Vicari: Victory for religious freedom is victory for women

The reactions by so-called women's groups and "abortion rights" advocates to Monday's Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby religious liberty case have ranged from the merely ignorant to the downright hysterical. At the root of them all is deceitfulness masquerading as concern for "women's health." Chelsen Vicari, author of the upcoming book, Distortion: How the New Christian Left is Twisting the Gospel and Damaging the Faith, offers a healthy dose of reality to women (and men) who are being deceived by the liars on the Left.

The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold citizens’ First Amendment right to live and work according to our moral convictions should not scare women. What should frighten us is the deceptive and potentially harmful misinformation so-called “progressive” voices within pro-abortion lobby groups, mainstream media, and, most disappointingly, from some within the Church are feeding us.

Lending to the “war on women” outcry yesterday was Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. According to Huffington Post, Richards stated, “Today, the Supreme Court ruled against American women and families giving bosses the right to discriminate against women and deny their employees access to birth control coverage.”

First, let us quickly debunk Richards’ misleading sentiments by clarifying that women are not denied access to birth control coverage. In fact, Hobby Lobby and Constenaga Wood are willing to provide 16 out of the 20 forms of contraception dictated by the Obama Administration’s invasive Health and Human Services mandate. The point of contention arose when the Southern Baptist Green family and Mennonite Wood family declined to pay for abortion-inducing emergency contraception, including Plan B, Plan B One-Step, Next Choice, and Ella.

Just to prove that the Supreme Court decision did nothing to limit women from accessing these four abortifacients, this morning I visited my local CVS pharmacy. Walking straight back to the pharmacy I simply asked, “Do you sell Plan B?” The young female attendant said, “No, but we have the generic version Next Choice.” The cost of came to about a little over $40.00.

I declined to finalize the sale, but did notice that there were no conservative evangelicals or conservative politicians forbidding me—a 26 year-old woman—from accessing these abortion-inducing drugs. Am I really supposed to believe that my health is at risk because my boss will not pay for it?

Second, and most importantly, Richards ignores that women actually won yesterday. Although opponents of the court’s ruling are directing women by focusing on a “personhood of corporations” argument, it is vital to remember that behind the Christian family-run business Hobby Lobby and Conestoga are women. Namely, Barbara Green and Elizabeth Hahn sought protection to live by their convictions. These women and their families were [victors] and we should celebrate their courage to defend their constitutional rights in the face of fierce hostility.

In addition, Hobby Lobby’s legal counsel consisted of several women including Lori Windham. Speaking for the Green and Hahn family, Windham shared, “Women’s voices are heard standing up for religious freedom. This case is about the freedoms of all Americans, women and men. And it’s something that all Americans should celebrate.”

She also takes a few "progressive" men who claim to be "evangelical Christians" to task for misleading women with their specious arguments.

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), is one such voice inside the Christian community that sees so-called “reproductive” rights as women’s ticket to freedom. The RCRC is a coalition including the Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (USA) and United Church of Christ (UCC). Outraged by the court’s ruling, RCRC stated, “Real religious liberty protects the rights of women to make thoughtful decisions about whether and when to use contraception in private consultation with their doctors, their families and their own faith – there is no place for a boss’s beliefs in such conversations.”

Missing the point, Rev. Richard Cizik, President of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, wrote, “The supporters of Hobby Lobby think they are being ‘pro-life.’ They are wrong. A massive study conducted in 2012 showed that contraception coverage without a co-pay could dramatically reduce the abortion rate.” Since when is the Hobby Lobby ruling about monthly contraception?

Again, David Gushee and Brian McLaren, two leading voice among the Evangelical Left, both raised the same question, “Are critics taking seriously the public health benefits of no-cost contraception coverage, and the moral benefits of the likely dramatic reduction in the number of unplanned pregnancies and abortions?”

Aside from the fact that these professing believers do not acknowledge that these drugs are life-terminating, these men are misleading women to believe these drugs are safe and regular forms of birth control.

Note how these "progressive evangelicals" want to redefine such long-standing terms as "pro-life" and mitigate the immorality of sexual promiscuity so long as it does not result in an unplanned pregnancy and subsequent abortion. These are the same folks, after all, who have been trying for a number of years to cling to the self-identification of "evangelical" while straying further and further from any semblance of true evangelicalism. It is hardly surprising, then, that they would want to reformulate basic Christian morality in utilitarian platitudes more favorable to their aberrant beliefs.

Ecumenical perspectives on SCOTUS Hobby Lobby decision and continued struggle for religious freedom

Religious liberty won at the Supreme Court yesterday. One of the earlier victims of the Obama Administration's relentless assault on this fundamental freedom was the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS), which sought and received relief from the nation's highest court over an employment dispute at one of its schools. Synod President Matthew Harrison offers his thoughts on yesterday's ruling, remembering his denomination's earlier battle.

Two years ago, I sat on a panel before Congress, testifying to the importance of religious liberty in America today.

It seems like a long time ago.

Since then, we have seen and heard a steady stream of news, from the church and the culture, about the Health and Human Services’ mandate and the Affordable Care Act, abortifacients and the conscience, religious freedoms and what this means for women.

Thankfully, the wait is over. The Supreme Court has ruled, and the verdict is in: In a landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of religious liberty, specifically in regard to closely held corporations (those with a small number of shareholders and offering no public stock, such as corporations that are family-owned, not operated by boards).

While we rejoice in this strong upholding of religious freedom, this decision does not signal an end to this discussion. It simply emboldens us carry on, doing what we do best as Christians: praying, confessing the faith and living it out in our daily callings.

We pray that Americans, whose consciences are burdened because they have been forced to violate their religious beliefs, would know God’s comfort and forgiveness.

We confess that life, which begins at conception, is a gift from God and ought to be held in the highest regard in this country.

We live, knowing that the First Amendment guarantees us not only the right to worship, but also to practice our faith as Lutheran citizens of this great nation, serving our neighbor where the Lord has placed us.

