Weekly Standard podcast on Sebelius vs Hobby Lobby

The Weekly Standard has a great podcast that covers fiscal, social and foreign policy issues from a conservative perspective.

Excerpt:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with the Becket Fund’s Adele Keim on the Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius case.

This podcast can be downloaded here. Subscribe to THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s iTunes podcast feed here.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD would like to thank The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Adele Keim for joining us.

Fox News has a report.

Excerpt:

In the most prominent challenge of its kind, Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. asked a federal appeals court Thursday for an exemption from part of the federal health care law that requires it to offer employees health coverage that includes access to the morning-after pill.

The Oklahoma City-based arts-and-crafts chain argued that businesses — not just the currently exempted religious groups — should be allowed to seek exception from that section of the health law if it violates their religious beliefs.

The arguments Thursday centered on the Green family, founders of Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. and a sister company, Christian booksellers Mardel Inc. An eight-judge panel peppered both sides with questions about whether the contraceptives mandate is an undue burden on the Greens’ religious belief.

The Greens contend that emergency contraception is tantamount to abortion because it can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb. They also object to providing coverage for certain kinds of intrauterine devices.

Hobby Lobby’s lawyer argued that the Greens shouldn’t face fines for not complying with mandatory contraceptive coverage simply because their business makes a profit. The stores are a “profit-making company, yes, but also a ministry,” Kyle Duncan argued.

Duncan cited the Citizens United campaign-finance decision that said corporations have constitutional protections.

“We don’t say, well, a corporation can’t exercise a right because it’s in corporate form,” Duncan said.

“Is religion the kind of right can only be exercised by a natural person? Well, the question nearly answers itself. … It’s not a purely personal right.”

In other news, voters support the repeal of Obamacare by a 22-point margin, which is increasing as more and more of the law is actually implemented. Too bad we did not vote to defeat Obama by a 22-point margin last November.

Filed under: News, Abortion, Barack Obama, Civil Disobedience, Conscience, Conscience Protection, Conscience Rights, Court, Democrat, Freedom of Religion, Hobby Lobby, Infanticide, Mandate, Obamacare, Relativism, Religion, Religious Freedom, Religious Liberty, Sin, Theology, Trial, Truth

Obama rejects conscience protections for military chaplains

From CNS News.

Excerpt:

President Obama issued a statement Wednesday rejecting several provisions of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), including a conscience protection for military chaplains that he called “ill-advised”.

“Section 533 is an unnecessary and ill-advised provision, as the military already appropriately protects the freedom of conscience of chaplains and service members,” he said in his signing statement.

Obama made clear that his administration would remain unmoved by the NDAA’s conscience provision, stating that the Department of Defense would continue to implement the repeal of the military’s ban on homosexual service members.

“My Administration remains fully committed to continuing the successful implementation of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and to protecting the rights of gay and lesbian service members; Section 533 will not alter that.”

The president said that the Secretary of Defense would ensure that no “discriminatory” actions result from Section 533’s conscience protections.

This is not the first time that Obama has trampled on freedom of conscience and religious liberty.

Here’s an article from Life Site News from back in 2011.

Excerpt:

The Obama Administration has rescinded a federal regulation from 2008 that protected the conscience rights of health care providers opposed to providing abortifacient contraception, such as the Plan-B “morning-after” pill.

The Health and Human Services Department under Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, issued the new “final rule,” which leaves health-care workers of federally funded entities a narrower conscience exemption that only protects them from having to participate in abortions or sterilizations.

The new regulation replaces the earlier one enacted in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration, which broadened the interpretation of existing federal conscience statutes related to abortion to include health professionals opposed to emergency contraception, such as Ella or Plan-B, drugs which pro-life advocates say also act as abortifacients.

Sebelius alleged in the promulgation of the new final rule that the Bush-era conscience regulations “instead led to greater confusion”, citing comments received by HHS. She said her department was changing the rule because it was “unclear and potentially over-broad in scope.”

The HHS Secretary said in her statement that her department did share the concern of those in favor of rescinding the rule that it had the “potential to negatively impact patient access to contraception and certain other medical services” esp. for certain sub-populations, such as “low income patients, minorities, the uninsured, patients in rural areas, Medicaid beneficiaries, or other medically under-served populations.”

The ruling is a victory for Planned Parenthood and other “family planning” groups that have insisted that drugs like Plan-B (taken within 72 hours of sexual intercourse) and Ella (taken within five-days of intercourse) should be defined as “contraception.” Pro-life groups countered that pro-life health providers should be protected from discrimination under federal statutes, because these drugs could prevent a conceived human embryo from implanting in the mother’s womb, thereby aborting it.

[...]“Today’s erosion of conscience protections for medical professionals is a blow both to medicine and the right to practice one’s deeply-held convictions,” said Dr. J. Scott Ries, on behalf of the 16,000-member Christian Medical Association (CMA).

