[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

The church is not being forced to provide birth control or abortions.

It isn’t about religion or liberty. It’s about property.

The church has the choice to get out of the hospital business and turn the buildings over to the federal government cheap as its first step (25% of all hospitals), besides the VA, in taking over all hospitals.

I believe that is and has been Obama’s only goal in this.

[Chainmail]

"I believe that is and has been Obama’s only goal in this"

I don't think that's the only goal - he's playing to his strongest supporters; Leftists, atheists, gays - all strongly against the Catholic church. He's hoping that there are enough "cafeteria Catholics" out there to go ahead and vote for him anyway.

I think his tacticians have no idea what "sleeping giant" (to paraphrase Adm Yamamoto) they have awakened.

[RobbyS]

The Catholic Church consists of Catholics. So a correction of your statement: Obama wants Catholics to get out of the medical profession. He wants to free Catholics of their" medieval superstitions.” He wants gay chaplains, but not Catholic ones.

[steve8714]

Or, the Church hospitals can fire all their non-Catholic employees and refuse treatment to non-Catholics, becoming concierge hospitals.

[SuziQ]

The church is not being forced to provide birth control or abortions.
It isn’t about religion or liberty. It’s about property.

The Church IS being forced to provide birth control, and medications that are abortifacient, as part of the mandated insurance coverage for its employees in the US. Sadly, the Bishops brought this on themselves because they believed Obama last year when he told them that there would be religious exemptions in the legislation. There ARE religious exemptions, in that Obama didn't lie, but they are so narrowly written as to be useless to almost every religious organization in this country. They were so blinded by their desire for 'social justice' that they couldn't foresee his mendacity.

It's interesting that other religious organziations are beginning to speak out in support of the Catholic Church on this issue, because they know that if the Church goes down on this, there is no protection for THEM, either.

I'm glad the Bishops have spoken so forcefully about this, but it's up to individual Catholics to actually DO something, by making sure Obama is not re-elected in November. And we need to make sure that enough conservative lawmakers are put into Congress to overturn the entire Obamacare structure, and get the US government OUT of the healthcare bidness.