Father Jenkins of Notre Dame sues his BFF Obama over contraception mandate...

uh oh!

What happened to the proud priest who was so honored to have the most pro-abortion president in the history of this country speak at Notre Dame?  How many times must we remind peeps about rolling around in the mud and thinking they're not going to get dirty?  

May 21, 2012

A Message from Father John Jenkins, C.S.C.,

President, University of Notre Dame

Today the University of Notre Dame filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana regarding a recent mandate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  That mandate requires Notre Dame and similar religious organizations to provide in their insurance plans abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilization procedures, which are contrary to Catholic teaching.  The decision to file this lawsuit came after much deliberation, discussion and efforts to find a solution acceptable to the various parties.

Let me say very clearly what this lawsuit is not about:  it is not about preventing women from having access to contraception, nor even about preventing the Government from providing such services.  Many of our faculty, staff and students -- both Catholic and non-Catholic -- have made conscientious decisions to use contraceptives.  As we assert the right to follow our conscience, we respect their right to follow theirs.  And we believe that, if the Government wishes to provide such services, means are available that do not compel religious organizations to serve as its agents.  We do not seek to impose our religious beliefs on others; we simply ask that the Government not impose its values on the University when those values conflict with our religious teachings. We have engaged in conversations to find a resolution that respects the consciences of all and we will continue to do so.

This filing is about the freedom of a religious organization to live its mission, and its significance goes well beyond any debate about contraceptives.  For if we concede that the Government can decide which religious organizations are sufficiently religious to be awarded the freedom to follow the principles that define their mission, then we have begun to walk down a path that ultimately leads to the undermining of those institutions.  For if one Presidential Administration can override our religious purpose and use religious organizations to advance policies that undercut our values, then surely another Administration will do the same for another very different set of policies, each time invoking some concept of popular will or the public good, with the result these religious organizations become mere tools for the exercise of government power, morally subservient to the state, and not free from its infringements.  If that happens, it will be the end of genuinely religious organizations in all but name. 

The details of the process that led to the mandate are publicly known.  In an Interim Final Ruling issued August 3, 2011, the federal government required employers to provide the objectionable services. A narrow exemption was given to religious institutions that serve and employ primarily members of their own faith, but, departing from a long tradition in federal law, organizations like Notre Dame—schools, universities, hospitals and charitable organizations that serve and employ people of all faiths and none—were granted no exemption, but instead were made subject to the law to the same extent as any secular organization.  On September 28, I submitted a formal comment encouraging the Administration to follow precedent and adopt a broader exemption.

Despite some positive indications, the Administration announced on January 20, 2012, that its interim rule would be adopted as final without change.  After an outcry from across the political spectrum, President Obama announced on February 10 that his Administration would attempt to accommodate the concerns of religious organizations.  We were encouraged by this announcement and have engaged in conversations with Administration officials to find an acceptable resolution.  Although I do not question the good intentions and sincerity of all involved in these discussions, progress has not been encouraging and an announcement seeking comments on how to structure any accommodation (HHS Advanced Notification of Proposed Rule Making on preventative services policy, March 16, 2012) provides little in the way of a specific, substantive proposal or a definite timeline for resolution.   Moreover, the process laid out in this announcement will last months, making it impossible for us to plan for and implement any changes to our health plans by the government-mandated deadlines. We will continue in earnest our discussions with Administration officials in an effort to find a resolution, but, after much deliberation, we have concluded that we have no option but to appeal to the courts regarding the fundamental issue of religious freedom.

It is for these reasons that we have filed this lawsuit neither lightly nor gladly, but with sober determination.

The university's complaint can be read in full here

It's time for the GOP to stand up and confront the lies...

and we must and should do our part.

The first thing I read this morning was an article by Larrey Anderson, over at American Thinker,  The Democrats' Biggest Lie, which deals with this whole kerfuffle over "access to birth control."  I'm not sure if it could be considered the biggest lie they've ever told, but it certainly is getting a lot of attention.

