This Week - Liberal tries to defend the anti-religious HHS mandate by using religion (or something) - Granite Grok

This Week – Liberal tries to defend the anti-religious HHS mandate by using religion (or something)

I really can’t get my head around what or how US Congressman Keith Ellison (R-MN)  said on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” (yeah, I watch the Sunday talking head programs, mostly, so you don’t have to) about the HHS Mandate and religion.  It is clear that he believes that Government should be able to control one’s expression of religion (e.g. not how YOU believe you should live but by Government’s belief system – and yes, Obama has made it clear there is one) except of course, when it comes to Islam. Such as that corporations MUST give their employees free abortifacients even if it violates deep and long held religious views against it.  How else can one put it that having The State forcing people to act contrary to their conscience is anything BUT Tyrannical?

Anyways, it probably a good thing that the Obama Admin is not letting him anywhere near the Supreme Court to help out; I just can’t logically unpack his paragraph:

Let’s step back from the whole Obamacare Affordable Act debate and ask ourselves what this would really mean. Do we really want a corporation to be able to have its own religious views AND impose them on its employees?  What would that mean for our separation of church and state for individual liberty?  What would it mean for corporate personhood?  This is scary territory and people need to win.

Well, I have no clue what HE means other than he’s with Obama: believe as the Government demands., but I shall try: 

  • Let’s step back from the whole Obamacare Affordable Act debate and ask ourselves what this would really mean

I think a lot of us already know what this means – if the HHS mandate is upheld, we as individuals or as individuals owning companies, have lost all Right to think and believe for ourselves.  We will end up just like our ancestors who left their Old World countries because of religious persecution and came here to start a new life in the New World.  Problem is, there isn’t a Second New World for us to go to.  This IS a RADICAL “fundamental transformation” of basic Americanism.  Up until now, individuals have had the Freedom to believe as they wanted – even in choosing to be a conscience objector instead of serving in the Military (in a combat role, usually).  Now, it is Government that has decided for you – and you be taught that you will accept how the Government wants you to behave.  You will have Freedom – but only to believe in what Government tells you to.

And no, we can step away from Obamacare and still see this – a quick example is Obama saying that he can ignore DOMA, and activist judges can force entire States to accept gay marriage (just done in Michigan where over 60% of the population had earlier decided that they did not want it).   We are being made to accept energy sources only which Government (unilaterally through the EPA) will allow us to have (e.g., the Obama Administration wants us to believe in only Green energy).

  • Do we really want a corporation to be able to have its own religious views AND impose them on its employees?

What a bastardization of a conceptual flopping argument point!  Actually, some corporations DO like Tyndale (the Bible publisher, holding to an orthodox Christian outlook) and there are plenty of non-profit corporations that do as well (e.g., FamilyLife is one such example), so so much for that weak tea.  However, let’s turn the Left’s own argument against itself when it talks about not restricting unions.  Why? Well, they are just a collection of people all working for a common goal.

Right.

And a corporation isn’t?  Take Hobby Lobby for instance – one company that is suing HHS against for exactly what Ellison wants them to do.  The Left has demonized corporations as monolithic and faceless entities – when all they are is exactly what unions are: collections of people all working for a common goal (psst – unions are also corporations in terms of law!).  Unions try to maximize profits for its owners – its members (for the moment, forget about the union bosses who act like they are the owners).  Corporations, with union and non-union workers have the same intent – maximize profits for its owners. Sometimes, many shareholders but in the case of Hobby Lobby, a family owned business, the family members.

The Green family is not forcing ANY religion on any of its employees – it has never said “You will go to this church, or that synagogue, or that other mosque” or any other house of worship (permanent or temporary).  They are not saying “You will accept this as a sacred object” (as it seems the secular humanists in HHS believe a pack of contraceptive pills to be), nor “You will pray to this God or this other god or to some Golden Calf” or any other object or more abstract idea.  And most importantly, they are not saying “Here is your new Theology – believe it to work here”.

None of those things.  In fact, they are not saying ANYTHING to their employees.  What they ARE saying is to their Government – you should not tell us to believe that what you are forcing on us, as individuals that own a company, that killing new life / unborn babies is moral.  It is not, and it is immoral for the Government to force us to go against our conscience.  Again, corporations are made up of individuals and a simple group of individuals, an Evangelical Christan family of individuals, simply with to honor God with their behavior.

Now, Obama has made it clear that we have “freedom to worship” – a clever by two halfs so as to do the three shill game: looks ok but you will loose a lot.  Freedom to worship is his way to restrict our First Amendment Right in that he wants us to believe that only in a house of worship does that First Amendment Right exists.  Anywhere else, it does not.  And the HHS mandate is part of that  unilateral “fundamental transformation” of religious Freedom here in the US.

Not religious values, not family values passed from Parent to child, but Government’s values from by a far away D.C. Obama: the new King Nebuchadnezzar?

  • What would that mean for our separation of church and state for individual liberty?

For starters, the First Amendment states:

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.

So, where in there does it say “…and either can a Corporation”?  Again, Ellison has it completely backwards and actually makes the argument FOR the Greens and Hobby Lobby: Government is supposed to stay out of religious theology all together.  Remember, employees are not dragooned into working for any one company – they can voluntarily stay or voluntarily leave their place of work.  There is no part of separation of church and state in this – so to answer Ellison:

It means nothing, no matter how hard you try to make it so

In fact, there is no shoehorn in the world large enough to wedge that into this. As far as “individual liberty” is concerned, he seems to wield that phrase like some gun grabbers throw around “30 round magazine clips” – no clue.  In fact, we see Government trying to take away choice – business owners choice.  An attack on their Individual Liberty.  Liberty is lessened when Government gets “Bossy”, right?  And Obama: Bossy-in-Chief

  • What would it mean for corporate personhood?

Actually, that has already been decided by the Supreme Court.  As much as I dislike the decision that Obamacare was Constitutional as a tax (really, getting taxed for deciding to do nothing?) it is as the Left says “settled law” (inasmuch as any Law can be settled after being unilaterally changed by our Unitary President without going through the Constitutional legislative process), so is the Citizens United decision even as much as you dislike it.

After all, just like unions, corporations are just collections of individuals working towards a common purpose.

  • This is scary territory and people need to win.

People certainly do need to win – even those that happen to have faith and own businesses.  After all, as the only active Muslim in Congress (that I can remember), do you want Government to restrict some of your primary theological underpinnings?  And it is VERY Scary that you, a Government Representative, feel that it is perfectly fine to restrict peoples’ religious beliefs.  After all, wasn’t that the purpose of Government – to protect our Rights?

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