the IVF industry remind you of another industry Planned Parenthood?

Judge orders Wildflower Inn to turn over records in same-sex marriage lawsuit

Those who ask, “How will same-sex marriage affect yours?” now have their answer.  No doubt the expense and emotional stress of a lawsuit is affecting Mary and Jim O’Reilly.  This case highlights the clash between freedom of religion versus the right to redefine marriage.

Kate Baker and Ming-Lien Linsley of New York sued the Wildflower Inn of Vermont for declining to host their gay wedding reception.  On Tuesday, Caledonia Superior Court Judge Robert Gerety Jr. ordered the owners of the inn to turn over 10 years’ worth of records including names and contacts of persons serving as wedding directors for the inn.

The Wildflower Inn owners, Mary and Jim O’Reilly, are Catholic.  Same-gender “marriage” is contrary to their religious beliefs; they say hosting a wedding reception for two women “goes against everything that we, as Catholics, believe in.”

Their right to practice their faith has been challenged by Baker and Linsley, represented by the ACLU.  The Orleans County Record reports that Judge Gerety granted the ACLU’s request for records from the last decade.  The Catholic business owners are ordered to:

“produce documents outlined in the ACLU's five-page, 38-section request for information, including the names and contact information of anyone serving as the Wildflower's wedding or events director during the past 10 years, its annual gross and net revenues. The Wildflower Inn will also have to turn over e-mails, telephone messages and calendar notes related to requests by same sex-sex couples to have weddings, civil unions, commitment ceremonies, receptions or other special events for same-sex couples.”

The federal government has assaulted the freedom of religion in the recent HHS mandate that Catholic organizations must offer sterilization, contraception, and abortion-inducing drugs for their employees in opposition to their faith.  In Vermont, the same-sex marriage law tramples a Catholic couple’s freedom of religion and belief in gender-integrated marriage.

How does same-sex marriage affect other marriages?  Jim and Mary O’Reilly found out the hard way.

The Gift of Life movie trailer

The Gift of Life would not be possible without the integration of the genders.  Hosted by governor Mike Huckabee:

Jimmy Kimmel explains Pope's warning about same-sex marriage

Jimmy Kimmel translates what the Pope meant when he said policies that support segregating genders in marriage, "threaten the future of humanity itself."

Rick Santorum glitter bombed in MN

Rick Santorum got glitter bombed again in Minnesota.
Uploaded by roberterickson1:

Rick Santorum was glittered again today in the third glitterbomb of an anti gay GOP presidential candidate in the past 6 days.
Ben Egerman, who previously glittered Karl Rove and has helped to organize numerous other glitter actions shouted "Feel the rainbow! No hate in our state!" as he give Rick Santorum a glitter makeover which clung to his face throughout the speech.

LGBT activists love to hate Santorum and target him with ad hominem attacks.

Ad santorum!

Court rules Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional

Tuesday a federal appeals court struck down California’s ban on same-gender marriage.

Los Angeles Times reports: 

"The 2-1 decision by a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that limited marriage to one man and one woman, violated the U.S. Constitution.

The ruling was narrow and likely to be limited to California."

 According to the court, “Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California.”

Proposition 8 advocates intend to appeal the court’s decision.

Marriage advocates believe people with same-sex attraction have inherent dignity and should not be encouraged to box themselves in by "sexual orientation" or segregate themselves by gender in marriage.  Segregation will lesson their dignity.

By assuming this is only about homosexuality, the court misses the bigger picture:  Same-sex marriage is about gender.  Do we really want to teach children that segregating people by gender in marriage is social justice?  Do we really believe that gender diversity is bad and that having both a mother and a father is unimportant?

Will allowing same-gender couples to marry lessen the status and dignity of marriage and children?

Ex-lesbian tells story of fight to keep her child in 'Only One Mommy'

With her daughter Isabella, Lisa Miller fled the country rather than follow the court order to turn her child over to ex-partner, Janet Jenkins.  One of Miller's attorneys Rina M. Lindevaldsen tells the story in Only One Mommy:  A Woman's Battle for Her Life, Her Daughter, and Her Freedom."  

From Lifesitenews:

"After Lindevaldsen’s summary of Miller’s victory over homosexual vice and her other addictions, the attorney leads readers through the maze of legal arguments that have been used to justify giving parenthood rights, and ultimately guardianship, of Isabella to Jenkins.  In the process she shows that no state is truly safe from the effects of homosexualist legislation in other jurisdictions.

Although Miller was artificially inseminated while in a civil union with Jenkins, Isabella was never adopted by her, and Jenkins’ name does not appear on Isabella’s birth certificate. Moreover, Miller and Jenkins were residents of Virginia when they entered into their Vermont “civil union,” and Virginia’s constitution explicitly denies all recognition to such unions.

In sum, while Jenkins appears to lack all standing to make a claim of “parenthood,” that did not prevent judges in Vermont and Virginia from twisting the law like a pretzel to ensure that Jenkins had access to Isabella.

Miller’s legal nightmare began when a Vermont judge decided to literally create a law where one did not exist. Vermont had no law giving parenthood rights to the spouse of a woman who is artificially inseminated - the spouse had to adopt the child. But despite the fact that civil unions were to be treated like marriages under Vermont law, Vermont Judge Richard Cohen decreed from the bench that Jenkins was Isabella’s 'mother.'”

Under Obamacare, will Catholics be forced to pay for condoms thrown at Catholic schoolgirls?

Or can Catholics get a religious exemption for that?

Occupy Providence demonstrators disrupted the 39^th annual pro-life rally in the statehouse in Rhode Island.  They chanted during speeches, held their signs in front of speakers’ faces, and “prevented the delivery of the closing prayer.”  But that wasn’t offensive enough. 

The Blaze reports: 

 “one Occupier climbed to the third floor balcony and dumped a box of condoms on a group of Catholic girls gathered below.”

Condoms?  Interesting.  This was the same week that 153 bishops spoke out against the HHS decision to deny Catholics a religious exemption from the mandate to buy contraception such as condoms, which Catholics oppose for religious reasons.

This begs the question; will the Obama administration force Catholics to pay for condoms used to harass young Catholic school girls?