Democrats want to make women believe that if we have a Republican president, the administration will begin banning birth control.  As Larrey points out, they don't necessarily use those exact words, but will instead imply such a thing will happen, and thereby raise the anxiety levels of women.

Many of the commenters have made the classic mistake of thinking, "Who would ever believe such a thing?"

Of course it's a lie. The only people who believe in this tripe are those who stood in line to receive handouts from Obama's "stash." Responding to the lie is precisely what the liars want.

This is dangerous thinking.  I routinely visit our local county Democratic Facebook page and see women consistently tout the party line about "not having access to birth control."  These are not welfare queens, but women with a semblance of education who are involved in the political process. Some of them are actually running for local offices such as city commissioner.

You and I see this for what it is; a nonsensical distraction from the worst record of any president in the history of the United States.  Our country is drowning in debt, gas prices are as high as $5.00 in some places, we have high sustained unemployment, and democrats want to talk about birth control?  When they're not talking about birth control, they're ginning up race riots in Florida or saying stay-at-home moms don't work. 

Here's a commenter over at AT that gets it: (emphasis mine)

Have you people learned nothing about perception? It doesn't matter one damn bit whether these are lies coming from the progressive liberals. Of course they're lies. We conservatives all know that. The problem is that the great masses of voters don't realize this and believe the lies because they perceive them to be true. You think that because we all care about knowing what's going on by reading American Thinker and other conservative websites that everyone does? They don't! Most Americans couldn't care less and tune out the whole depressing mess. Who can blame them? It's easier to be entertained than to think. So, they hear some fantastic lie from the progressives and think that it has to be true because no one would make up something that outrageous. And, if they did, we'd hear about it. Oh yeah? From whom would we hear about it? The mainstream media who is wholly owned by the progressives? That's as far as most Americans are willing to look because they don't care enough to get involved. Stop assuming that Americans will recognize that these are lies and start yelling that these are lies. And, do it in places where the progressive liberals hang out. You're preaching to the choir here.

Exactly!

May I suggest that you find your local Democratic Facebook page, or the pages of people running for a local office of some sort, and whenever you read something that is ridiculous, jump in and nicely correct them.  I keep bookmark folders loaded with information on different subjects so I always have an arsenal of facts and figures handy.  Larrey's article will go in my folder called "health", and the next time someone says something stupid about the "war on women", "access to birth control", or "women's health issues, I will have plenty of ammunition.

Read Larrey's article for more information on how propaganda works:

The Democrats' Biggest Lie 

For additional tips read: 

Top 10 Ways to School Your Leftist Friends on Facebook

Your WTF moment of the day from Maggie's Notebook:

Are Your Grandparents in this Simulating Safe Sex Video?

Good grief!!!

Michelle to Hold Four Fundraisers in Two Days and guess who's left holding the tab for her travel?

And while the country sinks into oblivion, the federal government and Congress is worried about some baseball player juicing up with steroids.  Is that not insane? 

Department of Justice Assigns 5 Prosecutors to Retrial of Roger Clemens

And finally we know the real reason Obama spent a truck load of money to go to Colombia:



"No class Obama" could have simply said, "Your country is beautiful and I would like to visit again with my family."

Another Executive Order?

Why, yes.  When does Obama find time to issue executive orders since all he does is campaign and play golf?  Who's really writing these things?

This one has to do with natural gas and fracking.  I don't know enough about the subject to have an opinion.  Should we be alarmed? (although generally, anything this administration does is cause for alarm.) You read it and tell me.  Thank you in advance.

Executive Order: Feds To Take Control of Domestic Natural Gas Production

and

MOTUS:  Wanted: Spring Break Chaperones. Adults preferred

It's not about church vs state...

it's about forcing any company to provide anything for "free."

If contraception should be "free" based on it being "preventative medicine", why am I paying for toothpaste? 


Don't let the left frame the argument as some sort of "Catholic" issue.  It's not and never really has been.  The bishops are fighting the battle on the grounds of religious freedom when they should be arguing against statism and unconstitutional mandates.

