Contraceptives mandate fits administration's pattern of disregard for religious freedoms

You'd have to be living in a groundhog hole the past few days to have missed the controversy over the administration's decision to mandate contraception coverage nationwide virtually regardless of religious or ethical objections.
Clearly the issue goes well beyond the controversy over contraception coverage to more fundamental principles of American civil rights. That's why even normally supportive media are assailing the President's assault on the First Amendment. Left-leaning  Washington Post commentator E.J. Dionne wrote of "Obama's breach of faith;" the Chicago Tribune ran a critical editorial, "A matter of faith" and USA Today editors opined that the "Contraception mandate violates religious freedom."
What's not getting quite as much coverage is the broader, extremely dangerous pattern of civil liberties violations into which the contraception coercion fits.
In the past three years, people of faith and conscience have witnessed:

1. the gutting of the only federal regulation protecting the exercise of conscience in health care; 
2. the denial of federal grant funds for aiding human trafficking victims because a faith-based organization refused to participate in abortion; 
3. the administration's lobbying of the Supreme Court to restrict faith-basedorganizations' hiring rights; and 
4. a coercive contraceptive mandate that imposes the government's ideology on the faith-based and pro-life communities.

History shows that wholesale abridgement of civil liberties happens gradually rather than overnight. History also shows that taking away the rights of one group of citizens leads to the loss of rights for any group of citizens.
If you recognize this dangerous trend and want the U.S. to avoid repeating the mistakes of history, contact your legislators today and tell them to support pending legislation to protect conscience rights and civil liberties, such as the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act.

Check your charities' rankings and efficiency with Charity Navigator

As you consider putting your values into action by donating to a nonprofit ministry, consider also checking the ratings of ministries by objective charity reviewers.

One of those reviewers is the Charity Navigator. From its web site: 

Charity Navigator is considered by many to be the leading evaluator of non-profit effectiveness. Charity Navigator, America's leading independent charity evaluator, works to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace by evaluating the Financial Health and Accountability and Transparency of America's largest charities. Charity Navigator selected as Best Charity Review Site in Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine’s “The Best List 2011.” 

The Christian Medical Association, for example, just received the highest (four-star) rating by Charity Navigator.  Just 1,410 of the 1,600,000 charities in America receive this designation. Charity Navigator objectively reviews the financial statements and tax filings of non-profits, determining those that have the lowest overhead and spend the highest percentage of resources on program beneficiaries.

Contraception mandate threat: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere

Michael Gerson's excellent commentary in the Washington Post, "Obama plays hisCatholic allies for fools," highlights just two of the Obama administration's assaults on First Amendment freedoms in the faith community--mandating the subsidy of potentially life-ending contraceptives and lobbying the Supreme Court to restrict religious hiring rights.

President Obama has also gutted the only federal regulation protecting conscience rights in health care, and his administration has also pursued more covert means of pushing people of faith out of the public square. The U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) deliberately diverted grant funding away from a faith-based organization that had been providing by all accounts excellent aid to victims of human trafficking. Despite an objective review score 20 points higher than the group ultimately awarded the money, the faith-based group lost the competition because of its moral objections to participating in abortion--a senseless new stipulation for grants to aid trafficked victims. Faith-based groups also have been quietly pushed out of partnerships with the federal government by grant stipulations under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

If we allow this administration's assault on people of faith, no one's First Amendment rights remain safe. As Dr. King proclaimed, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

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Presidential candidates reveal views on faith in the Oval Office

Moderator

Last night's Republican presidential debate on CNN provided insights into how each candidate's faith shapes his world view and how it might affect the execution of his duties as President. Here's the transcript of that exchange:

Let's take another question from the audience here. Go ahead, please. What is your name?

Suzanne Bass, I'm an attorney in Jacksonville. Welcome to the great city of Jacksonville. My question, how would your religious beliefs, if you're elected, impact the decisions that you make in the office of the presidency?

Moderator

Congressman Paul?

Ron Paul

Well, my religious beliefs wouldn't affect it. My religious beliefs affect my character in the way I treat people and the way I live. The only thing it would affect...

(APPLAUSE)

The only thing that would affect me in the way I operate as a president or a congressman is my oath of office and my promises that I've made to the people.

Moderator

Governor?

Mitt Romney

Ron Paul makes very good point. I concur with that. I would also seek the guidance of -- of providence in making critical decisions.

And of course, ours is a nation which is based upon Judeo- Christian values and ethics. Our law is based upon those values and ethics. And in some cases, our law doesn't encompass -- encompass all of the issues that we face around the world.

The conviction that the founders, when they wrote the Declaration of Independence, were writing a document that was not just temporary and not just for one small locale but really something which described the relationship between God and man -- that's something which I think a president would carry in his heart.

So when they said, for instance, that the creator had "endowed us with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," I would seek to assure that those principles and values remain in America and that we help share them with other people in the world, not by conquering them, but by helping them through our trade, through our various forms of soft power, to help bring people the joy and -- and -- and opportunity that exists in this great land.

Moderator

Mr. Speaker?

(APPLAUSE)

Newt Gingrich

I would say that there are three ways in which religion would affect me.

The first is, I agree with Governor Romney. I think anyone who is president is faced with decisions so enormous that they should go to God. They should seek guidance. Because these are decisions beyond the ability of mere mortals to truly decide without some sense of what it is we should be doing.

I would say, second, that we have a real obligation to recognize that, if you're truly faithful, it's not just an hour on Sundays or Saturdays or Fridays. It's in fact something that should suffuse your life, to be a part of who you are. And in that sense, it is inextricably tied in with how you behave.

But I would say, third, one of the reasons I am running is there has been an increasingly aggressive war against religion and in particular against Christianity in this country, largely by...

(APPLAUSE)

... largely by a secular elite and the academic news media and judicial areas. And I frankly believe it's important to have some leadership that stands up and says, enough; we are truly guaranteed the right of religious freedom, not religious suppression by the state.

(APPLAUSE)

Moderator

Senator?

Rick Santorum

Faith is a very, very important part of my life, but it's a very, very important part of this country. The foundational documents of our country -- everybody talks about the Constitution, very, very important. But the Constitution is the "how" of America. It's the operator's manual.

The "why" of America, who we are as a people, is in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights."

The Constitution is there to do one thing: protect God-given rights. That's what makes America different than every other country in the world. No other country in the world has its rights -- rights based in God-given rights, not government-given rights.

And so when you say, well, faith has nothing to do with it, faith has everything to do with it. If rights come...

(APPLAUSE)

If our president believes that rights come to us from the state, everything government gives you, it can take away. The role of the government is to protect rights that cannot be taken away.

And so the answer to that question is, I believe in faith and reason and approaching the problems of this country but understand where those rights come from, who we are as Americans and the foundational principles by which we have changed the world.

Moderator

Thank you, Senator.