Obama Throws 'Equal Pay' Stones from Glass House

There is no greater example of how phony and disingenuous the “war on women” rhetoric President Barack Obama and Democrats are using against Republicans this election cycle than the Obama Administration’s war on its female staffers in the White House.

Today is “National Equal Pay Day,” and Obama wrote a political proclamation in which he used the oft-cited figure that women make 77 percent of what males do and African-American and Hispanic women make 64 percent and 56 percent, respectively, of what men make.

The irony is, Obama says this to turn out working class and minority women voters to secure himself four more years in the White House, wherein he can continue to deny his female staffers “equal pay for equal work.” According to a study the Washington Free Beacon did of the salaries of White House staffers, women made 18 percent less than men did in Obama’s White House.
With that in mind, all of Obama’s words today ring extremely hollow.

In his presidential proclamation, Obama cited the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which extended the time period in which women could sue their employers for wages lost due to discrimination and mentioned that he created the “National Equal Pay Task Force” to identify equal pay violations.
One can only wonder if this task force examined his White House.

“On National Equal Pay Day, let us resolve to become a Nation that values the contributions of our daughters as much as those of our sons, denies them no opportunity, and sets no limits on their dreams,” Obama wrote. “I call upon all Americans to recognize the full value of women's skills and their significant contributions to the labor force, acknowledge the injustice of wage discrimination, and join efforts to achieve equal pay.”

Based on the Obama administration's unequal pay for female employees, one can wonder how much Obama values the “contributions of our daughters as much as those of our sons.”
Before he calls upon “all Americans to recognize” the “full value of women’s skills” and “acknowledge the injustice of wage discrimination,” he should first call upon his administration to do so and “join efforts to achieve equal pay” that he is calling others to join.

There has been a pattern of hostility toward women in Obama’s White House.
As the Los Angeles Times wrote in a story on Ron Suskind’s book about the Obama White House, “Confidence Men,” “One of the major disclosures in [the book] was that women working in the Obama White House often felt marginalized, that a frat-boy atmosphere that prevailed in the 2008 campaign carried over into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.”

In Suskind’s book, Anita Dunn is quoted as saying, “looking back, this place would be in court for a hostile workplace. … Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women.’’

So when Obama writes on Equal Pay Day that “his Administration is committed to securing equal pay for equal work” and “working women are at the heart of an America built to last,” one can only wonder why the mainstream media does not point to his administration as an example of “equal pay for equal work” and his White House as representative of an America “built to last.”

Obama and Democrats will continue to use Sandra Flukes and contraception non-controversies to fuel their “war on women” talking point, even as their major surrogates like Hilary Rosen denigrate stay-at-home moms, in order to distract the electorate. They rely on these distractions because they are rightfully worried that women may not support him as strongly if his administration’s hypocritical actions toward the women who work for him received more sunlight.

by Tony Lee 17 Apr 2012

SOURCE: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/04/17/obama-throws-equal-pay-stones-from-glass-house

Obama’s Marriage Maneuvers

May 8, 2012, 11:35 pm  SOURCE: NYTimes Opinion Page

By ROSS DOUTHAT

5:47 p.m. | Update Visit my blog for an update to this column written after President Obama’s statements about same-sex marriage today.
In the latest Gallup poll, 50 percent of Americans support redefining marriage to include same-sex couples – which is more than the percentage of Americans that supported the Affordable Care Act, think favorably of the controversial 2009 stimulus package, or approve of Barack Obama’s job performance in general. Among independent voters, meanwhile, support for same-sex marriage is up to 57 percent, meaning that more independents support same-sex marriage today than voted for Obama during his easy victory in 2008.
Given these numbers, it seems a little strange that the president is so unwilling to acknowledge what every non-delusional Washington observer believes to be the case – that like his voluble vice-president, he is part of the emerging pro-same-sex-marriage majority, rather than the opponent that he still officially pretends to be. Why does a president who declined to defend the Defense of Marriage Act persist in the ridiculous pretense of an “evolving” position, one might reasonably ask (an evolution that will be complete, one assumes, the day he wins re-election), when same-sex marriage might actually be a political winner, and his wink-and-a-nod approach to the issue looks so transparently calculated?
Journalists looking for an answer to this question have largely focused on the possibility that a presidential shift on same-sex marriage might depress Democratic turnout among blacks and Hispanics, two crucial constituencies in which support for same-sex unions is lower than in the country as a whole.
But there are two deeper reasons why the president might be leery of being honest about what we can reasonably assume are his actual convictions on the issue.