We do all of this, even as we rejoice with the Greens of Hobby Lobby, with the Hahns of Conestoga Wood Specialties and with our millions of brothers and sisters in the United States who believe just as strongly in the religious liberties guaranteed in our Constitution.

Today we are thankful for this step toward maintaining the integrity of our religious freedoms inherent in the First Amendment, but we will also remain ever mindful. The issue is and will continue to be purely and simply about religious freedom.

And so we pray. We confess. We live.

“We fought for a free conscience in this country,” I told the committee two years ago, “and we won’t give it up without a fight.”

I meant that, and I pray you do too.

The Rev. Matthew C. Harrison
President, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Robert George also reminds us that the fight is far from over.

What does today’s ruling portend for the other cases coming down the line concerning the mandates, including those for religious non-profit entities to whom the Obama administration has offered an “accommodation” that they, rightly in my view, regard as phony? Some language in Justice Alito’s opinion, and especially some language in Justice Anthony Kennedy’s short concurring opinion, is causing a bit of anxiety for religious freedom advocates. The Becket Fund explains the “accommodation” and what is fallacious about it:

Under this, an objecting organization will notify its insurer or plan administrator, which will make payments to employees for the mandated contraceptive services. The rule insists these payments are not “benefits” and are separate from the organization’s health plan. Nonetheless, the accommodation means that employees are guaranteed payments for objectionable services, specifically because they are covered under the organization’s plan. Furthermore, the accommodation requires a self-insured organization to “designate” its plan administrator as an agent who will make or arrange for payments for the mandated services. This “accommodation” fails to solve the moral problem created by the mandate for many religious organizations.

My own judgment is that Alito’s words needn’t and shouldn’t be interpreted as suggesting that he thinks the “accommodation” satisfies RFRA concerns about the religious freedom of Catholic and Evangelical colleges and other institutions that have filed lawsuits to prevent imposition on them of the contraception and/or abortifacient mandates. As I said, Alito is a good judicial craftsman. He doesn’t address issues that needn’t be resolved in order to dispose of the case at hand. It is a mistake to read him as signaling a favorable attitude towards the “accommodation.”

Kennedy, not uncharacteristically, is harder to read. I can’t say with confidence that he is not signaling a friendly attitude towards the “accommodation.” At the same time, I cannot say that he seems to have settled his mind on the question. When one of the cases presenting the issue makes it to the Supreme Court, it will be incumbent on the lawyers challenging the imposition of the mandates to do a good job of explaining how, despite the “accommodation,” they implicate the religious employer in the provision of contraceptives and abortifacients in violation of their conscientious opposition to providing these products.

In the mean time, the cases filed by non-profit institutions like Colorado Christian College and the University of Notre Dame, and by the Catholic television network EWTN and the redoubtable Little Sisters of the Poor, will work their way through the system—mostly winning in the lower federal courts. Notre Dame Law School professor Gerard Bradley, one of our nation’s most astute commentators on religious liberty issues, has noted that these cases are of two kinds: (1) those involving claimants who self-insure; and (2) those involving claimants who purchase insurance from companies. Professor Bradley believes that today’s decision should inspire a great deal of confidence for claimants in the first category. The situation for those in the second, considered in light of what Justice Kennedy says in his concurring opinion, is more uncertain. What is certain is that Kennedy’s vote will decide the cases that consider the “accommodation.” Lawyers on the competing sides can each count on four votes being with them and four against. So lawyers on both sides will be directing their arguments to Kennedy. As is often the case, he is The Decider.

All the while, politics will happen. Hillary Clinton, Sandra Fluke, Nancy Pelosi, and others are already warning that the Supreme Court has joined the alleged “war on women.” Left-wing pressure groups will whip their base into a frenzy for electoral and fund-raising reasons. Brandishing Justice Ginsburg’s overwrought dissenting opinion, they will compare the justices in the Hobby Lobby majority to leaders of the Taliban. Democrats in Congress, egged on by the Daily Kos, Planned Parenthood, NARAL and the rest, will propose reversing the Hobby Lobby decision by amending RFRA or repealing it altogether.

Friends of religious freedom must respond swiftly and strongly to the claims and political machinations of their adversaries. We must wield the sword of truth against the falsehoods and gross exaggerations that will become the currency of the other side’s attacks. Without resorting to their tactics, we must match their intensity and determination. Key elements of our religious freedom hang in the balance.

"Tolerance" and "diversity" bullies get a dose of their own medicine

YES! It's about time something like this happened.

AUSTIN, TEXAS--The case of fired former-Fox Sports broadcaster Craig James is now under investigation by the State of Texas.

The Texas Workforce Commission is launching an investigation into whether James suffered from religious discrimination when he was fired shortly after he said in a televised debate he supports traditional marriage.

The state agency, which which has authority over such employment matters in the Lone Star State, issued a “charge” document announcing its inquiry Thursday.

Previously, Fox Sports President Eric Shanks admitted in a court deposition that a senior vice president at the network anonymously told the media that James was fired for his religious views, although Shanks denied that was actually the reason.

Additionally, emails obtained by Breitbart News show James' remarks about traditional marriage were a topic of significant conversation in the 48 hours immediately before he was fired.

“The Texas Workforce Commission issuing a charge of discrimination against Fox Sports Southwest and conducting an investigation is a serious step toward holding Fox Sports accountable for violating the law and religious liberty on Craig James,” said Hiram Sasser, the Liberty Institute's Managing Director for Strategic Litigation.

Breitbart News was the first media outlet to report when James filed a legal complaint against Fox Sports. As explained in detail in that report, when James was a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2012, he had been asked during a televised debate about his views on marriage, to which he responded that he believes marriage exclusively to be one man with one woman. That view is dictated by his Christian faith, and is a provision in the Texas Constitution.

