Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:
Following her testimony yesterday before the Senate Finance Committee, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius was asked whether she spoke to the bishops about the controversial mandate she is pushing. She admitted she did not. Then she said, “I know that the president has spoken to the bishops on several occasions.”
Sebelius is wrong. Bishop William Lori, who heads the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, said this week that administration officials should have sat down with the bishops. “That certainly did not happen,” he said. Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who heads the bishops’ conference, met once with the president, and that was three months ago; the two phone calls he has had since were to inform him that the bishops’ religious liberty concerns would not be honored.
Under questioning from Sen. Orrin Hatch, Sebelius further admitted that HHS never subjected the religious liberty issues to a legal analysis, as requested by 27 senators. She also admitted that she never asked the Justice Department to consider this issue.
It gets worse. Today’s New York Times reports today that the administration announced the Obama mandate “before it had figured out how to address one conspicuous point: Like most large employers, many religiously affiliated organizations choose to insure themselves rather than hire an outside company to assume the risk.” As the Times points out, this is not a slight issue: 60 percent of all workers with health insurance are covered by a self-funded plan, and the figure jumps to 82 percent for large companies. And no one bothered to address this?
So they refused to consult with the bishops; they refused to weigh the First Amendment religious liberty concerns; and they refused to study how the mandate might impact self-insured companies. In other words, with characteristic arrogance, they just “winged it.” Wait until the Supreme Court hears all of this.
17 comments:
Tyrants need no consultation; they simply dictate, and we obey.
Obama - and the forces that surround him - are, in essence, allocating to the State supreme power. This is a half-way house to fascism.
A similar attempt was made by Mussolini against Catholic Action which precipitated a powerful reaction from Pius XI.
Indeed it is Fascism pure and simple and shockingly so. Who would have thought that it would be here in the USA?
Indeed, or that there would be none in Congress to confront the problem and deal with it. If we have no strength of will to enforce our founding documents, then the Republic is doomed.
a) These seeds were down with Obamacare and the brought powers it bestowed upon the Secretary, and therefore the USCCB is complicit in it (to their shame).
b) I wonder if the lunatic fringe reaslizes that if this law stands, that some future administration's Secretary of HHS, one not to their likely, could change a whole bunch of things right back to the way they were or further to the right.
The (possibly apocryphal) statement of Edmund Burke is appropriate: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
And sadly, he has more for us: "The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny."
Wow, I really need to spell check my posts. I don't know what my fingers were doing on that last one. LOL
Templar, your notion of future potential presupposes that the Republic survives.
I've posted the complaints in the EWTN and Priests for Life lawsuits at my blog if anyone wants to see them: http://cemeterypicnic.blogspot.com
Temp, none of this is Right or Left, Liberal or Conservative, as people understand it. It is even bigger than right and wrong. It strikes at the core of what makes us human, the ability to choose between right and wrong. And why not if they are going to define human life by its appearance or utility?
By the way, are you going to call or email?
rcg
rcg: Pin said he was going to pass my email adrress to you, he did not pass yours to me.
Templar, I do not have your email address. I have two email addresses for RCG and neither one works. He keeps changing them like some cyber chameleon. I'll call him. Sorry.
Temp, Pin has it now. He sent me a PM but it was nearly eaten by a hawk.
rcg
Pin, when we spoke I assumed you would grab my email address off the Macon Latin Mass Community list. I'll grab yours instead and send you mine.
Obama didn't listen to his advisors who warned him against this mandate.
Joe Biden is saying "I told you so." I guess Joe still remembers a little bit about some things Catholic.
(I am NOT implying that Joe Biden is any voice of righteousness or even regulary a healthy counterbalance)
Oh well, So much for being like Lincoln and listening to advisors that aren't yes men, as he claimed he'd be when campaigning.
He lost his way (the very little bit of good way he had)and is swept up in the uber-left wave that he fostered and that has now overtaken him.
What a mess he has gotten himself into...no pity from me.
This whole debacle will not stand up in court...and it will be great when the court system tisk-tisk's him and his ilk.
~SqueekerLamb
Squeeker, He has not lost his way. He knows damn well what he is doing and has from the start. And, I am not too confident in the SCOTUS. We are one justice away from a totalitarian state.
Squeek, seriously? Would you listen to Joe Biden even if he told you you were on fire?
I had an assignment on Capitol Hill and had to essentially scavenge the offices of the Senators and Congressmen for various information and access. Biden's office is one of the single most memorable for its complete uselessness. I have gotten better service and information from a Japanese DMV office.
rcg
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