Free Republic

<p>Announcing his support for Commissar Sebelius’s edicts on contraception, sterilization, and pharmacological abortion, that noted theologian the Most Reverend Al Sharpton explained: “If we are going to have a separation of church and state, we’re going to have a separation of church and state.”</p>

President Barack Obama has been hammered lately over his health mandate that every employer must provide insurance coverage for contraception, abortifacients and even sterilization, things many religious people find to be sinful, according to the tenets of their faith. As our editorial today points out, this is an egregious violation of First Amendment guarantees to the exercise of religious beliefs when the state demands people act against their beliefs. The White House today has suggested a compromise, which is transparently absurd...

Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry said on Thursday that the dispute between President Barack Obama and the Catholic church over contraception shows he was right to accuse Obama of a "War on Religion." Perry, who quit the presidential campaign last month after a faltering performance, said that he was blasted last September for criticizing Obama as hostile to religion. Perry ran ads before the Iowa caucuses stressing his Christian religion and saying that he would restore respect for religion if he were elected. "But last night if you turned on a television or heard talk radio or read a...

Despite what President Obama said at his White House press conference, the actual regulations make permanent the “interim final regulations” issued August 3, 2011 — the ones that sparked the furor in the first place. ...The bottom line is this: “Accordingly, the amendment to the interim final rule with comment period amending 45 CFR 147.130(a)(1)(iv) which was published in the Federal Register at 76 FR 46621-46626 on August 3, 2011, is adopted as a final rule without change.” [Emphasis added.] Translation: The Obama administration Friday afternoon put into federal law the very regulation that drew objections from almost 200 Catholic...