Free Republic

The Church strongly opposes contraception, in keeping with the historical position of Christianity. Openness to procreating life is one of the defining characteristics of marriage, which is primarily what makes homosexual "marriage" impossible. The Church also upholds the life-long commitment that is marriage. Contrast the Church's beautiful teachings on all of this against the positions of Protestantism -- those of Anglicanism, in particular. Anglicans once agreed with the Church on these subjects, up until the 1930 Lambeth Conference that approved contraception in some cases (which, of course, had a snowball effect). Here's the 15th resolution from the Conference: "Where there...

If a corporate employer can refuse on religious grounds to provide workplace insurance for contraception, what about employers with religious objections to blood transfusions or vaccinations? Or those who believe in healing by prayer? Those questions lurk below the surface of the challenge the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review to regulations in the new federal health care law requiring employers to make contraceptive coverage available to their employees. That mandate, two groups of corporate owners argue, violates their freedom of religion. If the court agrees, some legal analysts say, other employers would have an equal right to veto...

Maybe someone can explain to me how, exactly, conservatives are the aggressors in the culture war? In the conventional narrative of American politics, conservatives are obsessed with social issues. They want to impose their values on everyone else. They want the government involved in your bedroom. Those mean right-wingers want to make "health care choices" for women. Now consider last week's decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to consider two cases stemming from Obamacare: Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius and Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores. Democratic politicians and their fans on social media went ballistic almost instantly. That's hardly...

Maybe someone can explain to me how, exactly, conservatives are the aggressors in the culture war? In the conventional narrative of American politics, conservatives are obsessed with social issues. They want to impose their values on everyone else. They want the government involved in your bedroom. Those mean right-wingers want to make “health-care choices” for women. Now consider last week’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to consider two cases stemming from Obamacare: Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius and Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores. Democratic politicians and their fans on social media went ballistic almost instantly. That’s hardly unusual these...

It is a sad moment in history when a government calls upon a lone woman to testify about contraception and attempts to tell the country she is representative of women. Where is the person they asked to testify about morality and about the sanctity of life? This deliberate attempt to alter morality and to squash the words and will of our Lord is becoming rampant today and the results are sickening. We must make our voices heard or this will not just be a fluke; it will be the norm. Sandra Fluke was once a law student at Georgetown University....

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) -- The University of Notre Dame is suing the Obama administration over a federal mandate that its health insurance plans for students and employees cover birth control. The university filed its lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in South Bend. It claims the mandate violates Notre Dame's freedom to practice religion without government interference. The Roman Catholic university says the birth control mandate violates the church's teaching prohibiting contraception.

Infamous former Georgetown Law student and now social justice attorney Sandra Fluke is back in the news thanks to the Supreme Court agreeing to take up a case surrounding the employer contraception mandate in Obamacare. In case you need a reminder, Fluke is the woman who testified before Congress in 2012 about how birth control should be paid for by someone else because it can cost a female student "$3,000 during law school." Last night on MSNBC, Fluke argued that employers cannot be exempted from the contraception mandate in Obamacare because that would mean they could also opt. out of...

Liberal marketing gurus here in Colorado are masters of Obamacare distraction. While customers struggle to apply through the still-broken health insurance exchange and consumers grapple with cancellation notices, these hipster ad designers are partying it up. Who cares about the insurance market meltdown? They've got keg stands and one-night stands! The "Got Insurance?" campaign is the lame brainchild of two "progressive" outfits with dubious nonprofit status: ProgressNow and the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative. Their previous claim to fame: a "Thanks, Obamacare" social media movement to propagandize praise and gratitude for the federal mandate. Modeled after the "Got Milk?" ads, the...

A pro-life student group today released a new video showing young girls not legally old enough for sexual relations were unable to buy the sudafed cold medicine but could easily purchase the Plan B drug. Although sex with a girl 15-years-old or younger if statutory rape, the girls had no problems getting the drugs at nationally-known stores. Earlier this year, the Food & Drug Administration announced that “Plan B,” also known as the “morning after pill”, should be sold over the counter to anyone of any age. Before that it could only be sold to those 17 and older. Plan...

A divided appeals court panel sided Friday with Ohio business owners who challenged the birth control mandate under the new federal health care law. The business owners are two brothers, Francis and Philip M. Gilardi, who own Freshway Foods and Freshway Logistics of Sidney, Ohio., and challenged the mandate on religious grounds. They say the mandate to provide contraceptive coverage would force them to violate their Roman Catholic beliefs and moral values by providing contraceptives such as the morning-after pill for their employees. The law already exempts houses of worship from the requirement. The ruling by a three-judge panel of...

