[Mariner]

I agree is coercion and unconstitutional...but CATHOLIC has nothing to do with it.

Catholics were not singled out.

Everyone is subject to the same unconstitutional government mandates...EQUALLY.

Catholics are not special. In this case anyway:)

This is like the 20th time I had to say this and some folks keep trying to make a 1st and 14th Amendment case out of it.

The case is CLEARLY the 10th Amendment case: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people".

The US Constitution does not allow the Congress to make such a law, as the specific powers granted do not allow it.

However, IF the Individual Mandate was legal then it could be enforced against Catholics too.

Get it?

[HiTech RedNeck]

But the store was given away when Muslims got an encompassing pass from it, or at least the ritually odious requirements it would otherwise impose. Now we have a question of equal protection under law.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Of course I see your point that it's a 10th Amendment issue, and certainly not "just" a 1st Amendment one in the sense of "singling out" Catholics.

So a person might well ask, "What's causing the U.S. Catholic bishops to draw a line in the sand and dig in their heels HERE, and not at various other points where they could have resisted over the past 40 years?

I very good question. If I do say so myself. And I am pinging Black Elk in here to hear his opinion on the matter. I myself suspect that because this HHS mandate is NOT technically tax-funded, but is in fact an unfunded mandate to be paid for by employers via insurance, it crosses an obscure canonical or moral-ethical line which would make religious employers not just disgruntled-citizens-paying-their-taxes, but actual formal and material cooperators in a grave objective msoral evil.

I think a person can be excommuicated for formal and material cooperation.

Anyhow, it means that Bishops cannot obey this law without incurring excommunication.

In other words, they are being legally reqauired to commit an offense which terminates their communion with the Church.

And if they drop the insurance entirely, they are hit with crushing (truly crushing) penalties, fines. And if they do not pay the fines, it's off to prison they go.

They're finally at a place where there is no wiggle room. Where they cannot claim that this is only "remote material" cooperation (paying taxes). They can't finesse it.

Is that about it, Black Elk?