Free Republic

By now most have viewed at least one of the HHS anti-smoking commercials featuring victims of various cancers and other ailments caused - they say - by smoking and tobacco use. It's a cliche but still true: these are our tax dollars at work. Your government commissioned these ads and purchased the airtime with your cash. HHS Secretary Sebelius and her minions risk another sort of medical problem - namely, rotator cuff injuries from patting themselves on the back for foisting these grotesque, voyeuristic images on an unsuspecting, undeserving public. This isn't a tear in the eye of Iron Eyes...

The Pope Told You So Media & CultureApril 17th, 2012 Rev. George W. Rutler Our many fellow Catholics now enchained for the Faith of our Fathers in such places as China, Syria, and Egypt are, as Father Faber’s hymn says, “in heart and conscience free.” But what happens when a government tries to chain the conscience itself?A few weeks ago, in a remarkably unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the attempt of the present Administration in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran  Church and School v. EEOC to restrict religious freedom by interfering with the hiring of ministerial personnel. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the Administration’s argument...

Influential evangelical pastor Rick Warren said Sunday that he is not satisfied with the Obama administration’s compromise on a requirement that religious-affiliated organizations provide contraception coverage to employees, and said religious freedom is at stake.“The issue here is not about women’s health,” Warren said on ABC’s This Week. “There is a greater principle, and that is do you have the right to decide what your faith practices?”The controversy has animated political discourse the last several months, with Republicans charging that Democrats are waging a "war on religion" while Democrats retort that Republicans are fighting a "war on women." The initial...

Timothy Cardinal Dolan Age: 62 Occupation: Prince of the Catholic Church The man most likely to give Barack Obama fits on the way to Election Day is the newly birettaed Archbishop of New York. Affable, jolly and theatrical, Dolan deploys these genial weapons as the Catholic Church's point man in the battle against the Obama Administration's policies on contraception and abortion. The President barely won the Catholic vote in 2008; without an accommodation, Dolan could turn away enough voters to tilt a close election — all with a smile.

If the Health Care Mandate is Unconstitutional, Then What? PoliticsMarch 30th, 2012 David J. Porter Editor’s note: A version of this article first appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Neither Porter nor his firm are involved in the ACA litigation. This summer, the Supreme Court will decide whether Congress violated the Constitution when it enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which contains an “individual mandate” requiring virtually every American to purchase health insurance. Based on the Constitution’s text and structure, and judicial interpretations of the relevant provisions, the mandate should be struck down. Pennsylvania is one of 26 states to have...

The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto has a fascinating interview with New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan, in which the president of the US bishops’ conference discusses the interactions he’s had with President Barack Obama over the last several months regarding the birth-control mandate handed down by the Department of Health and Human Services. Dolan describes the 45-minute meeting he had with Obama last November, at which he understood the president to say that the Catholic Church’s religious freedoms would be protected as the health-care law was implemented: “I said, ‘I’ve heard you say, first of all, that you have immense...

America is in the midst of a gravely serious debate about religious liberty. It was touched off by news that President Obama's health-care law will coerce some religious groups to violate conscience by covering certain products and services in their health plans or face steep fines. Sadly, liberals have conjured up distractions from this critical constitutional issue. They're charging defenders of the First Amendment with waging a "war on women." Yes, it's an absurd stretch. So is the claim that defending employers' ability to manage their own health plans - free from the dictates of the health-care law - amounts...

What an amazing coincidence. After the first day of the ObamaCARE hearings, and the night before the most important day in the hearings, Obama’s Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Obama appointed far left Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor happen to be dining for dinner at Nora Restaurant, at the same time of night. Of all the restaurants in the Washington DC area, I find quite fishy. Does Nora Restaurant serve fish? I don’t know if they were sitting together or not, but it still is just another amazing coincidence. Katie Harbath @katieharbath Sec Sibelius and Justice Sotomayor...

While opposition to the HHS mandate has caused many liberals to accuse Republicans of a “war on women,” the Obama administration itself has just declared the first front in its own war on women’s health care. Its casus belli? The Texas government’s restriction on funding for abortion providers. As of last week, President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services has withdrawn $30 million worth of funding from a Texas Medicaid program that provides health-care services for low-income women. This HHS policy begins to confirm what conservatives have suspected all along: While the Obama administration has made it clearer than...

When and Where: 12-1 at the Poff Federal Building, 210 Franklin Rd., SW, Roanoke, VA—(meet at the corner of 3rd St. and Franklin Rd.) Folks - You know what to do. We need a real FReeper showing in Roanoke this Friday. If you're on Facebook, sign up for the Rally, if not, let me know here if you'll be there. Bring your most creative signs and MOABs. (Remember to keep it polite, there are likely to be a lot of nice church people there who may not be used to high sarcasm or Protest Warrior tactics!) Try to get there...