Fox Sports fired James from his job as an on-air sports analyst days after this was brought to the network’s attention in 2013.

Major victory for religious liberty in New York

The train wreck that is Obamacare took another hit today as a federal judge in New York smacked down the administration for a gross violation of religious liberty.

A group of Catholic health and educational organizations don’t have to comply with a federal Affordable Care Act requirement to provide their employees with contraception coverage, a federal judge in New York ruled.

U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan in Brooklyn today barred the government from enforcing the mandate against Catholic Health Care System, Catholic Health Services of Long Island, Cardinal Spellman High School and Monsignor Farrell High School.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and the health and educational groups challenged the mandate on religious freedom grounds. After the U.S. issued a rule exempting the archdiocese, schools and health-care affiliates were still subject to the law, which takes effect Jan. 1.

The groups “have demonstrated that the mandate, despite accommodation, compels them to perform acts that are contrary to their religion,” Cogan wrote. “And there can be no doubt that the coercive pressure here is substantial.”

Groups that don’t comply with the mandate are subject to fines of $100 a day per affected beneficiary, Cogan said.

Catholic Health Services of Long Island, the largest of the groups, oversees six hospitals, three nursing homes and a hospice service and has a health plan covering almost 25,000 people.

The case is Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York v. Sebelius, 12-cv-2542, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).

The price of citizenship? Um, no

From Alliance Defending Freedom:

The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence regarding the New Mexico Supreme Court’s decision Thursday in Elane Photography v. Willock, a case involving a photographer who declined to use her artistic expression to visually portray the story of a same-sex ceremony between two women who later sued after finding another photographer:

“Government-coerced expression is a feature of dictatorships that has no place in a free country. This decision is a blow to our client and every American’s right to live free. Decisions like this undermine the constitutionally protected freedoms of expression and conscience that we have all taken for granted. America was founded on the fundamental freedom of every citizen to live and work according to their beliefs and not to be compelled by the government to express ideas and messages they decline to support. We are considering our next steps, including asking the U.S. Supreme Court to right this wrong.”

Bosson

Select excerpts from Justice Richard C. Bosson’s concurrence accompanying the court’s decision (p. 30):

“…the Huguenins…now are compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives. Though the rule of law requires it, the result is sobering. It will no doubt leave a tangible mark on the Huguenins and others of similar views.”

“On a larger scale, this case provokes reflection on what this nation is all about, its promise of fairness, liberty, equality of opportunity, and justice. At its heart, this case teaches that at some point in our lives all of us must compromise, if only a little, to accommodate the contrasting values of others. A multicultural, pluralistic society, one of our nation’s strengths, demands no less. The Huguenins are free to think, to say, to believe, as they wish; they may pray to the God of their choice and follow those commandments in their personal lives wherever they lead. The Constitution protects the Huguenins in that respect and much more. But there is a price, one that we all have to pay somewhere in our civic life.”

“In the smaller, more focused world of the marketplace, of commerce, of public accommodation, the Huguenins have to channel their conduct, not their beliefs, so as to leave space for other Americans who believe something different. That compromise is part of the glue that holds us together as a nation, the tolerance that lubricates the varied moving parts of us as a people. That sense of respect we owe others, whether or not we believe as they do, illuminates this country, setting it apart from the discord that afflicts much of the rest of the world. In short, I would say to the Huguenins, with the utmost respect: it is the price of citizenship. I therefore concur.”

Well, Judge Bosson, "with the utmost respect," your opinion is nothing short of disgraceful, deplorable, and despicable. Compromise of one's deeply held religious beliefs is the price of citizenship? Um, no! What part of "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof" do you not understand?

Judge Bosson, the freedom to exercise our deeply held religious beliefs is the singular most sacred benefit of citizenship!

Further commentary would be superfluous.

Politics, pulpits, and priorities: Sorry, I'm just not on board with the latest "religious liberty" cause

The pulpit is sacred space. It is to be used for a sacred purpose: the faithful proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The preacher in the pulpit enjoys the greatest freedom this side of New Jerusalem: the freedom to proclaim the Word of God to the people of God. With that great freedom comes great responsibility, namely, the responsibility to be faithful to Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Apostles as revealed in Scripture and affirmed through 2,000 years of consensual tradition. The preacher abdicates that responsibility if he uses the pulpit, or allows it to be used, as a forum for partisan political speeches or the endorsement of candidates for political office.

To put it in less magisterial terms, don't count on my support for the latest cause celebre on the "religious liberty" front.

A coalition of church and ministry leaders is calling for legislation that would end the ban on political endorsements from the pulpit.

The chairman of the group says the current law stifles the speech of pastors who fear losing their churches' tax-exempt status.

The report specifies that tax-deductible donations during worship services would not be spent on political campaigns.

Opponents to changing the law say there's no need to further intertwine religion and politics.

I find myself, oddly enough, on the same page with C. Welton Gaddy, my old campus minister from my days at Mercer University. Gaddy, to my recollection, is a quite gifted preacher but I haven't often agreed with him on issues. In this case, however, he is absolutely correct.

“My concern is what that kind of change would make to the integrity and the unity of the church itself,” said C. Welton Gaddy, president of The Interfaith Alliance. “It’s about the sanctity of the religious voice in the context of worship and to compromise that authority would be devastating to religion in America.”

The freedom of the preacher to proclaim the Gospel is a freedom which cannot be abridged, undermined, or abolished by any human government--no matter what laws may ostensibly regulate speech or expression--because no human government is ultimately free from accountability to the Gospel's eternal claims. Every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (cf. Philippians 2:10ff). That is the message which ought to be proclaimed from every pulpit in every church. That some churches and some preachers would surrender the great freedom to proclaim that message in favor of a far lesser freedom to endorse candidates for petty political offices suggests a serious misappropriation of priorities.

