Although the political conversation over the last week or so has been Obama’s personal redefinition of what traditional marriage is, let’s not forget that he and HHS Secretary Sebelius decided that they were after yet another “First” – the First Administration that felt they had the authority to redefine what a religious organization is or could be. Function as a house of worship (for now)? “There was an exception for that!” with respect for the supremacy of the Right to Conscience – although the HHS mandate required that all health plans for employees provided for abortions, abortifacients, sterilizations, and birth control.
But if you are a religious outreach or ministry of some type (e.g., halfway house, hospital, educational, soup kitchen – anything that demonstrated a caring for the poor, the downtrodden, or the needy), even if connected to a House of Worship, Obama and Sebelius decided that they could decide that you were NOT a religious organization for their means.
As the cartoon shows (sent by Grok friend Karen a bit ago), we see exactly what Obama thinks of the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
In forcing that mandate on everyone, in my mind, Obama did two things:
- Certainly is prohibiting the free expression of religion of Citizens.
- The primacy of Government to determine what can be a religion or not, and its primacy to determine that the religion of Government is superior to that of true religions.
Make no mistake, there are those for whom Big Government is a religion: Secular Humanism and the latter demonstrates that. In the first, however, the Citizens are now pushing back – game on. And so it begins – two headlines:
Franciscan University, a Catholic school in Steubensville, Ohio, announced Tuesday it will be terminating its student health insurance program, thanks to ObamaCare’s contraception mandate and new costs stemming from other provisions of the healthcare law. The university has so far refrained from offering contraceptive products and services with its student health program, and said it refuses to participate in a plan that “requires us to violate the consistent teachings of the Catholic Church on the sacredness of human life.”
On the heels of an Ohio school’s decision to abandon its student health insurance plan, another Catholic university in Florida is considering whether to follow suit over concerns about premium costs associated with the federal health care overhaul, FoxNews.com has learned…The school, the private Ave Maria University, is voicing both moral and economic concerns…Like Franciscan University — the Steubenville, Ohio, school that just announced it is dropping student coverage — Ave Maria officials are opposed to the so-called contraceptive coverage mandate.
Certainly the Catholic Church’s American Council of Biships “social justice” outlook put them on the side of Bigger Government for years – and some have pointed out that having done so, why should they be exempt from something that they helped to birth (i.e., cake, and eating it too)? Yet, even as the Left argued this way (and some on the Righs as schnadenfreude), their stances come from their religious beliefs and what they are resisting now is long term theological tenets.
And there will be more. What Obama and other Progressives who already have succumbed to the cult of Utopia on Earth (even if they call themselves nominally Catholic, Protestant, or some other sect) don’t seem to understand is that for many, their religion (we “bitter clingers”) far outweighs their need or want for Big Government. I think that they are going to have a serious awakening as more religious institutions draw their lines in the sand and state “no further”.
It will be very interesting to see what happens when a tactic is turned against them – militant gays have been so vociferous in demanding their civil rights, couching it in terms of the black civil rights fight. I dimly remember some of it (hey, I’m not THAT old!) involved just sitting down and doing nothing.
You are now starting to see that happening now – when Obama expected them to continue to work for the “social agenda”, religious organizations are starting to just sit.