Ries said the new HHS final rule disregarded the findings of the previous HHS 2008 final rule which stated that allowing health professionals to practice according to their convictions would negatively impact patient services or create “new barriers.”

“Losing conscientious healthcare professionals and faith-based institutions to discrimination and job loss especially imperils the poor and patients in medically underserved areas,” said Ries. “We are already facing critical shortages of primary care physicians, and the Obama administration’s decision now threatens to make the situation far worse for patients across the country who depend on faith-based health care.”

If religious liberty is a concern, then you can’t be a liberal. They don’t support religious liberty.

Filed under: News, Abortion, Atheism, Barack Obama, Chaplain, Conscience, Conscience Protection, Democrat, Democrat Party, Doctor, Fascism, Freedom of Religion, Gay Marriage, Health and Human Services, Health-care, HHS, Humanism, Kathleen Sebelius, Military, Military Chaplain, Morality, Nurse, Pro-Life, Religious Freedom, Religious Liberty, Secular Humanism, Secularism

Which companies discriminate against supporters of traditional marriage?

Here’s a video in which Frank Turek explains how he was firfed by Cisco and Bank of America for supporting traditional marriage.

This video got me thinking – which companies would support firing people who support traditional marriage?

The Human Rights Campaign

You may have seen a logo on car bumpers that feature a yellow equal sign on a purple background. That logo is the logo of the Human Rights Campaign, which opposes traditional marriage and believes that children do not deserve to grow up with their biological mother or biological father. They also believe in firing people who support traditional marriage, as we shall see below.

Here is an example of what the Human Rights Campaign does to people who support traditional marriage.

Story from the magazine Down East.

Excerpt:

Larry Grard admits he had “a lapse in judgment.” But Grard – who’s been a reporter for thirty-five years, the last eighteen of them at the Morning Sentinel in Waterville – says the e-mail he sent from his personal account to a national gay rights group shouldn’t have been grounds for his dismissal.

Grard was fired by Bill Thompson, editor of the Sentinel and its sister paper the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, shortly after the Nov. 3 election in which Maine voters repealed a same-sex marriage law approved by the Legislature. Grard said he arrived at work the morning after the vote to find an e-mailed press release from the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C., that blamed the outcome of the balloting on hatred of gays.

Grard, who said he’d gotten no sleep the night before, used his own e-mail to send a response. “They said the Yes-on-1 people were haters. I’m a Christian. I take offense at that,” he said. “I e-mailed them back and said basically, ‘We’re not the ones doing the hating. You’re the ones doing the hating.’

“I sent the same message in his face he sent in mine.”

Grard thought his response was anonymous, but it turned out to be anything but. One week later, he was summoned to Thompson’s office. He was told that Trevor Thomas, deputy communications director of the Human Rights Campaign, had Googled his name, discovered he was a reporter, and was demanding Grard be fired. According to Grard, Thompson said, “There’s no wiggle room.”

He was immediately dismissed.

[...]The week after Grard was fired, he said, his wife, Lisa, who wrote a biweekly food column for the Sentinel as a freelancer, received an e-mail informing her that her work would no longer be needed.

That’s what the Human Rights Campaign does.

Companies that support the Human Rights Campaign

I found a list of companies on the Human Rights Campaign web site that are also strongly oppose traditional marriage. Presumably, these are the companies that would fire people who support a child’s right to grow up with a mother and a father.

Platinum Partners:

• American Airlines
• Citi
• Microsoft
• Nationwide Insurance
• VPI Pet Insurance

Gold Partners:

• Bank of America
• Deloitte
• Ernst & Young LLP
• Lexus
• Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams
• Prudential

Silver Partners:

• Beaulieu Vineyard
• BP
• Caesars Entertainment
• Chevron
• Google
• MGM Mirage
• Nike

Bronze Partners:

• Chase
• Cox Enterprises
• Cunard
• Dell
• Goldman Sachs
• IBM
• Macy’s Inc.
• MetLife
• Morgan Stanley
• Orbitz
• Paul Hastings
• PwC
• Replacements, Ltd.
• Shell
• Starbucks
• TD Bank
• Tylenol PM

And you can find the full listing of companies that promote discrimination against traditional marriage on the Human Rights Campaign web site. I notice that they have about 1 million people who like them on Facebook and 85 thousand Twitter followers.

Comments to this post will be strictly moderated in light of Obama’s signing of the hate crimes bill which prohibits free speech on controversial issues.

Filed under: Videos, Censorship, Christian, Christianity, Disagreement, Diversity, Fire, Firing, Free Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Religious Expression, Gay Activism, Gay Activist, Gay Agenda, Gay Lobby, Gay Rights, GLBT, Homosexuality, HRC, Human Rights, Human Rights Campaign, Intolerance, LGBT, Moral Relativism, Political Correctness, Religious Freedom, Religious Liberty, Termination

Hospital told nurses: assist in abortions or lose your job

From Life News.

