Written by Kevin DeYoung, The Gospel Coalition

On Wednesday afternoon, to no one’s surprise, President Obama revealed in an interview that after some “evolution” he has “concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.” This after the Vice-President came out last Sunday strongly in favor of gay marriage. Not coincidentally, the New York Times ran an article on Tuesday (an election day with a marriage amendment on one ballot) about how popular and not controversial gay television characters have become. In other words, everyone else has grown up so why don’t you? It can seem like the whole world is having a gay old time, with conservative Christians the only ones refusing to party.

The temptation, then, is for Christians go silent and give up the marriage fight: “It’s no use staying in this battle,” we think to ourselves. “We don’t have to change our personal position. We’ll keep speaking the truth and upholding the Bible in our churches, but getting worked up over gay marriage in the public square is counter productive. It’s a waste of time. It makes us look bad. It ruins our witness. And we’ve already lost. Time to throw in the towel.” I understand that temptation. It is an easier way. But I do not think it is the right way, the God glorifying way, or the way of love.

Here are five reasons Christians should continue to publicly and winsomely oppose bestowing the term and institution of marriage upon same-sex couples:

1. Every time the issue of gay marriage has been put to a vote by the people, the people have voted to uphold traditional marriage. Even in California. In fact, the amendment passed in North Carolina on Tuesday by a wider margin (61-39) than a similar measure passed six years ago in Virginia (57-42). The amendment passed in North Carolina, a swing state Obama carried in 2008, by 22 percentage points. We should not think that gay marriage in all the land is a foregone conclusion. To date 30 states have constitutionally defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

2. The promotion and legal recognition of homosexual unions is not in the interest of the common good. That may sound benighted, if not bigoted. But we must say it in love: codifying the indistinguishability of gender will not make for the “peace of the city.” It rubs against the grain of the universe, and when you rub against the grain of divine design you’re bound to get splinters. Or worse. The society which says sex is up to your own definition and the family unit is utterly fungible is not a society that serves its children, its women, or its own long term well being.

3. Marriage is not simply the term we use to describe those relationships most precious to us. The word means something and has meant something throughout history. Marriage is more than a union of hearts and minds. It involves a union of bodies–and not bodies in any old way we please, as if giving your cousin a wet willy in the ear makes you married. Marriage, to quote one set of scholars, is a” comprehensive union of two sexually complementary persons who seal (consummate or complete) their relationship by the generative act—by the kind of activity that is by its nature fulfilled by the conception of a child. So marriage itself is oriented to and fulfilled by the bearing, rearing, and education of children.” This conjugal view of marriage states in complex language what would have been a truism until a couple generations ago. Marriage is what children (can) come from. Where that element is not present (at the level of sheer design and function, even if not always in fulfillment), marriage is not a reality. We should not concede that “gay marriage” is really marriage. What’s more, as Christians we understand that the great mystery of marriage can never be captured between a relationship of Christ and Christ or church and church.

4. Allowing for the legalization of gay marriage further normalizes what was until very recently, and still should be, considered deviant behavior. While it’s true that politics is downstream from culture, it’s also true that law is one of the tributaries contributing to culture. In our age of hyper-tolerance we try to avoid stigmas, but stigmas can be an expression of common grace. Who knows how many stupid sinful things I’ve been kept from doing because I knew my peers and my community would deem it shameful. Our cultural elites may never consider homosexuality shameful, but amendments that define marriage as one man and one woman serve a noble end by defining what is as what ought to be. We do not help each other in the fight for holiness when we allow for righteousness to look increasingly strange and sin to look increasingly normal.

5. We are naive if we think a laissez faire compromise would be enjoyed by all if only the conservative Christians would stop being so dogmatic. The next step after giving up the marriage fight is not a happy millennium of everyone everywhere doing marriage in his own way. The step after surrender is conquest. I’m not suggesting heterosexuals would no longer be able to get married. What I am suggesting is that the cultural pressure will not stop with allowing for some “marriages” to be homosexual. It will keep mounting until allaccept and finally celebrate that homosexuality is one of Diversity’s great gifts. The goal is not for different expressions of marriage, but for the elimination of definitions altogether. Capitulating on gay marriage may feel like giving up an inch in bad law to gain a mile in good will. But the reality will be far different. For as in all of the devil’s bargains, the good will doesn’t last nearly so long as the law.