Anyone who believes Santorum is some sort of nutcase who wants to ban birth control is not paying attention.  He, like most Catholics, understands the dangers inherent in birth control, and is not afraid to express this when directly asked.  Anyone who wants to find out what those dangers are can, in this wonderful age of the internet, do their own research rather than parrot someone else's ill informed talking points.

The direct questions are going to continue, and the loony left will continue to hammer him on this issue until they have every woman in this country thinking he hates them and wants them barefoot and pregnant.  And it's working quite well.  Even so-called conservative women are picking up on this meme without doing the most rudimentary of research into what he has said and not said.

Here's the deal ladies and gents.  Want to use birth control?  Go right ahead, but don't expect Santorum, or anyone else who has studied the subject, to say something that isn't true about the glories of birth control.  And don't expect it to be "free." 

Peter Schiff nails it again. The economics and insanity of "free" birth control.



More:

Nice Deb:   Video: That’s It – No More Public Funding for Planned Parenthood! 
This is shocking and disgusting

Camp of the Saints:   Keep Your Eyes On The Prize

and earns the coveted Quote of the Day

We, the defenders of Western Civilization, do ourselves no good by letting ourselves get bogged down in just a ‘facet’ of the war we are waging. The Left wants us to concentrate on only one front in a world-wide war, to develop tunnel vision, so that we will concentrate all of our forces in one area while they run rampant in all the others.

Also: the Left wants nothing more than to make this ‘a Catholic thing’ because it will discourage many to take up the fight who feel that this battle does not concern them and because it will discourage those who fear Papism from realizing they have a stake in this battle.

First, they came for The Catholics…

Keep your eyes on the Leftist Prize: they want us to be beholden to them for all of our rights, to stop believing that we are endowed by The Creator with certain inalienable rights.  read the entire post.  It's excellent.

Want something for "free?"  Here ya go...

Secular Press Business Insider: Time To Admit It: The Church Has Always Been Right On Birth Control...

a Friday morning surprise.

Anyone who takes even the most cursory look at what birth control has done to women will immediately see that it certainly wasn't the boon for equality they expected.  Girls as young as 13 can obtain birth control, without their parents consent, from Planned Parenthood.  By the age of 18, many of these same girls will have lost count of how many sexual partners they've had.

Wander around Facebook and witness 14 year old girls showing off their cleavage and making fish trout lips. These girls have come to believe the only thing they have to offer is their sexuality, and offer it they do.  Watch as the boys wander from girl to girl like so many bees pollinating spring flowers. 

What's really ironic is Margaret Sanger, eugenicist and often referred to as the "mother of birth control", envisioned a world where blacks would embrace birth control, so as to limit the population of these "undesirables."  Little did she know it would be white upper-class women clamoring for the magic pill. 

In short order, though, it wasn't just for married ladies.  Girls were soon acting as slutty as they wanted without fear of pregnancy.  Wow!  What a delight for the men.  No more responsibility for potential offspring.  For the times pregnancy resulted from such behavior, abortion became the back-up plan.

Girls have come to believe the only way to "get a guy" is to sexually service him.   Girls in middle-school are performing oral sex in the rest rooms at school and they're calling it "love."   Newsflash: a boy who makes a girl kneel on the floor of a filthy restroom and places his penis in her mouth is not exhibiting a loving attitude toward that girl.  These poor girls don't even realize how they are being demeaned and disrespected.  For them, this has become "normal."

Girls are treated much like an used Kleenex.  Get married?  Why should the guy marry her when she's willing to move in and provide free sex and free maid service.  How's that for some self-esteem?  Another newsflash:  couples who live together before marriage are 50% more likely to get divorced.  Considering the divorce rate, it becomes an almost 100% certainty that cohabiting couples will get divorced.

What about the boys?  No longer do they have to grow into men who honor and protect women.  You can forget even common courtesies towards women.  Hold a door?  Give up their seat?  Forget that!  We're all equal now.  Women are no longer the stabilizing influence on society.  They're as unstable as the men, perhaps more so.