Doug Mills/The New York TimesVice President Joe Biden caused a stir over his support for gay marriage.

The first reason is that while the increase in public support for same-sex marriage over the last two decades has been astonishingly swift, it has not been irreversible. Instead, sudden bursts of legal momentum – mostly driven by judicial rulings, from Massachusetts to Iowa – have often prompted temporary backlashes. In Gallup’s polling, support for same-sex marriage rose from 35 percent to 42 percent between 1999 and 2004, but then dropped back to 37 percent; it rose to 46 percent just before Obama’s 2008 victory, but then dropped back to 40 percent a year later. Today’s 50 percent support likewise represents a slight drop-off from the high of 53 percent in the survey Gallup conducted last year.
This pattern suggests that Americans grow more resistant to same-sex marriage the more they feel that it’s being imposed upon them by an unelected judicial elite, and grow more supportive the more it seems to be gaining ground organically. A president is not an unelected judge, but a public flip-flop on the issue by the nation’s chief executive might feel like yet another elite attempt to pre-empt a debate that appears to be moving toward a resolution, but hasn’t quite been settled yet.
The second reason for the White House’s caution is that opinion polling has consistently understated opposition to same-sex marriage since the issue rose to national prominence. Voters who say they support it when Gallup and other pollsters come calling can behave very differently in the privacy of the voting booth.
In a 2010 paper, for instance, the New York University political scientist Patrick J. Egan compared polling in advance of state same-sex marriage referendums to the actual results, and found that

the share of voters in pre-election surveys saying that they will vote to ban same-sex marriage is typically seven percentage points lower than the actual vote on election day.

That seven-point gap between appearances and reality may help explain why same-sex marriage supporters lost referendums they expected to win in liberal states like Maine and California. And it explains why a savvy White House might take polls suggesting that the issue is a political winner with a very large helping of salt.
But to say that the president’s approach is understandable does not mean that it’s necessarily defensible. Supporters of same-sex marriage have worked very hard to frame their issue, not as an ordinary political conflict, but as an all-or-nothing question that pits enlightenment and progress against reaction, bigotry and hate. I don’t accept that framing, but I accept that its architects genuinely believe in it, and see the conflict over same-sex unions as a clear-cut struggle between good and evil, with no possibility of middle ground.
If same-sex marriage isn’t an issue where people can disagree in good faith, though, then the president’s evasions and obfuscations can’t be treated as ordinary political maneuverings, and excused as just so much politics-as-usual. If the debate is as black and white as many supporters of same-sex marriage argue, then they should be much harder on political leaders who pretend that it’s a gray area.
Indeed, if you accept the framing of the debate that many liberals (and many journalists) embrace, then you have to acknowledge that President Obama has spent the last four years lying to the American people about his convictions on one of the defining civil rights issues of our time, and giving aid and comfort to pure bigotry in the service of his other political priorities.
This is a harsh indictment, but it’s one that follows inexorably from premises that many of the president’s own supporters have wholeheartedly embraced. If they hold true to these premises — and the press holds true to its obligations — then the kind of uncomfortable questions the White House spent this week dodging will be asked again and again of the president over the course of the campaign to come.

Homophobia-phobia

In 32 states the issue of gay marriage has come before the electorate and 32 times that electorate chose to protect marriage and define it as the union of one man and one woman. So it peeves me to no end when I read one of the cadre of supposedly conservative pundits advocating that we give up on protecting marriage, suggesting it is a battle we cannot possibly win.

Last week the President endorsed publicly a stance that everybody and his brother knew that he held privately for ages. It's like Richard Simmons announcing he likes shorty shorts. Yeah, we kinda already knew. But even the President is not advocating any specific legislation.

Shortly after President Obama's statement of the obvious, Rasmussen showed Romney surging in the polls (at one point with a 7 point lead.) A new poll by Gallup shows "twice as many Americans say President Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage will make them less likely to vote for him than say it will make them more likely."