In response to the unconstitutional mandate issued by the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — a mandate requiring all employer health plans to include free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs, regardless of any moral or religious objections, there will be a series of demonstrations next Friday, March 23rd across America as part of a rally for religious freedom — in fact there are over 110 locations nation wide. Several cities around Illinois will have noon events including one at the Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago headed up by the Pro-Life Action League.  

You can find a rally sponsored by local pro-life groups and their locations and details HERE, or see details below.

You can also download a flyer for the Chicago event HERE.

ILLINOIS Locations:

Chicago

Federal Plaza

50 W. Adams Street (Map)

RSVP the Chicago rally on Facebook

E-mail the Rally Captain

Freeport

Lincoln-Douglas Debate Square

114 E. Douglas Street (Map)

E-mail the Rally Leader

Peoria

Peoria Courthouse

324 Main Street (Map)

E-mail the Rally Leader

Rockford

Holy Family Parish

4401 Highcrest Road (Map)

Mass preceding Rally at 11 a.m.

E-mail the Rally Captain

Sterling

Grandon Civic Center

310 E. Park Avenue (Map)

Mass at 11 a.m. Prior to Rally

The U.S. Senate has voted to block legislation which would have rescinded the Obama Administration’s contraception mandate.  The U.S. Senate rejected an amendment offered by U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) which would have exempted religious organizations from including contraceptive and abortion drug coverage in their health insurance plans. 

The U.S. Senate voted 51-48 to kill Senator Blunt’s legislation, known as the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act.  Illinois’ own Senator Dick Durbin supported President Obama’s mandate by voting to table, and thus end debate, on Blunt’s proposal. 

As we pointed out in a previous article, Senator Blunt’s amendment would have provided that no health plan would have been required to include items or services in its “essential benefits package” which are “contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan.” 

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently announced that virtually all health insurance plans in the United States must include contraceptives in their “preventative services benefits,” including all contraceptive drugs and devices approved by the Food and Drug Administration.  Contraceptives endorsed by the FDA include the abortifacient drugs Ella and Plan  B. 

The Obama Administration provided a narrow exemption from the law for organized churches, which will take effect August 1st.  However, all other religious organizations such as hospitals, schools, charities, and parachurch ministries will be required to comply with the law by August 1, 2013.  

The new regulation means that Catholic institutions will be compelled to incorporate drugs and devices that contradict their doctrinal teachings in the health insurance coverage they provide their employees.  It is likely that Catholic institutions will eliminate group health insurance plans for their employees.  Otherwise, they will be required to pay fines of $100 per day per employee.  The House Energy and Commerce Committee estimated that a hospital with 100 employees could face an annual fine of $3.65 million. 

“What President Obama doesn’t seem to understand is that this debate is not about cost,” says Senator Blunt.  “Nor is this debate about contraception.  It’s about faith and who controls the religious views of faith-based institutions.  Based on his statements and recent actions, it’s clear that President Obama believes he should have that control.  Our Constitution says otherwise.” 

During debate on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that the new abortion drug mandate would “make it impossible, for the first time, for religious institutions to practice what they preach…The Obama Administration wants to be the ones to tell religious institutions what their core mission is.  This isn’t a compromise.  It’s a government takeover.” 

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) says the contraceptive edict is one more example of the abusive nature of President Obama’s health care legislation.  “Our Bill of Rights has been subordinated to the President’s desire to micromanage the nation’s health care system.  Those of you who vote against this amendment are playing with fire.” 

And the fire is spreading.  The National Clergy Council has declared a “state of emergency” for churches in response to the contraceptive decree.  “The real issue here is not birth control.  The real issue is religious liberty and freedom of conscience,” says Norm Lund of the Clergy Council.  “It’s the freedom of individuals and their churches to determine their own moral views about contraception and abortion.” 

“Religious liberty is a sacred right,”Lundadded.  “It’s a the heart of the First Amendment.  It’s at the heart of what our ancestors have died for.  We feel a conviction that it’s time to stand up to government and say no.” 

Cardinal Francis George, the Archbishop of Chicago, has warned that Catholic hospitals across the country may be forced to close in the next two years if the contraceptive and abortion drug mandate is not withdrawn.  Cardinal George says that Catholic hospitals and institutions have four choices:  1) abandon their religious convictions; 2) pay exorbitant and punitive fines; 3) sell their institutions to non-Catholic entitites; or 4) shut down. 

“The Catholic Church would love to have the separation of church and state we thought we enjoyed just a few months ago, when we were free to run Catholic institutions in conformity with the demands of the Catholic faith, when the government couldn’t tell us which of our ministries are Catholic and which are not, when the protected rather than crushed conscience,” Cardinal George commented. 

