The President’s War on Religious Freedom

[Geee]

National Review:

In his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II delivered a scathing critique of socialism, declaring that “the fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated. . . . Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises in the face of good or evil.”

Pope John Paul II’s indictment of socialism is illustrated in the Obama administration’s recent edict requiring nearly all employers — including Catholic hospitals, schools, and charities — to cover sterilizations and contraception in their employees’ health-care plans. Because “contraception” includes abortifacients, this decision — made under the powers granted to the executive branch under Obamacare — also threatens many Protestant employers.

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The decision is the latest and most outrageous example of why Obamacare — socialized medicine — must be repealed in its entirety. It is also a shocking example of the administration’s choosing to ignore the opinions and beliefs of millions of Americans.

And while the Obama administration has never been a protector of pro-life Americans’ conscience rights — for example, it supports the federal funding that Planned Parenthood receives — this latest decision attempts to crush the freedom of the Catholic Church in this country. The president has declared a “war on religion,” as Michael Gerson wrote in the Washington Post last week.

[Valin]

All Americans’ religious freedoms are protected by the First Amendment. The earliest colonists who came to this country in the pre–Revolutionary War days traveled here because they were seeking a home in which they could practice their religion in freedom and peace without government persecution. Religious freedom — which has been called “our first liberty” — is ingrained in the very fabric of our national culture.

 

But HHS and the administration have decided that their goal of state-run health care trumps our first liberty. What the president is attempting to do here is something generally witnessed only in totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.

 

Why is it the modern Democratic Party has such totalitarian and authoritarian leanings? An answer can be found in looking at the 1968 Chicago Convention....and the raise of the hard left.