The assault on the First Amendment through Obamacare

The President has taken on the 77 million Catholics of the United States. Why in an election year would he do this? It's not like a drone that can selectively take out a single enemy in a foreign country. This "enemy" is the church, all Christians, and this is the United States. And the church is big--next to government, it's the biggest, richest entity in the world. Why would he do this? Bishop Campbell of Columbus--a version of this letter was read across the nation this past Sunday in every Catholic parish--called for civil disobedience. But just because we're not Catholics, it doesn't mean we aren't affected. I don't think Obama is stupid; I think he's sly. He wants a confrontation, an excuse to quash the church. Who else can speak truth to power but the church? In the days of the monarchies the clergy who spoke against the king was sent to the tower or the gallows. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights was written by Christians to prevent that by keeping the government out of the churches.

It’s not what you and I as Lutheran or Methodist or even the Catholic in the pew believe about birth control pills. It’s what the Catholic church teaches about contraception and abortion based on its searching the Scriptures, tradition going back to Peter, and historic teachings about the significance of life. We (you and I) don’t have a say in those teachings and beliefs anymore than Obama does, because this is protected by the first amendment. It's the first amendment that protects all our churches, even little old 50,000 membership in Church of the Brethren, from interference by the state. It's the reason there was massive exodus from Europe as Protestants and Catholics alike suffered under the whims of various monarchs. And until Obamacare, those beliefs about life taught by the Catholic church were also protected by this president who made numerous promises to Catholic institutions who insure both Catholics and non-Catholics, that he would respect their beliefs if they would support his plan to take over the healthcare industry. They did; he didn't.

I also don’t believe in purgatory or 7 sacraments, but I believe the Roman Catholic church has a right to teach, believe, and act on those beliefs. Just as I believe it has a right not to pay for contraceptives or abortions of employees or clients in its hospitals and universities, its social service agencies and its elementary schools, its job training programs and its food pantries, its low income housing complexes, its adoption agencies and nursing homes. On the near horizon under Obamacare, we will come to a point when insurance plans under government mandate will be weeding out the disabled as not worthy of care, or the expense, just as now 93% of unborn children with Down Syndrome are "weeded." If you don’t believe it, please do more research into the articles written by some of Obama's Czars, advisers and "bioethicists." It will be the Catholic Church, not your Democratic party or Republican party, and certainly not President Obama, who will be guarding the door for you.