“Freedom of worship was guaranteed in the Constitution of the formerSoviet Union,”  George continued.  “The church, however, could do nothing except conduct religious rites in places of worship–no schools, health care institutions, organized charity, ministry for justice, and the works of mercy that flow from a living faith.  All of these were co-opted by the government.  We fought a long cold war to defeat that vision of society.” 

“The state is now making itself into a church,” George concluded.  “It appears that freedom of conscience and of religion will become a memory from a happier past.” 

Please take a moment to watch this excellent video from Americans United for Life on this subject:

 Since it is now clear that Congress will not act to block this dictatorial action by the Obama Administration, please be praying that our President will re-evaluate his conscience and respect the religious convictions of Americans who value the sanctity of human life.

Watching Rick Santorum during the Arizona debate reminded me of my trips to the grocery store with my eight children in tow. Having a large, Catholic family in today’s liberal, sexually revolutionized world makes you a target for evangelization by the Left. While shopping, I am stopped several times by people who want to know if they are all mine, are part of a daycare, or if they are all from the same father. That last question is my favorite. The inquisition usually ends with cute, didactic comments like “You know there are ways of preventing that.” or, “Maybe you should tell your husband to get a hobby.” It’s always great to have your sex life examined by smug, pseudo intellectual strangers in front of your children. I’ve thought about carrying around a resume with my B.A. degree colored over in yellow highlighter to prove that I’m not a total idiot — but I wouldn’t want to seem rude.

 Santorum has been drug into a similar situation. He is being portrayed as a Neanderthal, Taliban wannabe, hell bent on ripping birth control away from poor, oppressed women across the globe. The insinuation is that without the birth control pill, women everywhere would be forced to bear countless children while chained to their ovens.  Birth control believers, now whipped into a stiff peak frenzy, are rendered incapable of hearing any other position put forth by Santorum.  He is a heretic.  He has denied the Left’s belief in the Sacrament of Birth Control.  He has sinned against Women’s Health and the Commandments of their collective Rights.

 The conclusion is that the sexual revolution was the greatest victory ever won by women and right minded men. Let’s examine the facts. The birth control pill was the brain child and fondest wish of Planned Parenthood’s racist founder, Margaret Sanger. She wanted to find a “magic pill” that had the power to make parasitic babies go away. Due to her belief in eugenics, what she wanted most was to prevent the proliferation of  black babies but realized how controversial this would be to the American public. Proof of this secret “plan” is revealed in a letter that she wrote Dr. Clarence Gamble, heir to the Proctor and Gamble fortune, in December of 1939.

“We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. And the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” (Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976.)

Margaret’s dream of a magic pill eluded her until she met Dr. Gregory Pincus. He was referred to as “Dr. Frankenstein” because of his successful in-vitro fertilization experiments on rabbits. He was vilified for making some of the nightmare science fiction scenarios imagined in “Brave New World”  a scientific reality. Sanger procured funding for Pincus to begin development of the pill.  In 1956, the birth control pill, under the name Enovid, was submitted for trials.

 By 1964, a quarter of all American couples were using the pill. Today, according to the CDC, 98 percent of women of childbearing age use birth control with 64 percent choosing the pill. While these statistics come as no shock to most, there is some lesser known information about the pill that might. Did you know that the pill prevents pregnancy in three ways? According to  The Physician’s Desk Reference, hormonal contraceptives:

• Prevent ovulation.
  
  
• Thicken the cervical mucus to prevent sperm from entering the uterus and fallopian tube.
  
  
• Alter the lining of the uterus so implantation cannot take place. The third action, if and when it occurs, is abortifacient (meaning a human life has begun but cannot continue to develop without the nourishment provided through the mother’s uterine wall). 

Yes Virginia, the birth control pill IS an abortifacient. How many unsuspecting women realize that by using the birth control pill they have not only been preventing pregnancy but aborting unknown numbers of their developing babies?

If this bit of information is not enough to rouse your concern, how about the fact that the birth control pill is listed by the World Health Organization as a class one carcinogen.  Moreover, an article titled, Birth Control Leading Carcinogen by J. Benkovic, exposes the fact that the pill is linked to a 660 percent increase in breast cancer. Wow, do you think that the Susan G. Komen Foundation knows about this? Let’s all take a moment to engage in some facetious wondering.

