Catholic League Poised To Go To War With Obama Over Mandatory Birth Control Payments

CBS News ^ | February 6, 2012 11:00 PM

[1010RD]

Catholic leaders upped the ante Monday, threatening to challenge the Obama administration over a provision of the new health care law that would require all employers, including religious institutions, to pay for birth control.

As CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer reports, it could affect the presidential elections.

Catholic leaders are furious and determined to harness the voting power of the nation’s 70 million Catholic voters to stop a provision of President Barack Obama’s new heath car reform bill that will force Catholic schools, hospitals and charities to buy birth control pills, abortion-producing drugs and sterilization coverage for their employees.

“Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church,” said Catholic League head Bill Donohue.

Already Archbishop Timothy Dolan has spoken out against the law and priests around the country have mobilized, reading letters from the pulpit. Donohue said Catholic officials will stop at nothing to put a stop to it.

“This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions, and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets,” Donohue said.

But pro-choice groups said they will fight the church and fight for the right of employees of Catholic institutions to have birth control and other services paid for.

“The Catholic hierarchy seems to be playing a cynical game of chicken and they don’t seem to care that the health and well being of millions of American woman are what’s at stake here,” National Abortion Rights Action League President Andrea Miller said.

[vollmond]

Fire everyone but the priests. All non-clerical duties will need to be performed by volunteers.

[verga]

This Protestant will be standing in full support of the Catholic church on this one.

Thank you, and make no mistake if the Christians don't stand together on this issue, then your religious freedom will be next.

[muawiyah]

This business of the tyrant forcing his opponents to dip their spears in the gore is quite ancient.

There's only one way to make it stop.

[China Clipper]

Warning: The liberals are excellent tacticians. They will re-direct the issue.
Just as in the Terri Schiavo case, they re-directed it from the husband's culpability to the issue of "right-to-die."
It wasn't about "right-to-die." It never was. But the re-direction worked. Conservatives were made to look like extremists.

Hmm. Good points. Here is one possible senario

The obamanistas KNOW this is a "no-win" stance. (True)
They know it will inflame Catholics and other Christians (True)
So, let it boil and fester for a few months, getting everyone frustrated and mad. (True)
At the last (useful) moments, and after the help of the MSM making it look and sound like "the radical Catholics are threatening "blood in the streets" and "a nation of terror", our benevolent protectors will "revisit" the policy (cancel) until after the election. (True)
Obamanistas look like "leaders" and are wisely "looking after our best interests" and are re-elected by the Catholics who threatened to vote them out. Policy is re-instated.

Obamanistas win.

[Oratam]

Kulturkampf

[SoFloFreeper]

WHY IS CBS USING SUCH VIOLENT RHETORIC? IS SARAH PALIN WRITING THEIR HEADLINES? (off sarcasm)

[narses]

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[SoFloFreeper]

...you make a good point.... But there is a big First Amendment issue, too.

[Chickensoup]

Catholics are nuts to fight this.

Best thing to do is go to cost-sharing like the Amish and Mennonite and others.(Medishare, Samaritan etc)

It would be self funded, qualify for exception and could take up to one fifth of the population out of government clutches.

It would be the end run of all end runs. And it would provide better options for their people. It would also be a model for every one else who is dying to get away from the encroaching totalitarian fascist commie.

There are more ways to skin this cat.

[Old Retired Army Guy]

The Administration will get out in front of this in a hurry and provide a Religeous Waiver/Exemption. Look for the fix with a Presidential announcement in the next couple of days.

[muawiyah]

Skinning the cat is still useful. Religious freedom does not require you to withdraw from the world.

Quite the opposite.

It's long overdue for the Progressive totalitarians to get their noses bloody and their butts kicked.

Carl Rowan and William Raspberry used to refer to "white people's riots" ~ which take place in court and in Congress and which don't burn down the neighborhood.

So, a "white people's riot" is certainly called for here. Your typical neighborhood organizer has no idea what this is about ~ they will cry a lot.

[1010RD]

I hope this is a wake up call to all Catholics and all religious - your right to conscience is at stake.

[1010RD]

Give me more info on this. I don’t know a thing about it.

[samiam1972]

From my own little personal view, the young men that are entering the priesthood are so much stronger and are replacing those that taught nothing but fluff, rainbows and sunshine in the 70’s and 80’s. I am so excited about the return to basics in the Catholic Church. It’s not easy to turn around a bus as big as the Catholic Church but it can and is being done. You can see it in the new appointments to Cardinal, etc. I’m ready to fight and so are my homeschooled children. I’m preparing them now in case this drags out for awhile.

[EnglishCon]

The Church teaches health care of the poor and the sick as a “right” duty, so in the view of many in the pews Obamacare is a good thing.

Let us be correct.

[snafubar]

New to this forum.

I wonder if Muslim schools will be required to provide contraceptive services for their employees?

[redgolum]

Correct. But most in the US view it as “The STATE must provide for the poor and sick”.

[EnglishCon]

Sadly, we have the same illness in the Church here - just much more advanced.

After all, if the state does it, at a small financial cost to you personally, you have done your duty with minimal inconvenience, right?

That follows the wording of what we are required, but not the spirit.

[Romulus]

Birth control is most certainly part of the issue. Obama will gracefully cave on this in time, presenting himself as the magnanimous friend of believers everywhere, and peacemaker even with the kooky Catholics. But he will have vastly expanded the penetration of contraception and sterilization into the culture.

I am a practicing Catholic. But I have always thought the Church's stand on birth control is extreme and stupid.

Then you need to educate yourself and be converted.

You need to understand that contraception is a direct challenge to God in the sacred space of marital intercourse.

You need to understand that contraception invalidates the authenticity of marriage, because spouses using each other only as pleasure machines while sidestepping/rejecting each other's awesome power to give life have stripped the mystery and power from sex and reduced it to nothing more than mutual masturbation, mutual exploitation of the other with no true coming together.

You need to understand that God, not man, is the lord and giver of life, and that contraception's message to the contrary is a superhighway to abortion and the full-on culture of death.

You need to understand that God has made us for himself, not for ourselves, and that the illusion of self-ownership and the achievement of our wills are not the purpose of our lives.

[Chickensoup]

Skinning the cat is still useful. Religious freedom does not require you to withdraw from the world.
Quite the opposite.

It’s long overdue for the Progressive totalitarians to get their noses bloody and their butts kicked.

Carl Rowan and William Raspberry used to refer to “white people’s riots” ~ which take place in court and in Congress and which don’t burn down the neighborhood.

So, a “white people’s riot” is certainly called for here. Your typical neighborhood organizer has no idea what this is about ~ they will cry a lot.
______________________________________________

Agreed that we need to fight. But fighting and also removing yourself from THEIR game, health insurance, is important. Doing it differently is important.