Excerpt:

A dozen nurses have filed a lawsuit against their employer, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, which told them they had to either assist in abortions or risk losing their jobs.

The Alliance Defense Fund filed a lawsuit on behalf of 12 nurses in New Jersey who work for a hospital receiving federal health funds who were told they needed to assist abortions or be terminated from their employment. The mandate violates several federal conscience laws and state law, ADF senior legal counsel Matt Bowman tells LifeNews.

“Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” Bowman told LifeNews. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.”

According to a copy of the complaint ADF sent LifeNews, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey was “demanding that the Nurses must assist abortions in violation of their religious objections or they will be terminated. Defendants have illegally coerced some of the Nurses to train to assist abortions already, and Defendants are presently scheduling the others to do so.”

Keep in mind, though, that the Obama administration is opposed to these conscience protections for pro-life doctors and nurses. Democrats believe that Christians should act like non-Christians in public. They think that it is ok to force their views on Christians, using the power of the law and the courts.

Filed under: News, Abortion, ADF, Alliance Defense Fund, Atheism, Barack Obama, Conscience, Conscience Protection, Democrat, Democrat Party, Fascism, Freedom of Religion, Health and Human Services, Health-care, HHS, Humanism, Kathleen Sebelius, Morality, Nurse, Pro-Life, Religious Freedom, Religious Liberty, Secular Humanism, Secularism

Can you rely on government to defend your Christian values?

Here is a story from the UK, and appears in the UK Telegraph. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

Last month, the Equality and Human Rights Commission warned that British courts had failed to safeguard the rights of Christians who wanted to wear the cross at work, and urged judges to be more sensitive to religious discrimination.

The watchdog said it would call on the European Court of Human Rights to support the principle that employers should make “reasonable adjustments” to accommodate the religious beliefs of their staff.

However, a document posted on the commission’s website disclosed that the watchdog, which is chaired by Trevor Phillips, had abandoned the plan.

Traditionalist Christians claimed that the commission had dropped its support for religious freedom in the face of criticism from secular campaigners and gay rights groups.

The controversy erupted after the watchdog was granted permission to intervene in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, in the cases of Nadia Eweida, Shirley Chaplin, Lillian Ladele, and Gary McFarlane.

All four are Christians who are bringing legal action against the United Kingdom because they believe that British laws have failed to protect their human rights, specifically the right to freedom of religion.

Mrs Eweida, a check-in clerk at BA, was barred from wearing a small crucifix at work while Mrs Chaplin, a nurse, was banned from working on wards after she failed to hide her cross.

Miss Ladele was a registrar who lost her job at Islington town hall, in north London, after saying her beliefs meant she could not officiate at civil partnership ceremonies. Mr McFarlane was sacked for refusing to give sex therapy counselling to gay couples.

Last month, the commission promised to argue in the European court that existing laws had been interpreted in ways that are “insufficient to protect freedom of religion”. It proposed that employers should be able to reach “reasonable accommodations” with their staff to “manage” how workers manifest their beliefs.

However, the watchdog has now launched a public “consultation” on the arguments it should make and has abandoned the plan to call for a new “reasonable accommodation” principle to be introduced, arguing that “this idea needs more careful consideration”.

Don Horrocks, from the Evangelical Alliance, said the Commission had been “successfully intimidated against proceeding as they initially announced”.

“Being forced to be morally complicit in activities which directly violate people’s religious conscience involves fundamental human rights principles,” he said. “There is likely to be a deep sense of injustice within religious communities.”

The gay rights organisation, Stonewall, said it was “deeply disturbed” by the commission’s original plan to support Christians “who have refused to provide public services to gay people”.

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, said last night that it was “perfectly reasonable” for workers to be able to wear a “discreet” cross or other “symbols of identification” at work. “That is very different from saying ‘I wish to work in a public service but to exempt myself from delivering public services to people who have paid for them.’”

A spokeswoman for the Commission said: “Our job is not to take sides in political arguments between activist groups, it is to make sure people do not face unjustified discrimination.”

So what do we learn from this? The Equality and Human Rights Commission was created by the Labour Party, with arch-feminist Harriet Harman playing a key role in its administration. The goal of the commission was to fix unfair discrimination and other injustices. But apparently, they don’t mean discrimination against Christians. So we shouldn’t vote for parties on the left – they don’t stand up for Christians.

 

Filed under: News, Anti-Christian, Bullying, Compassion, EHRC, Emotion, Equality, Feelings, Feminism, Harriet Harman, Human Rights, Labour Party, Liberal, Niceness, Religious Freedom, Religious Liberty, UK