Posted by
Steve on Thursday, February 09, 2012 12:17:00 PM
The Obama administration telling the Catholics what to include in their medical insurance for their employees is not about women’s rights or abortion or even health. It is all about the separation of Church and State. The first amendment to the Constitution says that Congress shall make no law that establishes a state religion or interferes with an already established religion. What the Obama administration is trying to do is to tell the Catholic Church what beliefs they will have. This is, in effect, creating a state religion. If the government can tell a church what it can and cannot believe, we then have a state religion.
We do already have a “State Religion” right now. It is not called that, but it is one nonetheless. The State Religion is, “Secular Humanism”. The Obama administration in particular has been trying to get other churches to conform to the state religion since early 2009. Just recently they were rebuffed when they tried to tell a church who was or was not a minister of the gospel. The church had their rules and the government had theirs. The court said that the church rules prevailed. That would be correct if we have the first amendment to the Constitution.
The strong arm tactics that the Obama administration is practicing right now is an attempt to overwhelm a church with power and tell it what to do. The Obama administration did not count on the Catholic Church fighting back like they have. That is because so many Catholics ignored the danger signs and signed on to Obamacare when it was being foisted on the country. The Obama administration thought that if that many Catholics were willing to sell out for Obamacare, they would be easy pickings for this power grab. Unfortunately for the Obama administration, they were dealing with two different groups of people. The people that supported Obamacare were the liberal Catholics. The church leadership is far more conservative and protective of their mission. Any threat to that mission is dealt with quickly and severely.
Also, the Obama administration counted on other religions just thinking this was about abortion and not doing anything. The Catholics have received support from just about every other organized church in the United States. That again poses great danger for the Obama administration. A united group of religious people can pose a potent force at the ballot box.
As a result of this outpouring of support for the Catholics, the Obama administration has started to signal that it might be willing to compromise. Their first effort at compromise basically was no compromise at all. It just was a delay in the implementation of the Obamacare regulations. That will never be acceptable to the Catholics or others interested in keeping the government out of the church.
I am not comparing the Obama administration to Hitler’s Nazi’s, but the steps that the Obama administration is taking in regards to religion is remarkably similar to the steps taken by the Nazi’s after they assumed power in Germany. It took a few years, but before long Hitler’s picture was on every German pulpit. It happened because nobody stopped them in the early steps. This power grab by the Obama administration needs to be stopped. I was gratified to hear that John Boehner said that if the Obama administration does not reverse their field, the House will pass legislation requiring it to do so. With the Senate in the hands of the Democrats, I am not sure how far that would go. But even Catholic Democrats are upset at the power grab. We shall see what transpires over the next couple of weeks.