Yeah. Now is the time to give up. They have us on the ropes.

Are we that afraid of being called names that we are willing to let traditional marriage die even when we are ahead?

If this is losing, we should be doing a lot more of it.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/pat-archbold/homohobia-phobia#ixzz1uuT9cwvS

Religious Liberty Homily.mp4

via
On February 5, 2012 Father Sammie Maletta delivered a Homily at St. John the Evangelist Parish in St. John, Indiana. This Homily addressed how President Obama is threatening our Religious Freedom and declaring war with the Catholic Church. Please take a few moments to listen. No one sums it up quite like Father Maletta. Go to http://bit.ly/zPdgpw to fight the HHS Mandate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltTd81XpDnc&feature=youtu.be

Obama Open Microphone Slip

• 
  AP source
  
  
  March 26, 2012: President Obama chats with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during a bilateral meeting at the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea.

President Obama: “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.”
President Medvedev: “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…”
President Obama: “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”
President Medvedev: “I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.”

Captured by open microphones, President Barack Obama’s private conversation with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday in Seoul could have a big negative impact on Mr. Obama’s re-election.
By telling Mr. Medvedev and his patron, the once-and-future Russian President Vladimir Putin, that he will have “flexibility” after the American election on Russian demands opposing a US missile defense for Europe, Mr. Obama is in effect saying he is ready to do something the Russians will like but that the American people won’t.

 

Mr. Obama has shown Russian leaders, and now the entire world, weakness. 
He’s willing to bend to the demands of America’s international rivals as long as his appeasement becomes public only after he’s safely back in the White House for a second term. But he is apparently unwilling to share with the American people his “flexibility” with the Russians, perhaps concerned about the criticism such concessions to Moscow might draw from America’s European allies.
The effects of Mr. Obama’s remarks in Seoul go beyond foreign affairs. If the president believes it is important to his reelection to conceal from Americans his response to Russians demands to halt development of a missile defense for Europe, voters have every right to ask: What other surprises does he plan to spring on us if he’s reelected?
Just as Senator John Kerry’s explanation in 2004 that “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it” exposed the Massachusetts Senator as a pandering flip-flopper, so may Mr. Obama’s private-turned-public remarks confirm doubts that he’s not shooting straight with the American people. It may also contribute to a belief that he holds voters in thinly disguised contempt.
Is Mr. Obama also concealing unpopular domestic policies he’ll spring on the country in a second term? What the president calls “flexibility” with Russian autocrats, Americans voters will likely view as a lack of candor with them. If that’s the case, it could seriously undermine the president’s chances for reelection.
This won’t all happen by itself. To make the most of Mr. Obama’s statement, Republicans will need to raise it again and again in speeches, ads, videos and debates. After all, Mr. Kerry’s March 2004 remark became an issue only when repeated endlessly in ads and on the stump by the GOP’s surrogates. Then and only then did it become the “a-ha!” moment that shaped perceptions of the Democratic nominee and helped bring about his defeat.

Karl Rove is a former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush. He is a Fox News contributor and author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions, 2010).

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/03/27/why-obamas-open-mic-slip-could-seriously-hurt-his-reelection-hopes/#ixzz1qQwnD9SE

Related Stories

The terrible truth told by Obama's open mic slip

Obama Piling Up Promises for Second Term

Russia's Medvedev suggests Romney 'use his head'

 

Related Video

Obama jokes with Medvedev

President Obama jokes with President Medvedev over the open mic incident.

 

First Lawsuit From Business Owner Challenges Obama HHS Mandate

by Steven Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 3/15/12 12:02 PM

A first-of-a-kind federal lawsuit has been filed against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on behalf of a business owner who contends the HHS contraceptive mandate violates his constitutionally-protected religious beliefs.



While most of the attention on the controversial new mandate has been focused on religious groups who are opposed to the Obama mandate forcing them to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions for their employees, this new lawsuit brings attention to religious employers who are not running church or church-related organizations.

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a pro-life legal organization that focuses on constitutional law, file the lawsuit on behalf of the Missouri employer. The lawsuit also requests that the court issue a permanent injunction prohibiting the HHS from requiring those who have religious objections to abide by the mandate, which requires employers to purchase health insurance for their employees that includes coverage for contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs.