Why is there a blackout of information regarding the truth about the pill? Could it be that the proponents of birth control care less about “women’s health” and more about population control or dare I say it…control in general? The collective “We” seem to be slipping back into a central controlled master/servant class. Albeit today it is less about the haves and have-nots and more about the know-it-alls and the know-nothings. The pill, which promised freedom and equality to women, has proven to be the gateway drug leading to progressive Liberalism.

The Catholic Church had it right when it spoke out against artificial birth control in the 1968 Papal Encyclical titled “Humanae Vitae”.  An article from Business Insider titled Time To Admit It: The Church Has Always Been Right On Birth Control summarizes the issue best.  Authors Micheal Dougherty and Pascal Gobry wrote the following on the Pope Paul VI ‘s warnings.  He warned of four results if the widespread use of contraceptives was accepted:

1. General lowering of moral standards
2. A rise in infidelity, and illegitimacy
3. The reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men. 
4. Government coercion in reproductive matters. 

Does that sound familiar? 

Because it sure sounds like what’s been happening for the past 40 years. 

Planned Parenthood has expanded from a birth control provider into the nation’s largest abortion provider. The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform reports that approximately 3,700 abortions are performed in America each day. This is an unbelievable holocaust and for what?  Are women really better off than they were before the pill? Is having a job outside of the home really superior to raising a family?

 The objective reality of the situation is that women are forced to spend a large portion of their salaries paying for twenty year old college girls to raise their kids at daycare. And guess what, most of these women, after working an eight hour shift at their dream job, still go home and clean and cook dinner anyway. Maybe they can go paint Tom Sawyers fence when they get some free time.

Rick Santorum is just one in a long list of politicians who have been crucified for daring to speak out on moral truths. Any candidate who adheres to basic moral norms is deemed things like “crazy”, “right wing” or “unelectable.” Remember Sarah Palin? How about Pat Buchanan? It is time to stop killing the messengers.

America, much like the Titanic, was once thought to be indestructible. Our ship is on a collision course with an  iceburg of fiscal and social problems charted by Liberal elites like Barak Obama and George Bush. As we head nearer to our destruction, the Progressive left has proven that the only means of salvation that they have to offer us is a sacramental birth control pill. There is still a chance to avoid catastrophe. We must acknowledge Liberalism as the real opiate of the people and throw it’s dealers overboard before we go down with them.

Today, the U.S. Senate, by a vote of 51 – 48, defeated the effort led by Senator Roy Blunt (Missouri) to pass the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act as an amendment to pending legislation. Thirteen Catholic Senators joined the majority.

“By consenting to the disastrous HHS mandate, the U.S. Senate has taken the unprecedented step to deny our religious liberties instead of defending the Constitution,” said Matt Smith, president of Catholic Advocate. “It is disappointing to witness a group of senators misled on this issue at the expense of one of our key founding principles.”

The following is a list of how the 24 Catholic Senators voted on the Blunt amendment:

Senator Mark Begich (Alaska, D) – Opposed

Senator Lisa Murkowski (Alaska, R) – Supported

Senator Marco Rubio (Florida, R) – Supported

Senator Tom Harkin (Iowa, D) – Opposed

Senator James Risch (Idaho, R) – Supported

Senator Richard Durbin (Illinois, D) – Opposed

Senator Mary Landrieu (Louisiana, D) – Opposed

Senator David Vitter (Louisiana, R) – Supported

Senator John Kerry (Massachusetts, D) – Opposed

Senator Barbara Mikulski (Maryland, D) – Opposed

Senator Susan Collins (Maine, R) – Supported

Senator Claire McCaskill (Missouri, D) – Opposed

Senator John Hoeven (North Dakota, R) – Supported

Senator Mike Johanns (Nebraska, R) – Supported

Senator Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire, R) – Supported

Senator Robert Menendez (New Jersey, D) – Opposed

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (New York, D) – Opposed

Senator Bob Casey Jr. (Pennsylvania, D) – Supported

Senator Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania, R) – Supported

Senator Jack Reed (Rhode Island, D) – Opposed

Senator Pat Leahy (Vermont, D) – Opposed

Senator Maria Cantwell (Washington, D) – Opposed

Senator Patty Murray (Washington, D) – Opposed

Senator Joe Manchin III (West Virginia, D) – Supported

“Faithful Catholics should take the opportunity to thank those Senators supporting our religious liberties,” added Smith. “It is our duty as laity to hold those who did not support our values accountable and vote our conscience when the time comes.”