Americans United shows its true colors -- again

Americans United is the preferred shorthand for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, an organization which has labored for over sixty years to eliminate all forms of religious expression from the public square. At its inception, it was known by the even more cumbersome moniker of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Its founder and first legal counsel was Paul Blanshard, whose treatise, American Freedom and Catholic Power, was a vile screed positing a bigoted and conspiratorial view of the Church of Rome's alleged intentions to undermine liberty.

The dark origins of Americans United came to the surface briefly six years ago after a Supreme Court decision upholding the federal ban on partial birth abortion. Criticism of the decision took an ugly turn, focusing on the Catholicism of the five justices in the majority (although not all of them were Catholic). A group of evangelical leaders, led by the late Charles W. Colson, issued a statement condemning such bigotry. Included in the text was this paragraph noting the sinister history behind Americans United.

We believe it is our particular duty to condemn the bigotry we are now witnessing in view of the history of anti-Catholicism in our nation. It is a stain on the Protestant Christian conscience that at one time many of our people accepted the vile teachings of Paul Blanshard in his book American Freedom and Catholic Power, and supported the anti-Catholic agenda of the group founded by Blanshard and others that now styles itself “Americans United for Separation of Church and State” (formerly known as Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State).
The liberal media dutifully ignored this little history lesson and, to this day, Americans United has escaped scrutiny and accountability for the bigotry which is at the root of its founding.

Now, that bigotry is wielding its ugly head again. Domino's Pizza owner Thomas Monaghan, a devout Catholic and pro-life activist, has sued the federal government, claiming the Obamacare mandate that he provide contraception coverage for his employees violates his religious beliefs. Americans United, however, claims he has no case.

Americans United has filed a friend-of-the-court brief telling a federal appeals court that the owner of a Michigan-based office park does not have a religious liberty right to deny his employees contraception coverage.

Domino’s Farms Office Park, a secular, for-profit company that manages business space in Ann Arbor, has argued that the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate violates owner Thomas Monaghan’s religious freedom rights.

Americans United and its allies say this argument is flawed. They assert that Monaghan’s individual freedom to exercise his religious beliefs is not impeded by his employees’ purchase of comprehensive, third-party insurance.

The reasoning here is fallacious. As an employer, Monaghan is required to purchase health insurance for his employees (unless, of course, he chooses to pay the Obamacare "tax"). Under the mandate, he must include coverage for contraception, a practice the Catholic Church believes to be immoral. The case has nothing to do with Monaghan interfering with his employees purchasing their own insurance. In typical fashion, however, the brief filed by Americans United disingenuously implies this very thing.

Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State began as a virulently anti-Catholic organization. To this day, Americans United, by whatever name it wishes to be called, remains committed to its infamous founder's conspiratorial anti-Catholicism. It is showing its true colors -- again.

Bishop Anis welcomes downfall of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

Mabruk Ya Misr

Leithart: A call to martyrdom

The inimitable Peter Leithart on the recent Supreme Court decision on same sex "marriage."

Sudden as it seems to some, the Supreme Court’s endorsement of gay marriage in Windsor was a long time in coming. In cultural terms, of course, it is the fruit of fifty years of sexual liberation with all its attendant institutional, technological, and psychological shifts.

In terms of Constitutional interpretation, the foundations were laid decades ago in decisions that discovered and developed a Constitutional right to privacy. According to Duke’s H. Jefferson Powell (The Moral Tradition of American Constitutionalism: A Theological Interpretation), the key decision was not Roe but Eisenstadt (1972), which revived a new version of substantive due process. During the nineteenth century, substantive due process arguments had been used in cases involving state regulation of business. That notion of substantive due process was eclipsed by what Powell describes as the “Modern Theory,” under which the Court’s aim was to protect decisions arrived at through democratic processes. In Eisenstadt, the court revived substantive due process, applied now to state restrictions on the distribution of contraceptives.

Justice William Brennan argued in the decision that the “right to privacy” must mean “the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwanted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” Powell calls this “an intellectual milestone” since the Court rejected the statute “solely because the Court believed the state’s moral choice was an unreasonable intrusion into individual matters the Court considered ‘fundamental.’” It was a return, Powell says, to the jurisprudence of the common law, which regularly issued “substantive judgment about moral-political matters.”

In the light of Eisenstadt, one has to conclude that the Court’s DOMA decision was not only virtually inevitable but also, given the current state of Constitutional interpretation, correct.

Brennan’s argument adapts perfectly to Windsor: The right to privacy must include the right of an individual “to be free from unwanted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as sexual orientation and the desire to marry.”

And it won’t stay put. Justice Alito was exactly right when he wrote in dissent that Windsor was a decision between two alterative notions of marriage – one a traditional, conjugal definition and the other a consensual, romantic, emotional definition. The latter is, in the Court’s opinion, the Constitutionally-approved definition. Justice Scalia is correct too that the very same reasoning is set up to strike down State statutes and Constitutional provisions defining marriage in traditional terms. Challenges are already coming from several of the thirtysome states that currently do not recognize same-sex unions as marriages. We know what this Court will decide when those cases get to them.

President Obama quickly reassured us that religious liberty will not be infringed. And he’s technically right. Nearly every state that has passed same-sex marriage legislation has made exceptions claiming that no pastor will be required to perform same-sex marriages. But as Robert George has pointed out, the protections are thin indeed. Tax exemption will be challenged, and so will accreditation for Christian colleges and schools that hold to traditional views of marriage. Once opposition to same-sex marriage is judged discriminatory, no institution that opposes it will be unaffected. If you want to see what the future looks like, consider what Paula Deen has been through the past few weeks.

All this means that Windsor presents American Christians with a call to martyrdom. In Greek, martyria means “witness,” specifically witness in a court. At the very least, the decision challenges American Christians to continue to teach Christian sexual ethics without compromise or apology. But Windsor presents a call to martyrdom in a more specific sense. There will be a cost for speaking the truth, a cost in reputation, opportunity, and funds if not in freedoms. Scalia’s reference to the pagan Roman claim that Christians are “enemies of mankind” was probably not fortuitous.

