Pirate's Cove

Let’s start off with this from LauraW at Ace Of Spades

Did Catholic organizations support Obamacare because they either assumed or were told that they would get an exception based on their religious beliefs?

Because if that is true, then essentially they agreed to support an infringement on others’ freedoms just so long as their own would be preserved. How did they think that would eventually work out?

Now, don’t get me wrong; of course I am delighted that Catholics are angry with the Obama administration.

However, I’m not exactly freaking out that they didn’t get what they bargained for, after they* gleefully endorsed curtailing your and my freedoms.

That’s a heck of a good point. Many of the Catholic organizations did support ObamaCare, though so many practicing Catholics did not. Much of the Catholic leadership has tended to lean Democrat over the past 20 or so years. Did they think, like so many liberals do, that any Central Government intrusion in the lives of Americans would only apply to That Guy and not themselves? That said, there are a lot of stories going around that Obama might cave, at least to some degree. Michael Gerson discusses

David Axelrod is now signaling that there “may be compromises that can be reached” on the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate.  Or maybe he is just proposing a longer “grace period or time period in order to work this thing through.” I’m sure he would welcome a grace period extended just beyond the November election.

In either case, the Obama administration is clearly growing less confident in its current position — a requirement that religious hospitals, charities and universities provide insurance coverage that includes contraceptives and drugs that can cause early abortions.  “We want to resolve it in an appropriate way,” says Axelrod.

Yet Axelrod still refuses to concede anything on the central issue of the debate.  He maintains that “extended, affiliated institutions like hospitals and universities” should be regulated like an Apple Store or 7-11, since all employ and serve non-members. This represents a deep misunderstanding of religion itself.  Catholics serve non-Catholics precisely because that is the calling of Catholicism.  Christians serve non-Christians because that is one of their defining missions in the world.  There is nothing “extended” or “affiliated” about a Catholic shelter for abused women or the homeless.  Such institutions are Catholic in motivation, Catholic in inspiration, Catholic through and through.

Alexrod is still insisting on the forced secularization of religious institutions. He wants compromise without the inconvenience of making concessions.

Many people rightfully point out that many Catholic hospitals, businesses, and organizations already offer contraception and sterilization in their insurance plans. Yes, they do. But, those who offer this defense miss the greater point: it was the choice of those hospitals, businesses, and organizations to offer those health plans, not the governments. That is the point: the American federal government, and, to a degree, the state and local governments, should stop mandating everything. Liberals like to talk about government staying out of our bedrooms, then they pass laws that invade our lives at all levels (let’s not forget, Republicans can do this too.)

With each little law passed, citizens lose the freedom to make their own decisions. Thomas Jefferson was adamant about including term limits in the Constitution for Congress (and the President), so that we would have citizen legislators who would serve a few terms and then go back into the private sector and live under the laws they passed. Right now, legislators pass laws and do not have to actually live under them. We have idiot Democrat Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper saying she wouldn’t have voted for ObamaCare had she known what was in it. That’s why you read the bill, chump. And when a law is so broad that it doesn’t actually define most things, but gives the Sec Of Health the power to make it up as she goes along, we have a major problem.

BTW, liberals, remember, if a Republican wins in 2012 (or beyond), he/she will get to appoint a new Sec. Of Health, who can than make up their own rules.

The freedom to make your own choices is what made America great. Congress doesn’t want that.

Anyhow, the Constitution specifically says that “Congress shall pass no law….that denies the free practice thereof (of religion)”. ObamaCare is that law.