Friday, March 29, AD 2024 10:54am

Abusing the Constitution and shoring the women’s vote all wrapped up in one tidy package…

Some commentators have been opining that the White House is feeling the heat fanned into flame last week after President Barack Obama basically told the U.S. Catholic bishops to fall into line by next year with his administration’s new healthcare regulations.  In support of this opinion, those commentators are now pointing to the appearance of President Obama’s political adviser, David Axelrod, on MSNBC. (The relevant portion begins at 3:45.)

 

If this opinion is accurate, the U.S. Catholic bishops’ response—focusing upon the free exercise of religion and First Amendment rights—cut to the bone.  That’s why Axelrod said during the interview that the Obama administration  didn’t intend to “abridge anyone’s religious freedom” with its regulation  requiring church-affiliated employers to cover sterilization, birth control, and abortofacients for their  employees. Yet, defending the administration, Axelrod said:

The bottom line is, this  was a decision made with the interest of the health of millions around this  country in mind.

Unrepentant and somewhat contrite, Axelrod noted: “We have great respect for the work that these institutions do, and we certainly don’t want to abridge anyone’s religious freedom. He then added that when making the decision, the Obama administration was struggling to strike a balance between a policy that “guarantees women the preventive care they need and one which respects the prerogatives of religious institutions.” Axelrod then went back to his political defense:

There are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of women  who work in these universities who are not Catholic.  The question is  whether they’re going … to have the same access to basic preventive care.

Acknowledging the  dispute has caused a rift between the White House and the  Roman Catholic Church, Axelrod extended an olive branch to the nation’s bishops, adding:

I’m less concerned about  the messaging of this than finding a resolution that makes sense.  I think we need to lower our voices and get together.

The Motley Monk doesn’t buy the opinion that the White House has been feeling the heat precisely because of what Axelrod said during the MSNBC interview. With 70%+ of self-identified Catholics disagreeing with Church teaching about sterilization, contraception, and abortion, Axelrod doesn’t fear losing “the Catholic vote.”  No, his appeal to all of those women who work in Catholic institutions is meant to shore up their vote.  That’s why Axelrod said:

This is an important  issue. It’s important for millions of women around the country.  We want to resolve it in  an appropriate way and we’re going to do that.

Under the disguise of “protecting” all of those women who work in Catholic institutions, Axelrod and his boss, President Obama are willing to do exactly what the U.S. bishops have said they are doing, namely, trampling upon religious liberty and First Amendment rights.

But The Motley Monk’s opinion is that these two men are up to something else as well: Using all of those women to achieve what they really want, namely, agents of the federal to use the government’s regulatory powers to dictate that religious employers must violate their consciences if their organizations are to provide public services.

The logic is pretty clear: Beat the U.S. Catholic bishops on this issue and the rest of the dominoes will fall.  All it will take is for all of those women to vote for the President who is protecting their so-called “freedoms.”

 

To read The Motley Monk’s daily blog, click on the following link:
http://themotleymonk.blogspot.com/

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T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, February 7, AD 2012 11:33am

Department of “That Was Then. This Is Now.”

In August 2010, President Obama used his weekly address to denounce the flood of attack ads run by Super-PAC’s, “shadowy groups with harmless sounding names.” He referred to them as the “corporate takeover of our democracy.”

I can understand their concrens.

They spread around $6 trillion in federal deficit money and the FRB shells out another $2.5 trillion in QE’s.

And, all they have to show for it is $1 billion in the campiagn war chest.

Plus, “Women deserve to have the Catholic Church pay for their contraceptives, abortificants, and tubal ligations.” Jay Carney

Axelrod disagrees with Camus (welfare of humanity). He believes that women’s health is the 21 century alibi for tyrants.

I cannot wait until they begin enforcing the individual mandate to buy Government Motors Volts . . .

Wayne
Wayne
Tuesday, February 7, AD 2012 11:45am

Just watched Becket last night. Couldn’t help but think about all this when at the beginning of the movie in the scene in which Becket was just named Lord High Chancellor and King Henry II is giving his explanation for why the Church should pay taxes, the main defenses he could come up with is “I’m the King” and “I need more money.”

Paul W. Primavera
Tuesday, February 7, AD 2012 12:02pm

As I explained in a comment for another post, having visited a supposedly “Catholic” dating web site (which I abandoned – yuck!), I discovered that the overwhelming majority of women there are “moderate” or “progressive” with a “multi-layered” approach to “right to choose” and “planned pregnancy.” Translation: “I am a liberal Democrat and I don’t care what the Church teaches; I have a right to be just like a man.” Sadly, by so doing, they lose their rights as women. Indeed, the higher the education of the woman in Academia, the more prevelant this point of view. 50 years of liberal Democrat peace and social justice nonsense have acheived their ends, desired or not. “Be not deceived. God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth, that also shall he reap.” Galatians 6:7

c matt
c matt
Tuesday, February 7, AD 2012 1:36pm

Well, the good news is the Church is not a democracy, and neither the government, nor these female workers in Catholic institutions get to decide what the bishops do. The bad news is that many of the Catholic institutions are run by people who agree with Obama’s mandate, the bishops may be in a “too little, too late” situation with respect to these institutions, and the powers that be at these institutions probably don’t care what the bishops say or do at this point.

Still, it is nice to see a good amount of bishops at least making some waves.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Tuesday, February 7, AD 2012 5:57pm

What Axelrod doesn’t mention and MSNBC whores Scarborough and Bimbo don’t ask about is the 1 billion Obama is going to have in his warchest to slander republicans with.

As far as Axelrod’s answer regarding the HHS Brownshirted mandate goes, I had to shut it off after less than a minute because my was pegging out.

G-Veg
G-Veg
Tuesday, February 7, AD 2012 7:51pm

The argument that American Catholics overwhelmingly practice birth control and, so, believe that religious institutions should be forced to provide free birth control strikes me as greatly oversimplified.

First – the whole “free” part of birth control seems unsupported by cogent argument. Why “free” or, more particularly, why only birth control. After all, if there is some “right” to free drugs wouldn’t it be the ones essential to life that society should start with?

Second – the use of birth control by married Catholics – a very high percentage of us are using birth control within our marriages – is kind of a dirty little secret. It reflects a fundamental distrust of God’s plan for our lives. We aren’t exactly proud of our sinfulness. It is a misstatement then to say that the use of contraceptives by Catholic couples reflects disagreement with Church teaching. It might just as likely reflect our own weakness and faithlessness.

Mary@42
Mary@42
Wednesday, February 8, AD 2012 2:27am

Tell me, my good Americans…since when did pregnancy become A DISEASE????… and G-Veg, you are right….I am sure American Catholics who use contraceptives are not proud of their sinfulness… and failing to obey God’s Divine Law is not something which makes one proud of what one has become – a weak and faithless fallen Catholic. I am praying the Holy Spirit will touch all those fallen Catholics at this time and defend God, the Giver of Life and Whom Obama is mocking by classifying His Gift of Life as a “disease” which needs preventive medicines

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, February 8, AD 2012 1:07pm

Off the thread: If government cannot be sued, who can be held responsible for medical malpractice and indemnity if and when Obamacare produces harm instead of health, death instead of healing?

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