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Posted on 01/21/2009 4:46:45 AM PST by fabrizio
Washington DC, Jan 21, 2009 / 03:19 am (CNA).- Former Supreme Court nominee Judge Robert Bork has predicted that upcoming legal battles will have significant ramifications for religious freedom. He names as issues of major concern the continued freedom of Catholic hospitals to refuse to perform abortions and the likely “terrible conflict” resulting from the advancement of homosexual rights.
Speaking in an interview published Tuesday by Cybercast News Service, Judge Bork discussed the contentious nature of modern politics.
“Everything is up for debate these days. I can’t think of anything that isn’t,” he said.
“You are going to get Catholic hospitals that are going to be required as a matter of law to perform abortions,” he claimed.
“We are going to see in the near future a terrible conflict between claimed rights of homosexuals and religious freedom… You are going to get Catholic or other groups’ relief services that are going to be required to allow adoption of a child by homosexual couples. We are going to have a real conflict that goes right to the heart of the society.”
Asked whether there was a freedom of conscience clause anywhere in the Constitution that might prohibit the U.S. government from compelling a religious hospital to perform abortions, he replied:
“Well, the free exercise of religion clause might fulfill that role.”
He agreed with the CNS interviewer, Editor in Chief Terry Jeffrey, that such coercion forces someone to act against their religion and could be construed as a violation of the right to free exercise of religion.
However, Judge Bork was unsure about whether the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold such a right. He predicted the decision would rest with Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who in some cases sides with liberals and at other times with “originalists,” those who profess to hold a more tradition-minded interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.
“It depends upon Anthony Kennedy,” Judge Bork told CNS. “Now, it’s a funny situation in which the moral life of a nation is in effect decided by one judge, because you have four solid liberal votes, four solid originalist votes, and one vote you can’t predict too accurately in advance.”
Though Justice Kennedy is a Catholic, he sided with the majority who upheld the pro-abortion rights Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade in the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Judge Bork said that a decision involving the freedom of Catholic hospitals to refuse to perform abortions would split by a 5-4 vote.
“But I don’t know which way,” he added.
The Cybercast News interview with the jurist also touched upon the place of religion in public life.
“I don’t think the disputants talk much about God anymore,” Judge Bork commented. “That’s one of the things that I think is regrettable--and I know liberals have said the same thing, it is not a conservative position particularly--but it is regrettable that religion has dropped out of our public discourse. I think it impoverishes it and makes it more violent.”
He explained that he believed this violence was not armed conflict, but rather “violent language and propaganda.”
Judge Bork said he also thought that America is “now going down a path towards kind of a happy-go-lucky nihilism.”
“A lot of people are nihilists,” he continued. “They don’t think about religion. They don’t think about ultimate questions. They go along. They worry about consumer goods, comfort, and so forth.
“As a matter of fact, the abortion question is largely a question about convenience. If you look at the polls about why people have abortions, 90 percent of it has nothing to do with medical conditions. It’s convenience. And that’s I think an example of the secularization of an issue that ought to have a religious dimension.”
When asked whether a nihilistic society can remain “happy-go-lucky” for long, Judge Bork replied:
“I don’t know. I guess we are going to find out.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/us/politics/11minister.html
Obama Names Minister for Pre-Inauguration Sermon
President-elect Barack Obama has selected the Rev. Sharon E. Watkins to deliver the sermon at the national prayer service that is held the day after the inauguration.
This is not a good sign, imho. Watkins seems a very poor choice.
It appears that the road ahead is civil disobedience. The bishops should openly declare that Catholic hospitals will refuse to permit abortions at their facilities no matter how many laws are passed or writs handed down. It should be equated with a theoretical law passed in Nazi Germany requiring Catholic hospitals to permit Jewish extermination at their facilities (I don’t think even Hitler thought of that). Let it play out on the front pages and let them excommunicate any Catholic politician who takes a contrary position.
It happened in Massachusetts 3 years ago. It was mandated that all adoption services allow homosexual couples to adopt and the Catholic charity responsible for adoptions asked the State for an opt-out.
It was refused and the Boston Archdiocese ordered the service shut down in Massachusetts.
This is a legitimate reason to call for dissolution of the Union. I see more and more discussion of secession in the blogosphere. It is an undercurrent that is growing in strength. I do not believe that is any longer possible to change course in the federal government… for it has become a cancer-ravaged leviathan, seeking nothing but its own survival, and devouring all objective truth that dares challenge its progress. Secession is the only solution to its Marxist rampage and the atheism that strides along with it.
“Anyone that speaks out against the homo fascists wil be targeted and destroyed.”
