No separation of church and state for thee!

Far from a compromise, President Obama’s Health & Human Services is doubling down on its edict that religious organizations be compelled to provide contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs through their health care plans.

Americans rightly recoil at the prospect of a government telling them what can and cannot be covered under their plans, but this issue has never been about “health care” or “birth control.” It has always been about controlling religious freedom and the charity sector.

In 2010, Obama promised Americans and Muslims in particular that their rights to worship as they see fit would not be infringed by his government.  In 2012, he has told Catholic Americans–25% of America–that their freedom of association will be infringed by his government.

“As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country,” Obama said. “That includes the right to build a place of worship in a community center on private property in lower Manhattan in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable.”

“I can’t impose my religious views on another,” Candidate Obama wrote in The Audacity of Hope. (251)

That is, unless you are Catholic.

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WASHINGTON (AP) – Rushing to end a political uproar, President BarackObama on Friday will announce that religious employers will not have to coverbirth control for their employees after all, The Associated Press has learned. The administration instead will demand that insurance companies will be the ones directly responsible for providing free contraception.

Obama’s abrupt shift is an attempt to satisfy both sides of a deeply sensitive debate, and most urgently, to end a mounting election-year nightmare for theWhite House. The leader of a Catholic organization and a prominent women’s group both expressed initial support for the changes.

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The Washington Post, citing anonymous White House Sources, reports that President Barack Obama will announce a “compromise” today on the contraceptive rule for religious institutions that has outraged Americans across the political spectrum as a violation of religious freedom:

President Barack Obama will announce a plan to accommodate religious employers outraged by a rule that would require them to cover birth control for women free of charge, according to a person familiar with the decision.

Obama was expected to make the announcement at the White House Friday.

The shift is aimed at containing the political firestorm that erupted after Obama announced in January that religious-affiliated employers had to cover birth control as preventative care for women. Churches and houses of worship were exempt, but all other affiliated organizations were ordered to comply by Aug. 2013.

It is not clear with whom Obama has negotiated a “compromise”; it would appear he has simply compromised with himself, modifying his rule in a way he believes he can sell politically.

Mulligan?

The outrage is as much about the fact that the Obama administration tried to define what is, and is not, a religious institution as it is about the fact that it tried to impose its own dogmatic beliefs–in population control, among other things–on Catholics and other religious groups.

Earlier this week, administration officials had signaled that the president might “compromise,” a prospect that was greeted with skepticism by religious leaders, who struggled to imagine a halfway point between religious freedom and state dictates on religious faith. (more…)

Robert Creamer–Democrat strategist, Obama 2008 campaign aide, and political architect of ObamaCare–argues that the new contraceptive mandate for Catholic institutions isn’t really about equality for women, or religious liberty.

Rather, it is about population control.

Creamer–like his wife, the pro-abortion Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)–embraces the left-wing fallacy that children are a burden on the planet, which the state should encourage the church–and everyone else–to limit.

At 6:16-7:03 in the video below, by CNS News, Schakowsky describes abortion as “most often” a “responsible decision” to control the size of their families:

Writing in the Huffington Post yesterday, Creamer declared:

…[T]here is a worldwide consensus that the use of birth control is one of society’s most important moral priorities. Far from being something that should be discouraged, or is controversial, the use of birth control is critical to the survival and success of humanity….It is simply not possible for this small planet to sustain that kind of exponential human population growth. If we do, the result will be poverty, war, the depletion of our natural resources and famine. Fundamentally, the Reverend [Thomas] Malthus was right–except that the result is not inevitable….That’s why it is our moral imperative to act responsibly and encourage each other to use birth control.

Malthus’s late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century views, which still inspire much of today’s environmental movement, have been repeatedly disproved over the course of two centuries. Economic freedom, growth and innovation have made human society vastly more productive and efficient. (more…)

In the wake of the news that Obamacare will mandate all employers to provide for birth control, including Catholic employers, many have wondered whether President Obama will damage his standing with the Catholic vote. In 2008, the Catholic vote split for Obama by a large margin, 54-45. Much of this was driven by Obama’s support in the Latino community; white Catholics actually voted McCain by a similarly broad margin, 52-47.

But now, even Hispanics are having second thoughts about Obama. According to a December Ipsos-Telemundo poll, Obama’s approval rating among Latinos is now down to 56%, as opposed to 86% in April 2009. Although Obama’s unfavorables have risen among Latinos, however, only 14% strongly dislike Obama’s presidential approach. That means there’s room for Obama to move the needle up once again.

He’ll have to do it soon. Obama threatens to match John Kerry’s negative Catholic electoral record – Kerry lost the Catholic vote 52-47 in 2004, and he lost white Catholics 43-56. He still won Pennsylvania, a heavily Catholic state (53%), but he lost Florida (26% Catholic) and Ohio (24% Catholic). The most heavily Catholic battleground states other than those three are New Hampshire (35%), Arizona (31%), Louisiana (30%), and Wisconsin (29%). Obama’s anti-Catholic moves may hurt him there.

We’ve actually already seen some movement in terms of the Catholic vote.

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There is a lot of talk, during these pre-presidential election days, of whether Republicans should stick to fiscal policy issues or include social issues as well in their platforms. Liberals are attacking fiscal/social conservatives, and some “establishment” Republicans are also criticizing their socially conservative colleagues, fearful that Independents will be turned off by the thought that Republicans are appearing rigid, strict, and hard.

Political strategy aside, however, what often strikes me about these debates, which always seem centered on how conservative Republicans are trying to force their social views on the nation, is that liberals do it all the time and are successful at it. Their belief that the government should take care of everyone, from birth till death, has permeated our national policies and slowly destroyed our economic stability.

Nowhere, in this most liberal of all administrations, is the forcing of liberal social ideology on the nation more clearly visible than in Obamacare, and in the person of Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), who will be the most powerful woman in the United States if Barack Obama is re-elected in 2012.

As many of us heard earlier in the month, the Obama administration has approved a recommendation from the Institute of Medicine that the new healthcare law guarantee full health insurance coverage for birth control, including the “morning after” pill. Beginning August 1, 2012, health insurance plans will be required to provide full coverage- without co-payment, co-insurance, or deductible- not only for contraception, but also for breast-feeding support and other services. Ms. Sebelius said, “I want to thank the Institute of Medicine for providing this important report recommending additional preventive services for women’s health and well-being. This report is historic.”

According to Ms. Sebelius:

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Earlier this week the Obama administration announced that health insurance plans must now be extended to include birth control without copay. These new guidelines for women’s health also include breast pumps, regular “well woman” visits, counseling about HIV and sexually transmitted infections, screening for gestational diabetes, domestic violence counseling and screening, in addition to several other services. For the most part, these new requirements will take effect Jan. 1, 2013.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said, “These historic guidelines are based on science and existing (medical) literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need”.

However a recent Fox News article states “generic versions of the pill are available for as little as $9 a month. Still, about half of all pregnancies are unplanned. Many are among women using some form of contraception, and forgetting to take the pill is a major reason.” This shows that even if we offer them free birth control, we have no guarantee they will not get pregnant.

Who will pay to offset the cost of these new “free” services? We all know that nothing is truly free. The rest of us will be forced to pay for these services and premiums all over will be increased. In a Bloomberg editorial they admitted, “The average yearly cost to an insurer of providing full coverage for the entire range of contraceptive methods and counseling services (with no copays or deductibles) is about $40”.

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