If birth control is the liberals panacea for unwanted pregnancies, then why do abortions number in the hundreds of millions?  Is it because, as they love to say, women can't access it?  Anyone who believes that has not visited Planned Parenthood.  The PP in my town does a booming business providing birth control to young girls. Can't afford it?  That's a lie, and everyone knows it. 

Does this all seem like a lot to heap on the back of a pack of pills?  It is.  But it's true.


From:  Business Insider:

Painting the Catholic Church as "out of touch" is like shooting fish in a barrel, what with the funny hats and gilded churches. And nothing makes it easier than the Church's stance against contraception.

Many people, (including our editor) are wondering why the Catholic Church doesn't just ditch this requirement. They note that most Catholics ignore it, and that most everyone else finds it divisive, or "out-dated." C'mon! It's the 21st century, they say! Don't they SEE that it's STUPID, they scream.

Here's the thing, though: the Catholic Church is the world's biggest and oldest organization. It has buried all of the greatest empires known to man, from the Romans to the Soviets. It has establishments literally all over the world, touching every area of human endeavor. It's given us some of the world's greatest thinkers, from Saint Augustine on down to René Girard. When it does things, it usually has a good reason. Everyone has a right to disagree, but it's not that they're a bunch of crazy old white dudes who are stuck in the Middle Ages.  read the rest

More:

Bread Upon the Water:   Q. What's more fun than having someone else pay for your contraception or abortion?

It's time for the Catholic bishops to make public statements about Sebelius, Pelosi...

and all the rest of the rogue "Catholic" politicians who continue to call themselves Catholic while defying the teachings of the Church. 

To not do so is doing great harm to their credibility. 


Courageously Catholic in the public square
By Judie Brown

There is something intriguing and, at the same time, troubling about the upheaval being created by the Obama administration's dictate regarding religious institutions and the right of conscience. The problem is not so much what Obama has done, but what Catholics are confronted with as a result. Let me be clear. The various bishops who have made statements in opposition to what Obama has done are to be commended. They have decried the arrogance of an administration that literally wants to spit in the face of Christ and His Church.

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, for example, says that the Obama administration has revoked the religious freedom of groups that do not regard women's fertility as a "disease." Indeed, this is true.

But when you peel away the layers of righteous indignation, we find a gruesome layer of facts that is being covered over and is not likely to be exposed by the very bishops who are uttering powerful words in defense of conscience. The bishops, as a body of religious leaders, consistently fail to act on their own words — and that will be the downfall of their recent pontificating.  read the rest

More:  

Philothea on Phire:    Priests Preaching the Truth

Pundette:   That Catholic thing again

It's really about abortion...

and anyone who doesn't "get it" hasn't been paying attention.

I'm not going to make this a "Catholic" issue since it affects everyone of good will.  In a recent article I published,  Battling over birth control..., a few people missed the point and thought I was bashing Catholic teaching on birth control.  The reality is, I was putting it in perspective for the rest of the world.  Peter, Datechguy, jumped in and defended me - and I thank him. 

Obama leads what is clearly the most pro-abortion administration to ever rule over the country.  And "rule" is the operative word.  Aided by people who call themselves Catholic, such as Kathleen Sebelius and Nancy Pelosi, and helped along by bishops of the Church who naively thought they could "strike a deal" with people of no character, ObamaCare was passed in the dead of night and against the will of the American people. 

Now this administration is attacking anyone not providing "free" birth control in their insurance plans.  Just as there is ample evidence that abortion was the outcome of the legalization of birth control, we now witness what happens when the Church refuses to offer abortion referrals for victims of human trafficking.

From: The Catholic League (emphasis mine)

CATHOLIC CHURCH VS. OBAMA SHOWDOWN

On December 1, the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform will hold a hearing titled, “HHS and the Catholic Church: Examining the Politicization of Grants.” At issue is the decision by the Obama administration to deny a grant that the Catholic Church routinely receives providing for relief to the victims of human trafficking; the ruling was made despite an independent review board’s finding that gave high scores to the Church’s program.

The Church was denied the grant because it refuses to offer abortion referrals. Many Catholics, including the Catholic League, believe that the politicized nature of the decision to defund the program demands a hearing, and on Thursday we will get it. Since 2006, the Church has helped more than 2,700 trafficking victims, most of whom are women and children. 

