Religious Liberty in America Is in Peril - BILL DONOHUE/CATHOLIC LEAGUES FOR RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL RIGHTS

(Reuters photo)

Religious Liberty in America Is in Peril

2/16/2017 BILL DONOHUE/CATHOLIC LEAGUES FOR RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL RIGHTS

On Feb. 16, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice will hold a hearing on "The State of Religious Liberty in America." Hopefully, it will accelerate the push to secure this most fundamental of freedoms.

President Trump is considering an executive order on religious liberty, the draft of which holds much promise. But legislation is also needed: Religious liberty is currently imperiled on several fronts. 

The war on religion—and that is exactly what it is—is being led by agents of government and activist groups seeking to impose a militant secular agenda on Americans. What drives them more than any other issue is an irresponsible interpretation of sexual freedom.

The activists and lawmakers pushing this cause accuse many religious institutions of resisting their agenda. They are correct. Traditional Catholics, evangelical Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Orthodox Jews, Mormons and Muslims all reject abortion and homosexuality, and they find attempts by the government to encroach on their beliefs and practices objectionable. There is much to object to, especially at the state level.

Many states are considering pro-abortion legislation. In Connecticut, they are weighing a bill that takes aim at a familiar target: crisis pregnancy centers. These centers are the epitome of choice: They give young pregnant girls the choice of giving their baby up for adoption, yet the pro-choice lobby works to deny them this choice.

In Illinois and Maryland, lawmakers are considering bills that would allow Medicaid and state employee health insurance to cover abortions.

In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo is pushing the legislature to consider a bill that makes abortion legal for any reason and at any time during pregnancy, even if Roe v. Wade were overturned; he wants Roe codified in the New York State Constitution. Rhode Island lawmakers are studying similar legislation.

New Mexico is considering a bill that would force Catholic hospitals to pay for and perform abortions. The ACLU and other anti-Catholic organizations are lobbying for it.

Most outrageous, there is a coordinated effort going on in 18 states to expand abortion rights. Those behind these efforts want abortion to be covered in both public and private insurance plans, including Catholic ones.

This fight is being led by pro-abortion lawmakers in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. In St. Louis, city lawmakers passed a bill last week that threatens to do the same.

On the LGBT front, the following states are weighing measures that would treat LGBT rights as analogous to race and religion in the workplace: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Texas. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe recently signed an executive order that protects LGBT rights among state employees, contractors and subcontractors.

New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who chairs the bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, recently sent a letter to President Trump calling on him and his administration to make religious liberty protections a priority. They also called on Congress to do the same.

Lori specifically cited the Health and Human Services mandate issued by the Obama administration as a grave threat to religious liberty; it would make religious institutions such as the Little Sisters of the Poor pay for abortion-inducing drugs in their health care provisions.

The most immediate relief needed is to secure the kinds of religious exemptions in law that have been traditionally afforded. Not to do so is to allow the government to police Catholic non-profits and other religious entities.

President Trump needs to issue a strongly worded executive order on religious liberty, one as wide in scope as the law allows. Similarly, lawmakers at the local, state and federal levels need to pass bills that safeguard religious liberty from the heavy hand of government. At stake is the First Amendment and the beliefs and practices of millions of Americans. 

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The 'Other Mandate' Loses Big in Federal Court - BILL DONOHUE/CATHOLIC LEAGUES FOR RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL RIGHTS

(Reuters photo)

The 'Other Mandate' Loses Big in Federal Court

1/4/2017 BILL DONOHUE/CATHOLIC LEAGUES FOR RELIGIOUS AND CVIL RIGHTS

If the Obama administration had its way, the new year would have begun with a dramatic loss of religious liberty and an equally dramatic bastardization of existing law. Instead, U.S. District Court Judge Reed O'Connor issued a preliminary injunction on New Year's Eve stopping the Obama administration from denying the right of Catholic institutions to live by their religious tenets.

Texas, and other states, along with the Franciscan Alliance, and other religious entities, sued the federal government for violating basic religious rights. Judge O'Connor ruled that the Obama administration's regulation barring discrimination on the basis of "gender identity" could not be enforced. The defendants also sought to force Catholic institutions to perform, and pay for, abortions.

Joining the Franciscan Alliance as a plaintiff was the Christian Medical & Dental Society; the former was founded by the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, and the latter is the nation's largest faith-based organization of doctors. Even the Obama administration did not quarrel with their central complaint: the regulation meant that their religious-based objections to gender transitions and abortions would no longer be honored.

Think about what President Obama tried to do. To begin with, he sought to force religious organizations to perform an operation whereby a man acquires the body parts of a female, and vice versa. Second, these same organizations would be required to kill babies in the womb. If they did not agree, they would, in effect, be shut down; all federal funds would be cut.

The Obama lawyers had to be told by a federal judge that they had no right to dismiss the Administrative Procedure Act; it does not permit attempts to contradict existing law and efforts to exceed statutory authority. They were also schooled on the meaning of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law signed by President Bill Clinton making it difficult for the government to override religious liberties.

In a move that can only be called devious, the Obama team attempted to put a new spin on Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments: the new regulation, Section 1557, invoked those provisions to mean that it is discriminatory to deny gender transition operations. But in 1972, sex discrimination simply meant that it was unconstitutional to discriminate against a man or a woman, as determined by their sex at birth. It said nothing, and implied nothing, about guys switching genitals.

Obama's Health and Human Services admitted that if it got its way, some procedures "related to gender transition" may be required even if not "strictly identified as medically necessary or appropriate." Which means that if Bruce Jenner elected to finish the job—he still has male genitalia downstairs—Catholic institutions would have to pay for it.

Never satisfied to shove secular ideology down the throats of the faithful, the Obama regulation promotes a new form of discrimination, one that bars discrimination on the basis of "termination of pregnancy." Thus did the administration summarily ignore the plain language of the religious and abortion exemptions provided by Title IX.

The Obama attorneys exhibited a very selective interest in Title IX. Previous court rulings have made it clear that Title IX does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of transgender itself; transgender is not a protected characteristic under the statute.  

Where did Obama's attorneys think they got all these new rights? As Judge O'Connor pointed out, it wasn't from the Supreme Court: he explicitly said that when it comes to the Congress delegating sweeping powers to an administrative agency, it "has emphasized a common-sense approach." 

That, of course, is the problem. The Obama staffers have no common sense. Moreover, this was a rank power grab.

Only deep thinkers void of common sense would maintain that it is normal for a guy to protest his manhood, or for a gal to acquire the anatomy of a man. It is meanness, not a lack of common sense, that explains why these same operatives seek to coerce faith-based institutions into performing and funding this abnormal feat. It is even worse to make them sponsor child abuse in the womb.

Obama's fixation on abortion rights and transgender rights is at one with his animus against religious liberty. Thank God he lost this round. Soon he won't be able to do any more damage. Hallelujah!

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