This particular event had considerable campaign value in establishing that the Acolytes of the AntiChrist are, in fact, anti-Catholic and anti-Christian.
We knew that already but the Bishops did seem a bit wobbly on the point.
In the long run the Obots still have to get annual appropriations through Congress even if nothing else happens to their little law. Plus, Obama won't be President 11 months from now. Harry Reid won't be minority leader. Joe Biden won't be Vice President. The MSM will be further out of business, and more Americans than ever will have guns and the right to tote them about protecting themselves.
The Bishops threw Catholic employers under the bus.
They never made it to the stadium or suited up for the game.
“The recent Obama mandate for universal birth control gave the Republicans an opportunity to fight for individual liberty”
Firsly, republicans would have to be conservative and actually understand conservatism in order to fight for individual liberty, and they are not.
Secondly, the republicans don’t fight for a damn thing.
Does John Boner look like a fighter to you?
He looks like a stinking, little sissy boy to me.
How about Mighty Mouse Mitch McConnel? Lindsey Graham? John McCain?
Anywho, that’s where we are.
Republicans in my opinion jumped on the Catholic Birth control mandate issue specifically because they saw what they thought was an opening in getting masses of Catholics behind them in opposing Obama-care as a religous liberty issue. The jury is still out but it looks like Republicans could end up stuck in a trap alone being portrayed as taking away women's contraceptives, which is a great campaign issue for Dems. Where are the Catholic Religious liberty Tea party rallies Bishops? You ever want support again?
Similarly they selected the personal mandates part of Obama-care because it looked like low lying fruit.
RE : “The recent uproar by conservatives gives the impression that only the religious have rights. How about the rest of us? What if an agnostic objects to elements of government laws on principle or, perhaps, merely on a prudential basis? There was an opportunity to put the whole government-run health care system in the cross-hairs. A passionate defense of individual rights could have and should have been the emphasis. But this wasn't important to conservatives. What did they do instead?”
I made the same point many times. Why can I be forced to buy ‘insurance’ (its not really insurance) that gives benefits that are of absolutely no use to me at all and are targeted to those who Dems think will swing the election, just because I am not part of a church business wise?
Alternatively, politicians forcing employers to give specific voters goodies while claiming it cost nothing to anyone, and claiming it's part of those specific voters rights, is a very powerful political lure to get votes.
I’ve been saying all week that people were getting conned by just going after this teeney part of Obamacare.
obamacare is already a done deal. The SC will not overturn any part of it. The republicans were elected in 2010 to defund obamacare. What happened? Has anyone asked Hannity? sarc
In fact, I believe the SC will rule just before the election making obama “right”. This will make him an even bigger god to those who worship him and adding a whole lot more worshippers at the same time.
With that said, not having “insurance” for everyone is not the problem. It’s lousy doctors and rip off hospitals.
“Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. The let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him onto the stage at which the religion becomes merely a part of the ‘cause’, in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favour of the British war-effort or of Pacifism. The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience. Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours — and the more ‘religious’ (on those terms) the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cageful down here.” — C.S. Lewis, from The Screwtape Letters
This whole religious rights rhubarb is just a nice little wedge issue. It's a way to back-handedly diss the liberal bishops by defending their religious liberty and thus keep them from delivering as many Catholic votes to Zero this time around.
But the author is right: the real issue is not religious liberty. It's liberty, period.