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.

It is precisely because radical socialists like Creamer, Schakowsky and Obama detest the free economy that they continue to rely on old Malthusian and Marxist ideas.

Regardless, the indication by Creamer that the contraception mandate is not about “equality,” but population growth, suggests that the Obama administration’s challenge to the beliefs of the Catholic church may be more direct–and deliberate–than was previously suspected.

When the hosts asked her to defend President Obama’s decision to block the development of the Keystone pipeline, Schakowsky did not dispute that the project would create jobs, but denied that these jobs were significant:

Twenty thousand jobs is really not that many jobs and investing in green technologies will produce that and more. But I’ll tell you what, you know it seems to me that the Republicans would rather have an issue than a pipeline.

When the hosts pointed out that Schakowsky’s union allies support the pipeline, she was speechless. (The full audio from the interview is available here.)

Later in the program, the hosts interviewed Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN), who responded to Schakowsky’s comments:

Tell that to the twenty thousand people that woke up this morning and didn’t have a job to go, “Well, these don’t really matter.” I mean this not only is jobs, this is less dependence on Middle East oil. And here we have you know, the President talking about becoming energy independent but he turns down the easiest way to do that.

Update: Let it be noted that Schakowsky is Chief Deputy Whip of the House Democrats–a core leader of her party in Congress, not just a marginal representative.

The Hill reports (emphasis added):

Schakowsky, a vocal supporter of healthcare reform, warned liberals not to turn away from Obama because they didn’t get all they wanted in the new law.

“Losing in November is not an option,” she said. “It doesn’t make it easier to get single-payer or even a public option. It makes it impossible.”

Schakowsky’s remarks in 2009, together with those of Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), among others, created suspicion at the time that Obamacare was a “Trojan Horse” for a single-payer system of socialized medicine:

Her remarks today would seem to confirm that suspicion.

While Republicans intend to vote to repeal Obamacare, Democrats are being urged to vote not just to defend Obamacare, but to expand it into a full system of socialized medicine at the federal level.

Schakowsky’s remarks come on the heels of an incendiary sermon she delivered from a church pulpit to Democrats and Occupy activists at the “Occupy the Dream” service this past weekend.

Despite the fact that her husband was convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion, and that Schakowsky reportedly signed the tax returns, she demands that the rich pay their “fair share”:

The ShoreBank scandal erupted in 2010 as Chicago Democrats, particularly Rep. Jan Schakowsky, tried to bail out the bank using any means necessary–whether federal, state, or private money. The bank’s closure was delayed several times–evidence, critics charged, of preferential treatment from the Obama administration.

Eventually, under pressure from the Tea Party and the media, a bailout was averted and federal regulators moved in.

Curiously, the bank’s management was permitted to buy ShoreBank’s serviceable assets and reconstitute the failed institution as Urban Partnership Bank, while taxpayers were obliged to carry the cost of dispensing with the rest.

Boutte’s involvement occurred during the tenure of former Illinois state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, the Chicago Democrat and alleged “mob banker” who lost to Mark Kirk in the race for U.S. Senate in 2010, who was also blamed for losing hundreds of millions of dollars in parents’ tuition savings in a fund that invested in sub-prime mortgages. Boutte had donated to Giannoulias’s Senate campaign.

Crain’s notes:

The department’s findings, which Mr. Boutte officially did not admit or deny, were that he failed to notify the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, which runs the College Illinois prepaid tuition program, of the significance of ShoreBank’s missed financial targets in August 2008, just before ISAC invested nearly $13 million in the privately held bank.

“That should have resulted in Boutte advising ISAC not to invest in (ShoreBank),” according to the department’s consent order.

ISAC’s investment was wiped out in August 2010, when ShoreBank failed after a high-profile effort to save the well-known lender in low-income urban neighborhoods fell short.

The consent order issued by the Illinois Secretary of State’s Securities Department does not mention initial allegations against Boutte that suggested he had tried to solicit other investors on ShoreBank’s behalf. This week, Boutte renewed his claim that he had never done so.

The Securities Department did not comment on Boutte’s assertion of innocence but warned that “other parties” would be named in the continuing investigation, according to Crain’s.

Democrat strategist (and convicted felon) Robert Creamer recently invoked the New Testament in a tirade against Republicans, and accused the GOP of “an attack on the spirit of Christmas.”

His spouse, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), who often borrows from Creamer’s talking points (as do other Democrats), took that attack to the floor of the House of Representatives:

And so, Happy Chanukah to middle class Americans lighting the first candle tonight who won’t get their $1000 tax break.  Happy New Year to our seniors and persons with disabilities who may lose their doctors.

Merry Christmas to the jobless Americans, desperate for work, looking for work, who barely survive on unemployment checks.  The House Republicans are the Grinches who stole your Christmas.

That is nothing new–Democrats frequently (mis)invoke religion when it suits their purposes, eagerly discarding concerns about church-state separation. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is a repeat offender, as is Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), who in 2008 compared Barack Obama to Jesus and John McCain to Pontius Pilate:

The abuse of religion to promote progressive policies and politicians has also become a feature among some religious movements whose leaders typically support the Democratic Party.

The annual conference of Reform Judaism, for example, recently passed a resolution that drew upon selective interpretations of traditional Jewish texts in an attempt to justify several policies favored by Democrats, including tax hikes on the rich and the expansion of government’s role in the economy.

Republicans also sometimes invoke religion to justify their policies–and not just on social issues. When they do, however, they are typically mocked by Democrats and the mainstream media, who take every opportunity to stoke fears that Republicans are determined to install a Taliban-style theocracy.

The religious convictions of Republican presidential candidates are also examined far more closely than those of Democrat candidates–the most glaring example being Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright, who was ignored by journalists for months, even as the bizarre racialist precepts of his church became more widely known.

Whatever the arguments on either side of the payroll tax debate (and it’s clear that the fuss is over the lesser of two evils), religion has nothing to do with it. Both parties are trying to shape next year’s policy debates, as well as public perceptions of their leaders in Congress. Some of those leaders are actually trying to do what they feel is in the country’s best interests.

For Democrats to invoke religion in impugning Republican motives is bad faith–in more ways than one.

That initial report focused on the use of veterans and disabled protestors. This week’s Occupy protests provided more evidence–specifically involving the use of the young and the elderly.

In Portland yesterday, this Occupy activist put an infant between himself and police on the front lines as he shouted at officers:

In Seattle on Nov. 15, an elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in clashes between Occupy activists and police. Whether provoked or accidental, the incident created the hoped-for sensational image:

And in New York yesterday, activists from Occupy Wall Street taunted children walking to school, prompting one observer to call the Occupy activists “terrorists“:

Photo: CBS New York

The “terrorist” label was driven home on Nov. 14 when three men claiming to be Occupy Portland protestors were arrested carrying glass-shrapnel bombs.

And yet Democrats, such as Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), continue to support the Occupy movement, believing that it has shifted the terms of debate away from deficit reduction, and towards inequality:

Despite the best efforts of the media to disentangle the Democratic Party from the Occupy movement, they remain inextricably linked.

Even though the demonstration occurred on Columbus Day, a public holiday, the participation of the marching band may have violated Chicago Public School policy, which prevents the misappropriation of school board property in “prohibited political activity for the benefit of any campaign for elective office or any political organization.” “Prohibited political activity” is defined as “[p]reparing for, organizing, or participating in any political meeting, political rally, political demonstration, or other political event.”