The ACLJ represents Frank R. O’Brien and O’Brien Industrial Holdings, LLC (OIH) – a holding company based in St. Louis, Missouri. O’Brien is chairman of OIH which operates a number of businesses that explore, mine, and process refractory and ceramic raw materials, with its products going to more than 40 countries.

The lawsuit marks the first legal challenge to the HHS mandate from a private business owner and his company. Until now, only religious organizations or institutions have brought lawsuits challenging the mandate.

“The HHS mandate would require business people like our client to leave their religious beliefs at home every day as a condition of doing business in our society,” said Francis J. Manion, Senior Counsel of the ACLJ who is representing O’Brien. “The HHS mandate tells people like Frank O’Brien that they have to choose between conducting their business in a manner consistent with their moral values, or conducting their business in a manner consistent with the government’s values. The constitution does not allow the government to impose such a choice.”

O’Brien, a Catholic, says his religious beliefs provide the framework for the operation of his businesses, which employ 87 people. The company website states the OIH mission “is to make our labor a pleasing offering to the Lord while enriching our families and society.” OIH’s statement of the company’s values begins with the following: “Integrity. Our conduct is guided by the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments. We will not discriminate based on anyone’s personal belief system.”
O’Brien also has implemented a variety of company-participating programs to assist employees in purchasing homes, saving for the college education of their children, and being able to retire.
The lawsuit contends that the HHS mandate “imposes a substantial burden on Plaintiffs’ free exercise of religion by coercing Plaintiffs to choose between conducting their business in accordance with their religious beliefs or paying substantial penalties to the government.”

Manion rejects criticism that opposition to the mandate somehow prohibits others from obtaining insurance coverage they desire.

“O’Brien and other people of faith aren’t looking to stand in the way of anybody’s access to anything,” said Manion. “They just don’t want the government forcing them to pay for services that go against their sincerely-held beliefs. The State of Missouri has its own ‘contraceptives mandate,’ but, unlike the Obama Administration’s Department of HHS, Missouri respects and protects those employers, like Frank O’Brien, with religious objections. There is no good reason why the federal government couldn’t — and shouldn’t – do the same. The Constitution, in fact, demands nothing less.”

The lawsuit, posted here, asks the court to declare that the HHS mandate violates the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. The suit also requests the court to issue a permanent injunction to halt implementation of the HHS mandate for those who have religious objections.

 

The lawsuit names as defendants, the Department of Health and Human Services and Secretary Sebelius; the Department of the Treasury and Secretary Geithner; and the Department of Labor and Secretary Solis. The ACLJ is being assisted in this lawsuit by the Fidelis Center for Law and Policy, a Chicago-based educational and advocacy group.

 

Polling data shows Americans are strongly opposed to the Obama mandate. A February Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveyfinds 38 percent of likely voters think health insurance companies should be required by law to cover the morning after pill without co-payments or other charges to the patient. But 50 percent of Americans disagree and oppose this requirement while 13 percent are undecided.

 

Also in February, a CNN survey indicated half of Americans oppose the new mandate pro-abortion President Barack Obama put in place that requires religious employers to pay for birth control or drugs that can cause abortions.

 

The new Obama mandate that requires religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions for their employees could result in fines as much as $2,000 per employee or $100 each day if they refuse to comply.

Despite a vote in the Senate against overturning it, nation’s Catholic bishops and leading pro-life groups vow to continue fighting the Obama mandate that forces religious employers to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortion.

The mandate has already become the subject of several lawsuits.

Tell Obama: Stop This Pro-Abortion Mandate
Meanwhile, more than a dozen state attorneys general have signed onto a joint letter Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning started coordinating  against the controversial Obama mandate requiring religious employers to cover birth control and drugs that can cause abortions
Bruning has contacted each of his colleagues in 49 states and has already been joined by a dozen, including South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. Together, the three lawmakers have co-signed a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebilius, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis over the Obama mandate.

Also, the largest Catholic pro-life group and Catholic television station have filed suit against the new Obama mandate that forces religious employers like them to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs in employee health insurance. The EWTN Global Catholic Network filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama against the Department of Health & Human Services, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and other government agencies seeking to stop the imposition of the anti-conscience mandate as well as asking the court for a declaratory judgment that the mandate is unconstitutional.