Many churches have already capitulated to the Zeitgeist, and many others will. Some Christians and some churches won’t be up to the challenge. For those who heed Paul’s admonition not to be conformed to the pattern of this world, things are going to get sticky. But we are servants of God. He opens our ears to hear, and he gives us tongues to speak truth. If that means we are insulted and marginalized, if it means we yield our back to the smiters and our face to those who spit on us, so be it.

This will force a major adjustment in conservative Christian stance toward America. We’ve fooled ourselves for decades into believing that Christian America was derailed recently and by a small elite. It’s tough medicine to realize that principles inimical to traditional Christian morals are now deeply embedded in our laws, institutions and culture. The only America that actually exists is one in which “marriage” includes same-sex couples and women have a Constitutional right to kill their babies. To be faithful, Christian witness must be witness against America.

God has his winnowing fork in his hand, and he’s ready to use it. There’s likely to be a lot of chaff, blown away like mist. But there will be a harvest. We’re being sent into an oven, but Jesus will crush the grain of the harvest so that, baked in the fire of the Spirit, it will become bread for the life of the world.

Good news (for a change!): 10th Circuit rules for Hobby Lobby against Obamacare mandate

gov.uscourts.ca10.12-6294.01009080755.0 by Joe Palazzolo

Religious freedom trumps Obamacare contraceptive mandate, period.

A Washington Times editorial applauds the D.C. Circuit Court's ruling against the Obamacare HHS mandate, but reminds us that the principle of religious liberty has always been applied far more broadly than the present administration seems to think it should.

Win one for the good guys. Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic institution, and Wheaton College, which is Christian, sued the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) over an Obamacare rule mandating the schools to pay for contraception, contrary to their religious beliefs. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed Tuesday that the administration had gone too far.

The HHS rule said businesses had to provide contraceptive coverage in the health insurance they offered their employees, regardless of their religious beliefs.

Religious employers had an exemption, but HHS decided to apply this only to organizations with a religious purpose, employing and targeting primarily members of the same faith. That left Belmont Abbey and Wheaton, as well as many others that have filed similar suits across the country, with no choice but to pay for items including abortion pills under the threat of $2,000 in fines per employee.

Linas Garsys for The Washington Times

A lower court initially dismissed the colleges’ complaint as premature, especially as the administration promised that a new rule for religious institutions would be implemented in August. The colleges appealed, arguing that the existing rule is the law and they need certainty to plan for the 2014 open enrollment season. The administration claimed it wasn’t going to enforce the rule “in its current form,” so the appellate court seized upon that statement as a “binding commitment.” The judges will “take the government at its word and will hold it to it” while approving a stay on the contraception mandate. HHS will have to file status reports with the appellate court every 60 days until a new rule is promulgated.

A U.S. District judge in New York earlier this month took a similar line in allowing the Archdiocese of New York to proceed in a separate suit on the same issue. “The First Amendment does not require citizens to accept assurances from the government that, if the government later determines it has made a misstep, it will take ameliorative action,” the judge wrote. “There is no, ‘Trust us, changes are coming’ clause in the Constitution.”

The judicial recognition of the importance of religious freedom is a good sign, but the victory is temporary at best. The problem with President Obama’s policy is that it offers a narrow view of the First Amendment as freedom to worship rather than the free exercise of religion. The prospect for religiously affiliated nonprofits just got brighter, which is welcome news to groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, who also are subject to the mandate and its onerous penalties. Religious publisher Tyndale House also has secured an injunction against the Obamacare mandate even though it is a for-profit concern. Left out of the discussion for now are the privately owned commercial enterprises such as the craft retailer Hobby Lobby whose owners have moral objections to the mandate. Free exercise of religion should not be contingent on an organization’s tax status.

UPDATE: The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals apparently didn't get the memo.

Good news on HHS mandate -- maybe

This sounds like good news on the surface, but we should be wary, considering the Obama Administration's miserable record on religious liberty and the deviousness with which it has sought to impose its will on religious institutions.

Via Christianity Today:

On Tuesday, Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College won a legal round against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contraceptive mandate—not only for themselves, but also for dozens of fellow religious employers that have filed similar suits. 

"We are grateful that the Circuit Court's ruling—which is substantially a victory for Wheaton College—makes it clear that the original judge was wrong to dismiss our case and that we are suffering real harm as a result of the HHS mandate," said Wheaton College president Philip Ryken. 

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the HHS must not enforce the mandate for employer-provided contraceptives as currently outlined in the Affordable Care Act. In addition, the government must make good on a previous promise to establish a new rule regarding enforcement of the mandate for religious employers by March 2013. 

Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty who argued the case, says this is a significant victory for religious plaintiffs (including schools with similar lawsuits, like Biola University,Liberty University, and Tyndale House Publishers). 

"At least one of the judges kept coming back to the point: This is about the First Amendment. This is about religious freedom," he said. 

But Carl Esbeck, a church-state law expert at the University of Missouri, says the colleges did not get the relief that they wanted—and that the government won the day overall. 

"The result of the three-judge panel's opinion is that the colleges will continue to have to wait … and there's no promise that the new rule will take care of Wheaton or Belmont Abbey," he said. "The only promise is that the existing rule won't be applied." 

The government previously has argued for courts to dismiss religious plaintiffs' cases for being "premature," promising that it would amend the existing rule for religious employers who object to providing contraceptive drugs—especially those believed to be abortifacients—in employee healthcare plans. 

Duncan says this tactic left religious employers at the whim of the government. "[But now] three judges are looking over the government's shoulder," he said. "Finally, the federal government … is subject to the oversight of a court on their promise to fix the mandate." 

