First They Came for the Catholics . . .

I'm deep in the writing process on my book, The Triune God and the Acids of Modernity, and I don't have much time these days for blogging. (Why are sabbaticals so darn short?)

But I would like to provide a few links to comments on recent developments in the Obama administration lawless attack on religious freedom. Below are some links to some of the best writing on the subject.

Mark Steyn, "The Liberal Enforcers" (National Review Online)
- what we love about Mark Steyn is that he is brutally honest

Money Quote:

"Modern “liberalism” is strikingly illiberal; the high priests of “tolerance” are increasingly intolerant of even the mildest dissent; and those who profess to “celebrate diversity” coerce ever more ruthlessly a narrow homogeneity. Thus, the Obama administration’s insistence that Catholic institutions must be compelled to provide free contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients. This has less to do with any utilitarian benefit a condomless janitor at a Catholic school might derive from Obamacare, and more to do with the liberal muscle of Big Tolerance enforcing one-size-fits-all diversity."

Michelle Malkin, First They Came for the Catholics" (Michelle Malkin blog)
- Malkin understands what this is really all about

Money Quote:

Hannah Smith, senior counsel at the non-profit law firm, the Becket Fund, which is representing the schools boiled it down for Bloomberg News: “This is not really about access to contraception. The mandate is about forcing these religious groups to pay for it against their beliefs.”

How did we get here? The first salvo came in December 2010, when the American Civil Liberties Union pushed HHS and its Planned Parenthood-championing secretary, Kathleen “The Shredder” Sebelius, to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions in violation of their core moral commitment to protecting the lives of the unborn.

"The ACLU called for a litigious fishing expedition against Catholic hospitals nationwide that refuse to provide “emergency” contraception and abortions to women. In their sights: Devout Phoenix Catholic Bishop Thomas Olmsted, who revoked the Catholic status of a rogue hospital that performed several direct abortions, provided birth control pills and presided over sterilizations against the church’s ethical and religious directives for health care.

ACLU and the feminists have joined with Obama to threaten and sabotage the First Amendment rights of religious-based health care entities. The agenda is not increased “access” to health care services. The ultimate goal is to shut down health care providers – Catholic health care institutions employ about 540,000 full-time workers and 240,000 part-time workers – whose religious views cannot be tolerated by secular zealots and radical social engineers."

Christopher Badeaux, "Excommunicate the Bishops" (Red State)
- he excoriates the Bishops of his church for being so limp-wristed on abortion for so long that it has come to this point.

Money Quote:

It was easy to sell out the unborn, wasn’t it? To just wish away an infallible teaching that — let’s be honest — has been such a headache since a Catholic Supreme Court Justice helped its mass breaking, and Catholic Democrats abandoned everything else to protect that breach, right? To let others commit a sin that our Church treats as so grave that it incurs the automatic sanction of excommunication? All in return for a goal you’ve shared with your Democrat masters since the 1940s — a chance to drive healthcare costs through the roof with the fig leaf of social caring. All so you could work with the sorts of people who are elected to office by publicly calling you theocrats and misogynists for more-or-less upholding the two-thousand-year-old Tradition of our Church.

Thirty pieces of silver must buy one Hell of a lot more for you than it does for me.

Thomas Peters, "Cartoon: Obama vs. the Church" (American Papist
- you have to click through to see the cartoon but it is worth the click

Al Mohler, "The President, the Pill, and Religious Liberty in Peril" (Albert Mohler.com)
- Mohler points out that this is not just a Catholic issue; it affects every single Evangelical institution as well

Money Quote:

"The inclusion of Plan B and other forms of “emergency contraception” raises the stakes considerably, since the issue of abortion is now unavoidable. Will evangelical colleges and institutions now comply with a law we know to be both unjust and unconscionable?

The National Association of Evangelicals made a statement that described the situation well, but promised no particular action: “Employers with religious objections to contraception will be forced to pay for services and procedures they believe are morally wrong.”

Erick Ericson, "The Perversion of the Words of Our Lord Jesus Christ by the Sinner Barack H. Obama" (Red State)

Money Quote:

The President this week chose to pervert God’s Word to make the case for a tax increase, but he also chose to ignore God’s word on life and is ordering Christians, while he claims to be one, to violate their Christian conscience on abortion — requiring Christian organizations to provide health insurance that will cover the cost of drugs that induce abortions.

He is trying to have it both ways. He is trying to use God’s Word to defend a tax policy that dissuades individuals from giving gladly and charitably to the poor as God instructs and is ignoring God’s Word in order to force fellow Christians into violating their Christian conscience — something about which God cares a great deal.

This cannot end well for him, particularly doing this claiming to be a Christian. And it might not end well for the rest of us either. Barack Obama has gone to war with Christians’ consciences and he is perverting God’s word in the process to get his way on public policy.

Nine months to go until the American people have the chance to throw off tyranny through a presidential election. It seems like a long time to wait.