The full Catholic Advocate Congressional Scorecard is available at scorecard.catholicadvocate.com.

The Respect for Rights of Conscience Act amends the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “to permit a health plan to decline coverage of specific items and services that are contrary to the religious beliefs of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan or the purchaser or beneficiary (in the case of individual coverage) without penalty.”

President Barack Obama’s sweeping new proposal announced at Friday’s press conference now places a burden to facilitate abortions on “insurers rather than religious institutions.”  The problems with this “compromise” are obvious to most thinking Americans — obvious that is, to all but the main street media.

While faith-based employers will no longer be forced to directly fund products and services which they find morally objectionable, they will be be funding them through the overall cost of the healthcare coverage premium.  The Administration is “allowing” religious groups to “wash their hands” and declare their “innocence” of such actions. However, religious employers firmly understand government compulsion and hold this to be morally objectionable as they hold the highest respect for human life.

Moreover, the original mandate is not fully repealed.  The requirement will remain in place for other employers who may have conscience concerns about coverage of contraception and abortifacients.  Religious leaders have expressed their strong desire to repeal the entire contraceptive mandate.  They note that maintaining this new federal requirement included in the President’s unpopular health care law, would still create moral difficulties for “good business people who can’t in good conscience cooperate” with a federal mandate that violates universal moral standards.  The Obama Administration’s response demonstrates what Family Research Council has called an “Anti-Religion, Anti-Conscience and Anti-Life“ policy position.

Obama’s compromise may have attempted to solve a political problem for the Administration but they have once again misunderstood the source of the conflict.  This new federal edict still forces citizens with moral objections to violate the fundamental tenets of their faith.

Barack Obama may have just lost the election. He has foolishly gone to war in an election year with tens of millions of Catholics, Protestants and Jews – Democrat, Republican and independent alike. He has thrown down a radical feminist gauntlet and dared the Church to pick it up.

They’ve picked it up.

From running up trillions in debt and deficit, to the vast expansion of the size and scope of federal bureaucracy, Mr. Obama has done more in three years to supplant our 236 year-old Constitutional Republic with a Euro-style socialist autocracy – than a lesser Marxist could have accomplished in a lifetime.

But controlling the purse strings is not nearly enough. A central element of full-blown secular-socialism is the suppression of religious liberty – principally, freedom of conscience.

Karl Marx once said: “The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.”

When Karl Marx speaks, Barack Obama listens.

In what is perhaps the most egregious executive overreach in our lifetime, the president’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, has unconstitutionally decreed that both Catholic and Protestant organizations must violate fundamental tenets of the Christian faith by providing ObamaCare coverage that includes birth control, sterilization and various forms of abortion. This is as blatant a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee to religious “free exercise” as we’ve ever seen.

Despite two pathetic feints at “compromise,” Obama’s illegal requirement that faith-based groups pay for policies providing immoral “reproductive services” remains in full force.

On Friday, the Obama administration offered its latest non-compromise “compromise.” LifeSiteNews.com reports: “The White House announced today that, instead of forcing religious employers to pay for birth control, it will force insurance companies to offer the drugs free of charge to all women, no matter where they work.”

America: this arrogant, narcissistic, amoral man thinks you’re stupid. Who do you think pays for the insurance policies that provide “free” birth control, sterilizations and abortifacients to employees? Why, the very religious organizations doctrinally prohibited from paying for these “services” in the first place, of course.

This is nothing but a South Side Chicago shell game, dressed up as a concession. Obama’s unprecedented attack on the First Amendment continues full steam ahead.

In Dreams from My Father, Mr. Obama writes: “To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully.” It should come as little surprise that, among those carefully selected friends, he gives his “Marxist professors and the structural feminists” top billing. In fact, as we approach the 2012 general election, it has become alarmingly clear the degree to which various secular “isims” have shaped the development of Obama’s ungodly worldview.

From the moment he falsely claimed, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation,” many have screamed from the rooftops that, despite his incongruous claims to be a Christ follower, Barack Obama, in reality, harbors tremendous animus toward all things Christian.

It’s not surprising, then, that – even prior to his latest act of anti-religious authoritarianism – a Pew Research Center survey had determined that, under Obama’s leadership, “the number of [religious] voters who identify as a Democrat has declined, while the number saying they lean toward the GOP has risen.”