HHS officials said they would issue a notice that it was creating new rules in the first quarter of 2013 and would finalize those rules before August 2013. The D.C. Circuit Court ordered the government to file status reports on those rules every 60 days, apparently along with updates on its promise that it "would never enforce [the existing rule] in its current form" against Wheaton, Belmont Abbey, "or those similarly situated as regards contraceptive services" (emphasis in the original.) 

"We take the government at its word and will hold it to it," the court said. 

But this might not be the end of the colleges' cases. Duncan says the ruling is an "important pause in the litigation," requiring plaintiffs to "wait and see" what changes the government makes to the HHS mandate in 2013. 

"We stand ready to resume our pending lawsuit if the federal government fails to respect our rights of religious conscience by providing the exemption we have requested," Ryken said. 

The D.C. ruling comes on the heels of a similar ruling in New York, where a federal judge allowed the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York to proceed with its own HHS lawsuit, ruling that the government's promise of new regulations for religious employers was no reason to dismiss a challenge to the mandate.

"There is no 'trust us, changes are coming' clause in the Constitution," wrote judge Brian Cogan. 

The New York Archdiocese filed suit in May, objecting to the fines it would face under the mandate. According to Reuters, Cogan denied the federal government's motion to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that the archdiocese had sufficiently demonstrated that it "expects to incur nearly $200 million each year in penalties if it is forced to comply with the coverage requirement." 

However, Cogan did dismiss claims from the diocese of Rockville Centre and its Catholic Charities wing. 

Duncan says the D.C. appellate court's decision is "the same flavor" as the New York court's ruling. 

"It's not enough for the government to say, 'Trust us,'" he said. "We don't simply let the government slide by on a problem when you're talking about constitutional rights."

Metaxas: Evangelicals and Protestants should support "Fortnight for Freedom"

Author Eric Metaxas (Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy) urges evangelical and Protestant Christians to support the "Fortnight for Freedom" because, as his mentor the late Chuck Colson said, religious liberty is not merely a Catholic concern.

This August, the HHS regulations that require religious non-profits to provide contraception, abortifacients and sterilization to their employees are scheduled to go into effect.

Since the proposed regulations were announced in February, HHS and its supporters have tried to depict opposition to the regulations as merely a Catholic concern. The issue, they would have us believe, is the Catholic Church’s position on artificial birth control, not the abridgment of religious freedom.

Chuck Colson worked tirelessly to refute this nonsense. In the last few months of his life, he pointed out that the HHS regulations were part of a larger pattern. They were an example of what the Manhattan Declaration calls the “[trampling] upon the freedom…to express [one’s] religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage.”

They’re of a piece with “the effort to weaken or eliminate conscience clauses, and therefore to compel pro-life institutions…and pro-life physicians, surgeons, nurses, and other health care professionals, to refer for abortions and, in certain cases, even to perform or participate in abortions.”

What’s at stake is not a particular tradition’s view of contraception — it is every American’s ability to love their neighbor in the form of running hospitals, universities, and schools, while at the same time honoring the God who compels us to love our neighbor.

This understanding is why Chuck co-authored a Wall Street Journal opinion piece about this with Cardinal Donald Wuerl and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik. Come to BreakPoint.org and click on this commentary to read what they had to say.

And it’s why Chuck would want to us know about and support the “Fortnight for Freedom,” a two-week “period of prayer, study, catechesis and public action” sponsored by the U.S. Catholic bishops.

The goal of the fortnight, which runs from June 21 to July 4, is to emphasize what the bishops call “our Christian and American heritage of liberty,” in particular, religious liberty.

This emphasis is necessary when, as Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore put it, “the idea that individual persons have a right to conscientious objection…has not merely been called into question, but has been mocked as some kind of novel or marginal theory.”

Indeed. No sooner had the bishops announced the Fortnight for Freedom than they were accused of injecting themselves into the upcoming elections. Funny, but I don’t remember anybody accusing the bishops of meddling in politics when they took a stand on immigration or preserving social programs.

More importantly, it ignores the fact that the bishops (and we) did not start this fight. Regardless of your views on the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a., “Obamacare,” the road to expanding coverage and controlling costs did not have to pass through infringing upon religious freedom: That was a detour of the administration’s making.

While the Fortnight for Freedom is directed at Catholics, we should all wholeheartedly support its goals. And of course there is no good reason why we shouldn’t devote ourselves to prayer, study and public action regarding this issue – if anything, the opposite is true.

As I said, Chuck taught that this is not a Catholic-only issue. The assault on our most precious freedom — freedom of religion — concerns all Christians.

"Fortnight for Freedom" begins

The Catholic Church is not the only entity threatened by the Obama Administration's assault on religious liberty. The "Fortnight for Freedom," the USCCB's initiative which begins tonight and runs through July 4, deserves the prayerful support of believers of all faiths. Here is the Prayer for Protection of Religious Liberty, composed for the the occasion.

O God our Creator, 

Through the power and working of your Holy Spirit,

you call us to live out our faith in the midst of the world,

bringing the light and the saving truth of the Gospel

to every corner of society.

We ask you to bless us

in our vigilance for the gift of religious liberty.

Give us the strength of mind and heart

to readily defend our freedoms when they are threatened;

give us courage in making our voices heard

on behalf of the rights of your Church

and the freedom of conscience of all people of faith.

Grant, we pray, O heavenly Father,

a clear and united voice to all your sons and daughters

gathered in your Church

in this decisive hour in the history of our nation,

so that, with every trial withstood

and every danger overcome—

for the sake of our children, our grandchildren,

and all who come after us—

this great land will always be "one nation, under God,

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

New Catholic video suggests severe ballot backlash

The Obama Administration has done many foolish things over the last three and a half years, but none more so than thumbing its nose at the Catholic Church. Obama and his minions may well rue the day they chose confrontation over compromise with an institution that has outlasted more than a few temporal empires. As this video suggests, the backlash at the ballot box, from a constituency once thought reliably Democratic, may be severe.