A federal appeals court on Friday struck down the birth control mandate in ObamaCare, concluding the requirement trammels religious freedom. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — the second most influential bench in the land behind the Supreme Court — ruled 2-1 in favor of business owners who are fighting the requirement that they provide their employees with health insurance that covers birth control. Requiring companies to cover their employees’ contraception, the court ruled, is unduly burdensome for business owners who oppose birth control on religious grounds, even if they are not purchasing the contraception directly. “The burden on religious...

The liberal claim that Republicans are engaging in a perpetual “war on women” seems to have taken a new turn on MSNBC. No longer does the term “war on women” apply only to access to abortion but now encompasses voting rights as well. Appearing on MSNBC on October 29, liberal MSNBC host Thomas Roberts claimed that Republicans are trying to restrict a woman’s access to the ballot box. This comes one week after fill-in host Michael Eric Dyson made a similar complaint on The Ed Show. [See video after jump.]  MSNBC's Roberts: Republicans Want To Stop Women From Voting Speaking...

We seem to be losing the ability to determine what is really best for our minds, bodies, and souls. Instead, we focus on the here and now. We seek pleasure at all cost, and we allow immoral behavior to creep into our lives. If this continues, there will only be one natural consequence. Common sense is not the exclusive domain of any particular group of people, but in our day and age it seems to be about as prehistoric as the Tyrannosaurus Rex – especially when it comes to sex. What is common sense? Webster says it is "the ability...

Who needs religious freedom? It's a necessary, if often unasked, question. For a number of years now, there has been evidence of religious liberty being threatened in the United States. Due to the intensely partisan nature of our current politics, these warnings have frequently been ignored or dismissed. But are you willing to dismiss the Little Sisters of the Poor? They run homes for the elderly, and are now suing the Department of Health and Human Services in a class-action lawsuit -- the first against the mandate that was issued as part of the president's signature health-care legislation that...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog New York Civil Liberties Union says Obamacare violates patients’ right to sexual privacy Obamacare requires doctors to ask patients personal questions about their sex lives, and to put their answers into an electronic database. Doctors who avoid doing this will be penalized.Dr. Adam Budzikowski, a New York cardiologist, said these sex question were “insensitive, stupid and very intrusive,” and that he could not think of any reason why a cardiologist would need such information.Dr. Richard Amerling, an associate professor of medicine at Albert Einstein Medical College, said that a patient’s medical record should be “a story...

Four Christian universities in Oklahoma are the latest to sue the Obama administration over its mandate that forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception. Southern Nazarene University, Oklahoma Wesleyan University, Oklahoma Baptist University and Mid-America Christian University filed the new lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma on Friday. They specifically objected to providing coverage for abortifacients, the Christian group Alliance Defending Freedom, which filed the suit on their behalf, said in a statement. "Christian colleges should remain free to operate according to...

In his 1835 book Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville noted that for Americans, "equality is their idol." Among such a democratic people, he reports, "there are certain epochs at which the passion they entertain for it swells to the height of fury." They prefer equality in freedom, he noted, but if "they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery." Even barbarism, servitude, and poverty are acceptable offerings to "this irresistible passion." The same-sex marriage debate might have focused on the purpose of sexuality, or the nature of homosexuality, or the etiology of marriage. Instead, the dominant...

COLORADO SPRINGS -- Out: The boy who cried wolf. In: The girl who cried birth control. Desperate Democrats are imposing false-alarm feminist politics on a high-stakes recall election in Colorado this month. It's a golden opportunity for independent-minded women to reject empty femme-a-goguery and tear up the Sandra Fluke card. On September 10, Colorado Springs and Pueblo will decide whether to boot two top state Democrats (state Senate Majority Leader John Morse and state Sen. Angela Giron) over their support for radical gun- and ammo-control measures spearheaded by outside special interests. Left-wing billionaires Michael Bloomberg of New York City and...

Ann Clare Boothe was born on April 10, 1903, in a dismal apartment house on Riverside Drive in New York City…. Clare herself once succinctly pictured her unpropitious prospects as a baby. Shortly after her conversion to Catholicism, she was attacked by an ardent disciple of Mrs. Sanger for the Catholic stand against birth control. She wound up her tirade by saying, “I cannot understand anyone as enlightened as yourself subscribing to that doctrine.” “I think I appreciate your logic,” said Clare. “Let’s take the case of a young married woman, frail and ill, deserted by her husband, earning a...

The U.S. Department of Justice has said it will not oppose a lawsuit filed by a Michigan-based Christian-run business that is seeking suspension of enforcement of the abortion pill mandate against it. In the lawsuit by Trijicon, which manufactures sights and scopes for the military, law enforcement, and hunter, the Justice Department has notified the court it will not oppose the business' request for a court order that would suspend enforcement of the mandate against the company, Alliance Defending Freedom said in a statement on Friday. "All Americans, including job creators, should be free to honor God and live according...