Although the issue of abortion referral is on the table, the real issue is something more sinister: the pro-abortion community, which is supporting the Obama administration’s push to mandate that private healthcare plans provide coverage for sterilization and contraceptive services, has its real sights set on mandated abortion coverage. That’s why there has been an editorial and op-ed explosion in recent weeks calling for Obama to stand up to the bishops. Everyone knows that even minimum-wage earners can afford contraceptives, so this issue hardly explains the heated rhetoric. What mandated contraceptive services accomplishes is that it greases the slide towards abortion coverage.

Those who do not ascribe to the vision of sexuality entertained by “progressives,” but are nonetheless not terribly bothered by the push for contraceptive services in healthcare plans, need to wake up and smell the odor before the “progressives” start racing for home. We’re at the top of the stretch right now, which is why this hearing is critical.

 Allow me to restate my position here.  No insurance company should be required to provide "free" birth control, which is not "free."  The cost is just passed along in the form of higher insurance costs for everyone.   And in the very near future, people of good will will be required to pay even more for their insurance because we will be handing out "free" abortions.  I think that's something even non-Catholics can agree with Catholics about.

Remember recently when Pelosi made some silly remark about Catholics having this "conscience thing" meaning as long as we followed our conscience every thing would be just hunky dory? 

As I said in my article linked above, it means a well-formed conscience, Nancy.  And who's to blame for Catholic women contracepting at the same rate as the rest of the country?  Let's take a look at what happened in the 60's when the "pill" first hit the market.  Priests, who themselves had poorly formed consciences, gave a wink and a nudge to women using birth control.

I was there.  I saw it.  And it continues today.

They sided with dissenters when Pope Paul VI wrote the encyclical letter in 1968 Humanae Vitae, which explained very carefully and beautifully why birth control was wrong.   More winks and nudges were forthcoming.  I was there. I saw it.

Anyone with a properly formed conscience would see birth control for what it really is - a dangerous trip down a very slick road.  It demeans the role of women, motherhood, marriage, and family.  It turns men into "users of women", and away from their more natural role of provider and protector.  It has fostered a world in which middle school age boys refer to girls they don't like as "f*king c*nts", as I overheard in the library just last week...the girls sitting with them were nodding in agreement.

We wouldn't be having any discussion about killing a full term baby in the womb if we had listened when people smarter than us told the truth about birth control.

More:

Stacy McCain, in one of his best articles ever, takes a look at contraception and abortion from a non-Catholic view point and does it very well - and we thank him. 

Take time to read his wonderful article (if for no other reason than I spent a whole bunch of time tracking it down.)

The Pill at 50: Unhappy Un-Birthday

Welcome to The Other McCain readers. Browse around and say hi! I love new friends....

Information Overload

*****My mind has hit the wall again. The info (most of it not good) , just keeps up it's relentless pace. At a certain point my ADD brain explodes and I must take a small break. With many things squirreling around in my head, a short period is needed to sort it all out and present my thoughts when they may (hopefully) attain a semblance of order.

****In the meantime, here is some very good reading that I have run across. Father Longenecker's post on modernism, "The Resurrection and Theological Sleight of Hand", is excellent.

****Stacy McCain, who heads up the wonderful blog "The Other McCain", has one of the best posts on marriage and birth control I have read in ages. There is a lot to read and digest, so take your time and do this piece of fine writing the justice it deserves

*****Dad29 , who turns out great posts as though he is getting paid by the word, led me to Stacy. I thank him very much.

Annual Cannonball Awards

*****Nominations being accepted at The Crescat until May 1st. Folks - this is the only award that counts!! There are many categories and blogs may be nominated in more than one category. Head on over and in the words of my best friend, Tony (Soprano), nominate ME (in any category you wish).

******Dear Lola has nominated me in the The Susan Boyle Award, but I'm sure my brilliant readers can find other places to put me (now, now - watch your thinking)

Now off to do some work and attempt to re-file the jumble in my head....