Priests for Life, a New York based international pro-life organization of Catholic clergy and laity, filed a lawsuit against the Obama Administration in an effort to seek injunctive relief from impending regulations that would require the organization to pay for employee health insurance that covers abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization.

The Obama administration asked a federal court to dismiss yet another lawsuit filed against the Obama administration over its mandate.

This was its first opportunity to explain to the court and the country why the mandate is not illegal and unconstitutional. The Obama administration did not defend the constitutionality of the mandate, but said the lawsuit should be thrown out because the administration plans to revise the mandate to make it on insurance companies to pay for coverage rather than employers, who will still have to make referrals.

“Plaintiff’s challenge to the preventive services coverage regulations is not fit for judicial review because defendants [Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius] have indicated that they will propose and finalize changes to the regulations that are intended to accommodate plaintiff’s religious objections to providing contraception coverage,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) wrote in its brief to the Washington, D.C. District Court.

Obama officials claim the mandate does not put forth any “immediate injury” to religious groups.
Luke Goodrich, Deputy General Counsel of the Becket Fund, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic university, says he thinks the Obama administrations argument will not stand up in court.
“It doesn’t argue that the mandate is legal; it doesn’t argue that the mandate is constitutional,” Goodrich said. “Instead, it begs the court to ignore the lawsuit because the government plans to change the mandate at some unspecified date in the future.”

“Apparently, the administration has decided that the mandate, as written and finalized, is constitutionally indefensible,” said Hannah Smith, senior counsel at The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty “Its only hope is to ask the court to look the other way based on an empty promise to possibly change the rules in the future.”

The panel that put together the mandate has been condemned for only having pro-abortion members even though polling shows Americans are opposed to the mandate.

More than 50 members of Congress banded together at a press conference to demand legislation to stop the new mandate pro-abortion President Barack Obama put in place forcing religious employers to pay for insurance coverage including birth control and abortion-inducing drugs.

Congressman Jeff Fortenberry held a press conference with supporters of the bipartisan, bicameral Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. His legislation would protect the religious liberty and conscience rights of every American who objects to being forced by the strong-arm of government to pay for drugs and procedures recently mandated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The Fortenberry bill currently has the support of approximately 220 Members of Congress and Senators, the most strongly-supported legislative remedy to the controversial HHS mandate.  This measure would repeal the controversial mandate, amending the 2010 health care law to preserve conscience rights for religious institutions, health care providers, and small businesses who pay for health care coverage.

H.R. 1179 enjoys the endorsements of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Right to Life Committee, Americans United for Life, and other organizations.  Numerous other organizations, including the Christian Medical Association and Family Research Council, have urged support of the bill.

Sen. Roy Blunt, a pro-life Missouri Republican, is putting forward the Blunt Amendment, #1520, again, and it is termed the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. According to information provided to LifeNews from pro-life sources on Capitol Hill, the Blunt Amendment will be the first amendment voted on when the Senate returns to the transportation bill. The amendment would allow employers to decline coverage of services in conflict with religious beliefs.

Republicans are moving swiftly with legislation, amendments, and potential hearings on the mandatethe Obama administration has put in place that forces religious employers to pay for birth control and abortion-inducing drugs for their employees.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops  issued a statement saying Obama’s revised mandate involves “needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions” and it urged Congress to overturn the rule and promised a potential lawsuit.

Meanwhile, the Republican presidential candidates had been taking verbal swings at Obama for imposing the original mandate on religious employers, which is not popular in the latest public opinion poll and which even some Democrats oppose.

Congressman Steve Scalise has led a bipartisan letter with 154 co-signers calling on the Obama Administration to reverse its mandate forcing religious organizations to include drugs that can cause abortion and birth control in the health care plans of their employees.

The original mandate was so egregious that even the normally reliably liberal and pro-abortion USA Today condemned it in an editorial titled, “Contraception mandate violates religious freedom.”
The administration initially approved a recommendation from the Institute of Medicine suggesting that it force insurance companies to pay for birth control and drugs that can cause abortions under the Obamacare government-run health care program.