Some highlights:

• White evangelical Protestant support for the GOP has grown from 65 percent in 2008 to 70 percent today;
• 80 percent of Mormons now say they identify with or lean toward the Republican Party;
• White mainline Protestants, who were evenly divided between the parties in 2008, now favor the GOP by a 12-point margin;
• White non-Hispanic Catholics, who gave Democrats an eight-point advantage in 2008 now give Republicans a seven-point advantage at the end of 2011 (a remarkable 15-point swing);
• Even Jewish voters – traditionally one of the strongest Democratic constituencies – have moved noticeably in the Republican direction; Jewish voters favored the Democrats by a 52-point margin in 2008 but now prefer the Democratic Party by a significantly smaller 36-point margin.

It stands to reason that, in the wake of his most recent attack on religious freedom, Democrat’s favor with the faithful will only further erode.

Catholics especially are having none of it. Bill Donohue, president of the non-partisan Catholic League lashed out last week: “Never before; unprecedented in American history for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church.”

Ms. Sebelius first feigned compromise in the aftermath of the original announcement, haughtily granting some religious groups one year “to adapt to this new rule.”

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” responded Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr., many Catholic priests across the nation have vowed civil disobedience. On January 29, they read a form letter to parishioners pledging that Catholics “cannot – we will not – comply with this unjust law.”

Nor should they.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has introduced a bill called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012 that would restore liberty of conscience to religious groups. Evangelical leaders are allying en masse with their kindred papist travelers.

Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, said “ObamaCare is a direct attack on the moral and religious beliefs of our nation. One year will not change religious tenets that have been in place for thousands of years. This administration has pressed its radical pro-abortion agenda on the American people and around the world … ObamaCare is an assault on our freedom.”

Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), has said “we will not comply” with this law. He has pledged to face jail time instead: “We want the law changed, or else we’re going to write our letters from the Nashville jail, just like Dr. King wrote his from the Birmingham jail.”

This is the stuff of civil war. This is a battle Barack Obama and Democrats cannot win. He has two choices: He can either stubbornly stand firm and continue to give the GOP a tremendous election year bat with which to beat him about the head and neck; or he can cave and further cultivate the snowballing narrative that he is weak and impetuous.

Either way, the president has suffered a self-inflicted wound so deep that it may not heal before November; especially since, as evidenced by his latest illusory “accommodation,” he can’t seem to stop picking at the scab.

You’d think President Obama, who professes, as all lefties do, to idolize Thomas Jefferson, would know better.

But alas, by imposing an abortifacient requirement on all private employers, including Catholic hospitals and universities, Obama has taken a bulldozer to Jefferson’s vaunted “wall of separation between Church and State” and crumbled it to powder.

Jefferson’s famous phrase is found in a letter he wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. The Baptists were concerned about the central government poking its nose into their affairs, telling them what to believe and how to behave.

Not to worry, said Jefferson. The First Amendment does not allow the federal government to intrude in any way, shape or form into religious matters.

Said Jefferson, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God…I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people…building a wall of separation between Church and State.”

In other words, Jefferson’s wall was a strong and impregnable wall that flatly prohibited any branch of the federal government from telling men or institutions how to exercise their religious convictions.

Jefferson’s wall was thus a wall protecting the church from the interference of the state. It was not a wall that insulated the state from the influence of the church, which is how the courts have grotesquely interpreted it since 1948.

The Bill of Rights enshrines and protects individual rights, not group rights. The federal government is stringently prohibited from telling any individual man, let alone any organization, how his religious convictions should inform his behavior.

What most folks are overlooking in this heated debate over Catholic institutions is that the Obama mandate is a mandate that will apply, beginning on August 1 of this year, to every PRIVATE employer, Christian or otherwise.

Every private employer will be required to offer pills, at his own expense, that can cause abortions. The morning-after pills can cause abortions by making it impossible for a newly-conceived child to be implanted in his mother’s womb. He, at his earliest stage of development, will be flushed into the sewer like so much medical waste.

There obviously will be many employers who will have deeply held religious convictions against becoming complicit in these abortions. But after August 1, they will have no choice in the matter.

In other words, the constitutional right of individual Christian businessmen to the free exercise of religion will be shot to pieces this summer. Every conscience-driven employer will be required to offer abortion-causing pills to his employees or pay a hefty fine. If he refuses to pay the fine, he goes to jail.

Realize that beginning August 1 of this year, there will be no insurance plan for sale anywhere in America that will not require employers to offer abortion-causing pills at employer expense. Insurance companies will not take the chance of being shut down by federal enforcers for failing to comply with this mandate. Christian organizations will given a one-year extension, but that will not apply to Christian businessmen.