The media and the Administration don't want you to know it, but most Americans oppose the HHS mandate. The most important talking point used by those who support the HHS contraception mandate is that the Catholic Bishops and their allies are "out-of-touch" and represent a minority view. You have no doubt heard things like "98 percent of Catholic women use contraception" and "most Americans, especially women, support the HHS mandate." Well, it's not true. The first assertion is based on a study by the Guttmacher Institute, which as an affiliate of Planned Parenthood, is hardly an objective observer. Even the...

March 19, 2012 (Breakpoint.org) - The most important talking point used by those who support the HHS contraception mandate is that the Catholic Bishops and their allies are “out-of-touch” and represent a minority view. You have no doubt heard things like “98 percent of Catholic women use contraception” and “most Americans, especially women, support the HHS mandate.” Well, it’s not true. The first assertion is based on a study by the Guttmacher Institute, which as an affiliate of Planned Parenthood, is hardly an objective observer. Even the Washington Post compared the media to Pinocchio for using these statistics. In fact,...

New York Archbishop at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican last month when he was installed as a cardinal. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)Editor's Note: The leadership of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week issued a statement reiterating the conviction of the Catholic Church in the United States that President Barack Obama's mandate that all insurance plans--including those that are purchased by and provided by Catholics and Catholic institutions--must provide free coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients is an "unjust and illegal mandate."The Administrative Committee of the conference, led by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, declared the mandate...

A Missouri business owner says his right to religious freedom is being threatened.ST. LOUIS (CNA/EWTN News)—A Missouri business owner has become the first employer of a for-profit, secular company to bring a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s contraception mandate. “Religious liberty is not limited to institutions,” said attorney Francis Manion, who says his client believes the administration is forcing him to violate his conscience under the new federal rule. Manion told CNA on March 15 that the lawsuit is important for private business owners because it asserts that “they too have religious rights, and the government has to respect those...

(CNSNews.com) - All student health care plans covering female college students in the United States must include coverage for free voluntary sterilization surgery, the Department of Health and Human Services announced late Friday afternoon. Women of college age who do not attend school will also get free sterilization coverage whether they are insured through an employer, their parents, or some form of government-subsidized plan.

From the National Catholic *Reporter* (not Register): Taking a conciliatory tone and asking for a wide range of public comment, the Obama administration announced this afternoon new accommodations on a controversial mandate requiring contraceptive coverage in health care plans. Coming after a month of continued opposition from the U.S. bishops to the mandate, which was first revised in early February to exempt certain religious organizations, today’s announced changes from the Department of Health and Human Services make a number of concessions, including allowing religious organizations that self-insure to be made exempt. Also raised is the possibility that the definition given...

“These are the ones most grateful to you for the new well . . .” With that, the chieftain of this Islamic village in Ethiopia, not far from Meki, took me over to meet about twenty beaming young girls, all who looked to be about the age of my niece, Grace, seven or eight years old. I was in the village with a delegation from Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the acclaimed international assistance agency supported by the Catholic community of the United States.  We had just been enthusiastically welcomed to this small village to bless and start-up their new well,...

The White House announced today that colleges and universities will also be forced to join religious employers in instituting the new HHS mandate that requires them to provide coverage for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions. The Health and Human Services Department released information Friday afternoon saying college student health care plans will be treated like employees’ plans — making them subject to the mandate the Obama administration put in place that has upset pro-life groups for its violation of religious liberties. The decision means college students — who already get abortions at the highest rate compared with...

I have little to add to Kathryn’s excellent summary of the U.S. Bishops’ statement “United for Religious Freedom.”I do want to register my disappointment with Reuters, however, which attempted to muddy the waters of the bishops’ crystal-clear resolve the day before they issued their statement — while presenting absolutely no evidence to support that narrative: “Facing small but clear signs of discontent within their own ranks, U.S. Catholic bishops may be poised to rethink their aggressive tactics for fighting a federal mandate that health insurance plans cover contraception, according to sources close to influential bishops…… dozens of bishops, meeting this...

Statement of the USCCB on HHS Mandate The following press release was issued today by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Mandate. BISHOPS PROMISE TO CONTINUE ‘VIGOROUS EFFORTS’ AGAINST HHS VIOLATIONS OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN HEALTH CARE REFORM MANDATEDeclare government has no place defining religion, religious ministrySeek protection for conscience rights of institutions, individualsStress action with the public, White House, Congress, courtsWASHINGTON—The U.S. bishops are strongly united in their ongoing and determined efforts to protect religious freedom, the Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said...