The IOM recommendation, opposed by pro-life groups, called for the Obama administration to require insurance programs to include birth control — such as the morning after pill or the ella drug that causes an abortion days after conception — in the section of drugs and services insurance plans must cover under “preventative care.” The companies will likely pass the added costs on to consumers, requiring them to pay for birth control and, in some instances, drug-induced abortions of unborn children in their earliest days.

The HHS accepted the IOM guidelines that “require new health insurance plans to cover women’s preventive services” and those services include “FDA-approved contraception methods and contraceptive counseling” — which include birth control drugs like Plan B and ella that can cause abortions. The Health and Human Services Department commissioned the report from the Institute, which advises the federal government and shut out pro-life groups in meetings leading up to the recommendations.

SOURCE:
http://www.lifenews.com/2012/03/15/first-lawsuit-from-business-owner-challenges-obama-hhs-mandate/

Where Were Obama's Apologies When Armed Forces Burned Bibles?

Administration and military officials have been quick with apologies for the burning of Korans at Bagram Airfield. Where were the apologies when they were burning Bibles at the very same location?

Article by Steven D. Greydanus Monday, February 27, 2012

Official response to the February 22 burning of copies of the Koran at Bagram Airfield by NATO troops has been a breathtakingly thorough exercise in damage control.
The profusion of apologies from government and military officials, including but not limited to President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. John Allen, who is commanding NATO forces in Afghanistan, are only the beginning. According to the New York Times:

Within a few hours of learning about the episode, General Allen ordered an investigation, and by day’s end he issued an order for every coalition soldier in Afghanistan to complete training in the next 10 days in “the proper handling of religious materials.”

Well, all I can say is it’s good to know that administration and military leadership are concerned about armed forces understanding “the proper handling of religious materials.” One could easily have gotten a very different idea from that earlier incident in which military personnel at Bagram Airfield—the very same location—burned stacks of confiscated Bibles.

Military personnel threw away, and ultimately burned, confiscated Bibles that were printed in the two most common Afghan languages amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans, a Defense Department spokesman said Tuesday.
The unsolicited Bibles sent by a church in the United States were confiscated about a year ago at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan because military rules forbid troops of any religion from proselytizing while deployed there, Lt. Col. Mark Wright said.
Such religious outreach can endanger American troops and civilians in the devoutly Muslim nation, Wright said.
“The decision was made that it was a ‘force protection’ measure to throw them away, because, if they did get out, it could be perceived by Afghans that the U.S. government or the U.S. military was trying to convert Muslims,” Wright told CNN on Tuesday.
Troops at posts in war zones are required to burn their trash, Wright said.

You can see where military personnel at Bagram Airfield might have been confused about the propriety of burning religious materials after that, can’t you? I mean, it was okay when it was burning Bibles in 2009. Now suddenly in 2012 it’s not okay to burn Korans? How were the poor troops meant to know the difference?

At least, I assume President Obama had no problem with the 2009 Bible burnings at Bagram Airfield. I sure don’t remember him and other government and military falling over themselves to apologize for that.

The reality is that the Obama administration couldn’t care less about “the proper handling of religious materials.” Their sole concern is what will or won’t offend potentially violent Muslims—not because of any exaggerated respect for Islam in particular (looney “Obama is a secret Muslim” conspiracy theorists to the contrary notwithstanding), but because angry Muslims equals violence. Who cares about burning Christian holy books? What are Christians going to do about it?
In practice, “the proper handling of religious materials” means: If religious objects offend Muslims, burn them. But if the burning of religious objects offends Muslims, apologize for burning them. Whatever it takes not to offend Muslims, because, again, they’re the ones who get violent when offended.

As a postscript: Some American Christians feel, not entirely wrongly, that Muslim veneration of the Koran exceeds Christian veneration of the Bible, and therefore desecrating Korans is a bigger deal to Muslims than desecrating the Bible is to Christians. That’s not entirely incorrect. For Muslims, the Koran is the supreme self-revelation of God, while for Christians the supreme self-revelation of God is not the Bible, but Jesus Christ himself.