And if a businessman drops his insurance coverage because it mandates abortion coverage, his employees will be driven into a government-run plan, in which case his taxes will go to to fund abortions for those same employees through the government plan. In other words, he pays for abortions either way and could wind up behind bars to boot.

If this mandate is allowed to stand and is imposed on private employers at the point of a gun — the guns carried by the guys who come to arrest a businessman who won’t pay the fine — it will be the end of religious liberty in America. The American experiment of liberty and God-given rights will be over, and totalitarianism and fascism will be the new political order in what used to be the United States of America.

Over one hundred Catholic bishops and institutions across the nation have issued statements denouncing the Obama administration’s national requirement to include contraception in employees’ health benefits.  Bishop Thomas G. Doran of the Rockford Diocese issued a strongly worded statement urging parishes to stand up against what he calls an assault on religious liberty.

“The federal government, which claims to be ‘of, by and for the people,’ has just dealt a heavy blow to at least a quarter of those people — the Catholic population — and the millions more who are served by the Catholic faithful,” reads the letter, which is signed by Bishop Doran.

The Affordable Care Act mandates faith-based employers offer employees’ health coverage that includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs and contraception.  Bishops across the nation are asking Catholics to voice their opposition by contacting Congress to support legislation that would reverse the Obama Administrations health care reform law.

“We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law,” the statement said. “People of faith cannot be made second class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom.”

Catholic Church teachings oppose contraceptive use.  According to Church teaching, suppressing fertility by using contraception denies part of the inherent meaning of married sexuality and does harm to the couple’s unity.

Doran’s letter reads “Unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics must be prepared either to violate our consciences, or drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so).”

While churches themselves are exempt from the law, religiously affiliated institutions, including non-profits, schools and hospitals, must comply by August 2013. On Jan. 20 the Department of Health and Human Services finalized a rule requiring “preventive care” insurance coverage for sterilizations and contraception, including the abortifacient drug Ella.

Barack Obama won the Catholic vote in 2008 in his bid for the White House.  Catholics supported Obama over GOP nominee John McCain by a nine-point margin (54 percent vs. 45 percent). By contrast, four years ago, Catholics favored Republican incumbent George W. Bush over John Kerry by a five-point margin (52 percent to 47 percent).

Les Rayburn, a highly decorated combat veteran, said President Obama lied to Catholics to get their support in 2008.

“This is flat wrong on so many levels,” said Rayburn. “It is about time to stand up to Obama.  He threw the Jews under the bus and now he has thrown the Catholics under the bus.  Maybe people are going to wake up and realize that it is time to break away from the Democratic Party because they really don’t take care of [Jews and Catholics].”

Under the change, the Department of Health and Human Services is giving organizations up to a year to comply, but religious liberty experts believe the law is certain to face a legal challenge.  Two religious colleges have already sued over the law.

In response to these threats to religious liberty and rights of conscience posed by President Obama’s National Health Care law, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act has been introduced in Congress (H.R. 1179 and S. 1467).  This proposal will ensure that those who participate in the health care system “retain the right to provide, purchase, or enroll in health coverage that is consistent with their religious beliefs and moral convictions.” It is more important than ever that members of Congress be urged to co-sponsor this measure.   Illinois Congressional co-sponsors include U.S. Representatives Jerry Costello, Randy Hultgren, Adam Kinzinger, Dan Lipinski, Don Manzullo, Peter Roskam, Robert Schilling, Aaron Schock and Joe Walsh.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to President Barack Obama, U.S. Senators Dick Durbin, Mark Kirk and your U.S. Representative to ask them to support the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179, S. 1467) and help enact it into law.

You can also call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at: (202) 224-3121 to reach your Congressional members.

School officials at Shawano High School in Wisconsin have censored and punished Brandon Wegner, a 15-year-old, for writing an op-ed article explaining the Biblical view of homosexuality and supporting natural mother-father adoption, according to Liberty Counsel.

After Brandon wrote this article he was pulled into hours of meetings with school administrators and staff, without his parents’ knowledge.

Superintendent Todd Carlson told him that the column “went against the bullying policy,” and asked him if he “regretted” writing it. According to Liberty Counsel, when Mr. Wegner stated that he did not regret writing it, and that he stood behind his beliefs, Superintendent Carlson told him that he had “to be one of the most ignorant kids to try to argue with him about this topic,” that “we have the power to suspend you if we want to” and that the column had “personally offended me, so I know you offended other people!”