Ever hear of the Second Amendment? I am sure you have. The question remains to be this: Are you and the others willing to USE it for its INTENDED purpose, rather than blabber about “hunter’s rights” and other such diatribe?
The problem, as I see it, is that too many are convinced of the efficacy of our “legal system”... a system wholly perverted beyond reform. Those, who still believe in the folly of “working within the system,” if the true reason in their hearts were stated, it would be revealed that cowardice and selfish materialism is what restrains their hand from committing to the final check and balance allowed to the people by our Constitution.
Bankrupting the healt care system is their goal... that will be their excuse to implement mandated nationalized “death care”
“...Watkins seems a very poor choice.”
Can we please stop using the language of the enemy?
Call her what she is: pro-death, PRO-MURDER... A “SERIAL MURDERER” That is what “pro-choice” individuals truly ought to be called... MURDERERS ... for that are what they support and commit with glee. THESE PEOPLE WORSHIP BAAL! In fact, they are guilty of genocide. When the next Civil War comes, and IT IS COMING... these “pro-choice” goons will be tried for crimes against humanity, and summarily executed for the innocent blood they have shed.
This is establishing bounds on religion.
And it is not an instance of Catholics or those of other Christian faiths promoting the use of illegal drugs, illegal child marriages, illegal polygamous marriages, or anything else illegal.
It is a case of saying "we will NOT...".
Those who want an abortion or to have a same sex marriage still have other hospitals and other religions they can go to.
You can no more force someone to perform an abortion than force them to execute a murderer (say we choose citizens like we do for jury duty and say "you there, pull the switch!").
God forsaken American Cafeteria Catholics elected Obama; not Roman Catholic voters. There’s a significant difference.
I have been thinking along these lines for some time:
a statement of secession is the only way the REAL fundamental differences can be laid out. I always felt it was folly to counsel those with a “grievance” (on either side) to simply wait and elect the right people. Ridiculous/ things are actually too far along,too far advanced for that to have ANY effect. A radical split is the only answer , and it should come as this new Administration starts to put its social policies in place.
They may soon reach a positive tipping point as all their efforts just get more deeply entrenched in Mass Culture: just imagine RAP being the National Music, and a dumbed down population of starry-eyed THird Worlders becoming the most powerful sector politically.It was no accident that the blank-slate symbol of a confused “true American” demographic is embodied in this virtual non-entity called Obama. No accident too that he was the INEVITABLE choice of the Dem party. No accident that he was seen as representing some nebulous abstraction that the Dems think America needs right now, in the ‘eyes of the world’. And those are just a few small areas to conjure, if you want to grasp just what this candidate and his now official Administration is meant to fulfill, what they are there for, and how well-manipulated was the big money effort to get him elected.
It’s exactly where this Administration is headed, consciously and knowingly creating a “New” kind of America.
Of course, this country on its own is always creating a New Kind of America-—they are just pushing it much farther, and seizing on the bad economy to mortgage the future as never before, as they put programs and institutions in place that they want to see last for several generations.
It’s precisely where the Clinton Administration was heading also. THey see themselves as the benign dictators of this new, unquestioning mass of sheeple.
“It’s precisely where the Clinton Administration was heading also. THey see themselves as the benign dictators of this new, unquestioning mass of sheeple.”
Exactly why Obama chose Clintonistas to fill his cabinet. This fraud is so full of SH*T with his “change” mantra. How else is it believable that his “worst enemy” is now his SOS... and all the other Willard retards and reprobates with her... Good Grief, Grab your Guns and let’s Go!
It doesn’t matter. What’s wrong with people? O will have more people than the “tens of thousands” that you speak of and the voice of what is right and just will never be heard. The fix is in people, our nation is doomed, and there’s nothing now holding back the wrath of God from punishing this wicked nation.
Good on Boston! - if the world wants to go to hell them let them - we are told to avoid even the appearance of evil!
Mel
Latae sententiae excommunciated CINOs helped elect Obama.
Source?
“God forsaken American Cafeteria Catholics elected Obama; not Roman Catholic voters. There’s a significant difference.”
Fair comment.
Though, as someone raised in a Jewish household, I kinda enjoy some other religion being scape-goated with an unfair broad bursh (e.g., the recurring why-do-ALL-Jews-vote-Democrat threads).
Misery loves company, I guess.
You got it.
He does not believe in the Second Amendment. He testified at the time (and apparently still believes) that it is merely a collective right for the States to form a militia, even though the Supreme Court has now ruled otherwise.
I do not understand how he can hold this wrong-headed view and be reliable on any other issue.
The Second Amendment is the one that guarantees all the others . . . .
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