Still, surely no one thinks the government or military should be in the business of assigning degrees of holiness to religious articles, and according respect only to objects of maximum sacredness (say, the Blessed Sacrament, but not a cross or a rosary). If “the proper handling of religious materials” is an issue at all, it should apply as much to Bibles as to Korans.
It should also be noted that the perception that Muslim veneration of the Koran exceeds Christian veneration of the Bible is somewhat exaggerated in the minds of Western Christians, and especially Western Protestants, among whom the whole categories of sacred objects, veneration and desecration are significantly atrophied.

To the Afghani Christians for whom the burned Bibles were intended, as well as Christians throughout the Middle East and in the global South, desecration of the Bible is a much bigger deal than it would be to most American Protestants.
As a case in point, consider the outraged response of Malaysian Christians not long ago when the Malay government refused to release Bibles referring to God as Allah unless they were stamped with the words “For Christian Use Only.” Malay Christians strongly objected to this as a descration of their holy book in a way that many American Christians would not understand.
What do you think?

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/steven-greydanus/where-were-apologies-when-armed-forces-burned-bibles#ixzz1nhhAabat

Hell, Health Insurance, and A Man's Soul

National Director Column  

January 30, 2012    

 v.2  n.2

Arland K. Nichols

Dear Friends of Life and Family, 

  

"The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, 'To Hell with you!' There is no other way to put it. To Hell with your religious beliefs. To Hell with your religious liberty. To Hell with your freedom of conscience." With unusually strong language, Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh alerted his flock to a new threat to the Church.

The Obama administration has directly and deliberately attacked our fundamental right to religious freedom, and in a most patronizing way. His Department of Health and Human Services has mandated that contraceptives and abortion inducing drugs be part of every health care plan, free of charge. With this decision, Catholics and Catholic institutions such as hospitals, universities and social agencies will be forced to pay for and provide contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs.

With a veritable pat on the head, the administration has given Catholics a year to comply with the ruling. Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote, "In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences."

As Catholic citizens, we cannot let this unjust mandate and unprecedented violation of our beliefs stand. It is, as Bishop Paul Loverde has described, "a truly radical break with the liberties that have underpinned our nation since its founding."

It might not be so radical if the conscience was mere social construct, superficial conviction, or personal wishes and tastes. But conscience is much more. Cardinal Newman understood conscience to be the "perceptible and demanding presence of the voice of the truth of God within the person." Conscience involves one's inner inclination to do good and avoid evil, and then recognize the good that must be done in a particular situation.

We must never act against a certain conscience that has been well-formed. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it this way, "Man has the right in conscience and freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters" (CCC 1782). Yet, this is precisely what the Obama administration is demanding.

To follow the dictates of one's conscience is essential to the dignity of man. Further, to act freely and knowingly against one's certain conscience is a mortal sin. Saint Thomas More understood this well, and is an exemplar of how Catholics should respond to this threat to our consciences and religious freedom.

Robert Bolt's famous play "A Man for All Seasons," tells the story of Saint Thomas as he faced the tyrannical acts of Henry VIII, who destroyed the Church in England so he could marry Ann Boleyn. Imprisoned, Thomas faced his accusers including his one-time friend, the Duke of Norfolk, who beseeched him "But damn it Thomas, look at these names. Why can't you do as I did and come with us for fellowship?" Thomas responded, "And when we die and you are sent to Heaven for doing your conscience and I am sent to Hell for not doing mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?"     

The administration has placed Catholics in an equally precarious situation. Condemnation is the reward for acting against a certain conscience (CCC 1790). Yet the Obama administration says we have no choice.  

How will we respond? How will you respond? Is there a "proper response"?

I confess that I do not yet know the answer to such questions. But I do know that we cannot buckle over as this administration asks us to lose our very souls so that we might gain health coverage for our families and employees.

Following the announcement, Bishop Loverde wrote, "I urge the faithful of Northern Virginia and all citizens of good will to understand what is at stake in this unavoidable confrontation, which has been thrust upon us, and to be prepared to engage in a strong defense in the civil arena of the basic human right of religious liberty."

This much is certain: It does not profit a man to gain health insurance, and to lose his soul. Recognizing what is at stake, we must be willing to defend our freedom of religion and conscience. So, let us unite with our Bishops for fellowship and for Truth.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

 

Arland K. Nichols

National Director, HLI America

http://www.hliamerica.org/