Free Republic

ObamaCare: The leaders of the vice president's church are calling him out for denying the Affordable Care Act's threat to religious liberty and the institutions that provide needed social services. As we noted in our post-debate analysis, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) were not amused with Joe Biden's other great debate lie — that ObamaCare doesn't threaten religious liberty or the ability of churches, particularly the Catholic Church, to put their faith in action. On Oct. 12, the USCCB denounced the VP's deceptive comments, noting that the so-called HHS exemption is a farce that unconstitutionally defines what a...

ObamaCare: The leaders of the vice president's church are calling him out for denying the Affordable Care Act's threat to religious liberty and the institutions that provide needed social services. As we noted in our post-debate analysis, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) were not amused with Joe Biden's other great debate lie — that ObamaCare doesn't threaten religious liberty or the ability of churches, particularly the Catholic Church, to put their faith in action. On Oct. 12, the USCCB denounced the VP's deceptive comments, noting that the so-called HHS exemption is a farce that unconstitutionally defines what a...

Basic Rights: A court in Colorado has ruled that, contrary to DOJ arguments, Americans do not have to choose between giving up their faith or giving up their business. Freedom of religion also applies to the free marketplace. The Newland family of Colorado and the heating and air conditioning business they run are not quite as famous as CEO Dan Cathy and his Chick-fil-A restaurant chain — at least not yet. The granting of an injunction by Senior Judge John L. Kane of the U.S. District Court in Colorado saying they do not have to comply with the Health and...

Freedom Of Worship: A group representing Catholic hospitals says the administration's "compromise" on its contraception mandate is unworkable and fails to address the issue of religious liberty. The church is virtually unified in its opposition. Premature as that may sound, the Catholic Hospital Association (CHA) on Friday pulled back the thin reed of religious support for ObamaCare the administration had been clinging to in insisting the Affordable Health Care Act, the constitutionality of which is about to be determined by the Supreme Court, was not a full-blown assault on our constitutionally guaranteed religious liberty. The association had been conducting a...

Freedom Of Religion: Deciding not to go quietly into the secular night of ObamaCare, 43 Catholic institutions have sued for the right to practice what they preach and they thought the Constitution already guaranteed them. The 43 institutions are situated in 16 jurisdictions from the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., to the University of Notre Dame. Yes, that Notre Dame, where President Obama in 2009 gave a commencement address in which he called for "open hearts, open minds, fair-minded words" in the pursuit of "common ground." Seeing that common ground shifting under their feet, the Catholic institutions have decided to pick...

Health Reform: Faced with being forced to abandon its conscience while emptying its bank account, a Catholic university finds its students can't keep the health insurance they like as it becomes prohibitively expensive. Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, finding itself at the nexus of cost and conscience regarding the demands and expenses imposed on it and other Catholic institutions by the onslaught of ObamaCare, has announced it will neither comply nor participate in the nationalization of health care and drop the health coverage it offers to its students. It's the first shoe to drop in what will be a cascade...

Constitution: The Air Force removes a reference to God from its logo as the Army forbids Catholic chaplains from reading an archbishop's letter to those in uniform. What's next, the crosses at Arlington National Cemetery? 'It is a blow to a freedom that you have fought to defend and for which you have seen your buddies fall in battle," read the letter from Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who leads the Roman Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services to the Catholic chaplains in the U.S. military. The letter that the Army's Office of the Chief of Chaplains kept from being read to...

Journalism: When the abortion giant's funding was in jeopardy, the media provided 24/7 coverage with a decidedly liberal slant. When the feds assaulted First Amendment religious freedom, you could hear the crickets chirp. Secular progressive bias in the media was never more evident than in the past few weeks with the difference in coverage of two major news stories — the temporary cutoff of funds from the Susan G. Komen Foundation to Planned Parenthood and the ultimatum from the Obama administration that the Catholic Church and its institutions had a year to find a way to violate their consciences and...

1st Amendment: Catholic bishops on Sunday issued a response to ObamaCare's mandates on providing contraception in violation of conscience and religious freedom. The message was simple: We will not comply. It was hardly a profile in courage when the Obama administration, hoping to kick the issue down the road past the November election, announced last Friday that Catholic hospitals and other religious institutions will have an extra year to comply with a new requirement that most health plans provide contraceptive benefits at no cost to their members. On Sunday, America's Catholic bishops in an open letter to their parishioners and...