More good news: CHA opposes healthcare mandate

WASHINGTON, June 15, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a reversal that deals a significant blow to the HHS contraception mandate, the major Catholic hospital association that once provided crucial political steam for President Obama’s health care legislation has now backed off supporting the mandate, saying that the president’s “accommodation” of religious groups is inadequate.

The Catholic Health Association (CHA) on Friday issued a letter to an official with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services under the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department, stating that the government’s proposed rule forcing religious employers to provide birth control insurance to employees left them “deeply concerned.”

CHA noted that it was changing its initial position welcoming the White House’s “accommodation” to religious groups in February, whereby President Obama claimed insurance companies would offer the birth control for free, rather than having religious institutions directly pay for it.

“While this new development seemed at the time to be a good first step, our examination and study of the proposal as outlined then and in the ANPRM has not relieved our initial concerns,” wrote CHA president Sr. Carol Keehan and two members of the board.

“Accordingly, for the reasons set forth below, we continue to believe that it is imperative for the Administration to abandon the narrow definition of ‘religious employer’ and instead use an expanded definition to exempt from the contraceptive mandate not only churches, but also Catholic hospitals, health care organizations and other ministries of the Church.”

If the exemption is not expanded, they said, then the administration must pay directly for such coverage.

CHA was an early supporter of the federal health care legislation, pledging to support the administration’s proposal as early as July 2009. The group continued to support the measure even as Catholic bishops issued strong warnings over the bill’s potential to expand abortion, leading then-USCCB president Cardinal Francis George to chastise CHA as causing “confusion and a wound to Catholic unity” on the issue.

After the insurance mandate was announced last August, CHA pushed unsuccessfully for a compromise before stating opposition to the rule. However, the group’s position quickly reversed after the February “accommodation”: CHA almost immediately stated its renewed support even as U.S. bishops moved from caution to condemnation.

According to one calculation, if the mandate is not reversed or modified, it has the potential to shutter the 12.6 percent of American hospitals that are Catholic - an option Cardinal George in February emphasized as not far-fetched.

Kathryn Jean Lopez on what's at stake in the battle for religious liberty

My column today at Examiner.com focuses on the plight of Father Brian Jordan and the dangerous absurdity that is atheism. It would be easy to dismiss the incessant rants of angry atheists for the frivolous complaints they are if it were not for the fact that the current occupant of the White House and his acolytes in the Department of Health and Human Services are every bit as hostile toward public expressions of religion. National Review columnist Kathryn Jean Lopez, who also has an excellent religion blog, reminds us of what is at stake in a battle we can ill afford to lose.

Confronted with a “train wreck,” the new archbishop of Baltimore implores us to “pray diligently as communities, as families, and as individuals.”

Coming from clergy, this wouldn’t necessarily be breaking news, except the train hurtling toward us is driven by the current president of the United States and his secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. Under Obamacare, the secretary has unprecedented power to make health-care decisions affecting every American. The recent HHS mandate — requiring all employers, regardless of moral objections, to offer health-care coverage that includes contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs — is the poisonous fruit of that power.

And so Archbishop William Lori’s prayer is for religious liberty.

It’s an ecumenical prayer that requires ecumenical labor. This talk of religious liberty “is not about the Catholic Church wanting to force anybody to do anything,” Archbishop Lori emphasized during a speech at the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s conference on religious freedom. “It is instead about the federal government forcing the Church — consisting of its faithful and all but a few of its institutions — to act against Church teachings.”

We are confronted today with a question of integrity, and it’s not only Catholics who are asking it, or who have a stake in the answer. The right to liberty is at the core of our national identity, and every freedom-loving American should ask: Do we value liberty as much as we say we do? People thirsting for freedom the world over have long seen America as a beacon. Are we the shining light they think we are?

It is only through complete inattention to this question of integrity that Georgetown University could have invited Secretary Sibelius to speak at a campus commencement ceremony. For this dereliction of moral duty, Georgetown surely wins this year’s audacity-at-commencement competition. At a moment that should be a radicalizing milestone for any American who values freedom, Georgetown chose to send a message of complacency. We have long been the place where people come to flee tyranny. But are we now comfortable with tyranny at home? This fight over the HHS mandate is much more than another Left–Right debate. It strikes at the core of who we are as Americans.

Read the whole column here.

Evangelicals support Catholics in religious freedom battle with Obama administration

Barack Obama may be the most politically divisive president in U.S. history, but he is proving to be a real force for unity among American Christians of all persuasions.

The Obama administration’s HHS mandate has united Christians of all stripes – evangelical, historical Protestant, and Roman Catholic – as they close ranks behind a flurry of lawsuits filed yesterday morning to overturn the controversial measure and stall government interference in religion.

After 43 Catholic institutions – including the major archdioceses, dioceses, universities, and publishing houses affiliated with the Church in the United States – filed a dozen lawsuits to strike the measure down on First Amendment grounds, the Christian and conservative communities quickly applauded the move.

“I have said ‘We are all Catholic now,’ and this is why,” said Concerned Women for America (CWA) President Penny Nance. “The religious community stands together in the belief that this contraception, chemical abortion, and sterilization mandate would force us to pay for something many of us believe is morally repugnant.”

The fact that Catholic religious institutions filed the lawsuits provided “more evidence that the healthcare law is extremely flawed in its bias for abortion and abortion-inducing drugs,” said Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest. “This lawsuit is only beginning, as many Americans are deeply troubled by the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.”

Those who had already filed such lawsuits welcomed the massive influx of fellow litigants.

The Alliance Defense Fund is handling three lawsuits against the mandate on behalf of Louisiana College, Geneva College, and a private employer. ADF President and General Counsel Alan Sears said, “These new cases… join the growing list of evangelical, protestant, and Catholic religious organizations and employers who are taking a stand in objecting to the government when it forces any religious institution or individual to provide or fund morally repugnant services.”

Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, which filed its own lawsuit in February, said he has urged other organizations and dioceses to follow suit. “When there are multiple federal lawsuits on the same issue in different parts of the country, this can create the potential kind of conflict that the Supreme Court may be more likely to resolve,” he said.

The principle that motivates the lawsuits enjoys the support, not only of most traditional churches, but of most Americans. According to a new Knights of Columbus-Marist poll, 74 percent of respondents believe preserving the freedom of religion is more important than enforcing any other law.

Opponents of the lawsuit have attempted to turn the legal battle into a debate over contraception itself. “It is unbelievable that in the year 2012 we have to fight for access to birth control,” Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards said, quoting an often-repeated line in a press release. “Yet this lawsuit would make it harder for millions of women to get birth control.”

The law’s conservative critics have tired of that talking point. Nance said, “President Obama claims this is a women’s health issue, when in fact, it’s a religious freedom issue…The concept of ‘choice’ for this administration means only making the choices that liberals support.” Sears added the cases “are about religious freedom and freedom of conscience, not about contraception.”

The legal complaints submitted Monday ask the courts to invalidate the regulation promulgated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last August mandating that all organizations cover abortifacient drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization to be in compliance with the president’s health care reform act. That includes “all Food and Drug Administration approved contraceptives [and] sterilization procedure,” including Ella, an abortion-inducing drug sometimes called “the week-after pill.”

All of the lawsuits cite concerns about religious liberty and undue government interference. None seeks to prohibit the distribution of birth control.

Neither the broad public support nor the lawsuits themselves garnered much coverage from the mainstream media. Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center noted ABC and NBC news ignored the lawsuits altogether, while “CBS Evening News gave this historic news a mere 19 seconds of air time.”

Longtime conservative activist Richard Viguerie said he believes the church must create its own publicity through ongoing moral leadership from the national and diocesan level down. “Church leaders must identify, and publicly oppose the source of their persecution,” Viguerie wrote on his website, ConservativeHQ.com.

“Those church leaders who once thought Obama’s promise of change wouldn’t affect them must get on the side of Constitutional government now,” Viguerie added. “If they put their moral authority and leadership publicly out front, they will show Americans that they understand that the loss of freedom of conscience threatens all of our other freedoms, and they will find millions of Americans – believers and non-believers alike – on their side.”

Glendon: Why the bishops are suing the U.S. government

Harvard law professor and former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Mary Ann Glendon, a woman of unquestioned integrity, explains what is at stake in the Catholic Church's legal battle against the Obama Administration's nefariously conceived healthcare mandate.

This week Catholic bishops are heading to federal courts across the country to defend religious liberty. On Monday they filed 12 lawsuits on behalf of a diverse group of 43 Catholic entities that are challenging the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) sterilization, abortifacient and birth-control insurance mandate.

Like most Americans, the bishops have long taken for granted the religious freedom that has enabled this nation's diverse religions to flourish in relative harmony. But over the past year they have become increasingly concerned about the erosion of conscience protections for church-related individuals and institutions. Their top-rated program for assistance to human trafficking victims was denied funding for refusing to provide "the full range of reproductive services," including abortion. For a time, Catholic Relief Services faced a similar threat to its international relief programs. The bishops fear religious liberty is becoming a second-class right.

Along with leaders of other faiths who have conscientious objections to all or part of the mandate, they hoped to persuade the government to bring its regulations into line with the First Amendment, and with federal laws such as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that provide exemptions to protect the conscience rights of religious institutions and individuals.

On Jan. 20, however, HHS announced it would not revise the mandate or expand its tight exemption, which covers only religious organizations that mainly hire and serve their co-religionists. Instead, the mandated coverage will continue to apply to hospitals, schools and social service providers run by groups whose religious beliefs require them to serve everyone in need.

Continued attempts to solve the problem by negotiation produced only an announcement by the Obama administration in February that insurance providers would pay for the contested services. Since many Catholic entities are self-insured and the others pay the premiums, the bishops' concerns were not alleviated.

The main goal of the mandate is not, as HHS claimed, to protect women's health. It is rather a move to conscript religious organizations into a political agenda, forcing them to facilitate and fund services that violate their beliefs, within their own institutions.

The media have implied all along that the dispute is mainly of concern to a Catholic minority with peculiar views about human sexuality. But religious leaders of all faiths have been quick to see that what is involved is a flagrant violation of religious freedom. That's why former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, declared, "We're all Catholics now."

More is at stake here than the mission of all churches, including the Catholic Church, to provide social services like health care and education to everyone regardless of creed, and to do so without compromising their beliefs. At the deepest level, we are witnessing an attack on the institutions of civil society that are essential to limited government and are important buffers between the citizen and the all-powerful state.

If religious providers of education, health care and social services are closed down or forced to become tools of administration policy, the government consolidates a monopoly over those essential services. As Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, put it, we are witnessing an effort to reduce religion to a private activity. "Never before," he said, "have we faced this kind of challenge to our ability to engage in the public square as people of faith."

With this week's lawsuits, the bishops join a growing army of other plaintiffs around the country, Catholic and non-Catholic, who are asking the courts to repel an unprecedented governmental assault on the ability of religious persons and groups to practice their religion without being forced to violate their deepest moral convictions.

Religious freedom is subject to necessary limitations in the interests of public health and safety. The HHS regulations do not fall into that category. The world has gotten along fine without this mandate—the services in question are widely and cheaply available, and most employers will provide coverage for them.

But if the regulations are not reversed, they threaten to demote religious liberty from its prominent place among this country's most cherished freedoms. That is why Cardinal Dolan told CBS's "Face the Nation" on April 8: "We didn't ask for this fight, but we won't back away from it."

Archdiocese of Washington launches Preserve Religious Freedom website

Stand with our Catholic brothers and sisters in preserving religious freedom!



Visit the website.