Brandon’s opinion was a part of an editorial page which presented viewpoints both for and against homosexual adoption, each articulated by a student. After the school newspaper was published in the local town paper, a homosexual in the community complained to the school. School officials then censored Brandon’s article, forcing him and his classmates to pull the page out of the newspaper before distribution at the school.

Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, said “The bullying at Shawano High School is by Superintendent Todd Carlson and the school officials, not the student, Brandon Wegner. The school officials have displayed blatant intolerance of a view on homosexuality held by many people. The school’s actions are shocking and unjustified. The superintendent should immediately apologize and stop the bullying.”

The Sixth Circuit issued a ruling on Friday in Julea Ward’s suit against Eastern Michigan University (EMU). The University expelled Ms. Ward, a counseling student, when she expressed concerns about counseling individuals engaged in extra-marital sexual relationships.

In the original incident, Ms. Ward agreed to counsel a gay client on a range of issues but asked that the student be referred to another counselor if the conversation turned to his relationship with his partner. Julea indicated she would take the same position for a heterosexual client who is unmarried and in a sexual relationship. Ms. Ward sued EMU for expelling her, saying it violated her sincerely held religious beliefs to compel her to help clients engage in such behavior.

Ms. Ward lost on the District Court level but won on appeal. The Court found that “a reasonable jury could conclude that Ward’s professor ejected her from the counseling program because of hostility toward her speech and faith, not due to a policy against referrals.” The Court of Appeals reversed the lower Court’s decision and remanded it back to the District Court for further consideration.

The United States Supreme Court has issued a monumental decision protecting the independence of American churches in church governance matters.

The High Court ruled that churches have the constitutionally guaranteed freedom to make their own employment decisions free from government interference.

The case involved an employment discrimination lawsuit filed by a teacher against the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran School in Redford, Michigan. She had been commissioned as a “minister of religion” within the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

The Supreme Court upheld what has become known as the “ministerial exception.” That theory of constitutional law, previously enunciated by appellate courts, stated that churches hold the constitutional prerogative to determine the qualifications and credentials of their own ministers.

“The Free Exercise Clause protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts. “According the state the power to determine which individuals will minister to the faithful violates the Establishment Clause, which prohibits government involvement in such ecclessiastical decisions.”

“The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important,” Roberts continued. “But so too is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith, and carry out their mission.”

The decision was most striking in its unanimity, with all nine justices endorsing absolute unfettered religious freedom for churches, including new appointees Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotamayor, and longtime ultraliberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Obama Administration had filed a brief in the case supporting the right of the government to enforce employment discrimination law against churches. Justice Department attorneys had argued that the government has the right to intrude in the internal affairs of churches just as they do with labor unions, social clubs and other groups of free association.

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A young woman was fired from the Macy’s San Antonio Rivercenter department store for refusing to violate her religious beliefs by permitting a young man dressed as a woman from entering the women’s dressing room. Natalie Johnson claims she saw the young man walk out of the women’s fitting room and politely told him that he could not go back in because it was for women only. The cross-dressing young man claimed that he is a “female.” Johnson said that he was wearing make-up and girl’s clothing, but clearly he was a male. The cross-dresser was accompanied by five other individuals. The group argued with expletives that Macy’s is LGBT-friendly, to which Johnson replied that Macy’s is also non-discriminatory toward religion, and that it would go against her religious beliefs to lie that he was a woman or compromise with homosexuality. The group then demanded to speak with a manager.

When Johnson was confronted by her employer, she explained that she could not allow a male to change in a female’s fitting room. Johnson’s boss referred her to Macy’s LGBT policy which allows “transgender” people to change in any dressing room they want. However, Johnson pointed out that the same policy also protects against religious discrimination and, in this case, it protects her right to her beliefs that were being violated. The manager demanded that she comply with the LGBT policies or lose her job. Johnson refused to go against her sincerely held religious beliefs and was terminated from her job.

Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, commented: “Macy’s policy which allows men to use the women’s dressing room is fraught with problems. This policy will cause significant problems and will alienate the majority of Macy’s customers. Macy’s has essentially opened women’s dressing rooms to every man. The LGBT agenda has become the theater of the absurd.”

Liberty Counsel encourages readers to contact Macy’s and politely let them know that this is completely unacceptable. You can reach Terry Lundgren, the CEO of Macy’s at macys_execs@macys.com or call their corporate offices at 800-264-0069 or 513-398-5221, or you can fax them at 513-573-2049.