Additionally, she did get a letter published in today's Chattanooga Times Free Press. Here is the text of that letter:
Health mandate violates rights
Your headline (Feb. 8) poses the HHS Mandate as "Catholics clash with President." You imply by the ink given to statistics that, if enough people approve this mandate, it ought to be done.
This is a matter of free exercise of religion. Constitutional rights are not subject to popular opinion. The exercise of religious faith is necessarily corporate. Modern secularists want to make religion entirely personal. It is unconscionable that the federal government is mandating that Catholics in Catholic institutions "sin" to comply with this mandate.
The free exercise of religion already has been compromised. Institutions and individuals have been sued for refusing to provide services to same sex "marriages." Catholic adoption services have had to close shop because they declined to place children in same-sex households, and the children they served languish.
This is not an issue of women's health, a "Catholic" issue, or an issue to be decided by majority opinion. Everyone of good conscience, religious or not, Catholic or not, approving of contraception or not, should see this as an unprecedented infringement on our constitutional rights and stand visibly, constantly, vocally and persistently against it. If not, the next group attacked may very well be your own.
BARBARA HARTY GOLDER, Lookout Mountain
I couldn't agree with you more, Barbara. The attitude of the Obama administration toward the Catholic Church (and freedom of religion in general) is both sad and despicable. Embarassingly, 54% of Catholics voted for Obama in the 2008 election, and unless the current outreach campaigns by organizations like Catholicvote.org put a dent in the apathy we're headed for a very slippery slope. We Catholics represent 25% of the voting public in the United States. If we stand together, we can ensure that Obama joins the ranks of one-term presidents and that the most significant decision he makes in 2013 is where to build his presidential library.
ReplyDeleteJim Sabourin
Thanks Jim and I agree, we need unity to make him a one term President! I would only add that we are already rocketing down the slippery slope with frightening momentum. We must accomplish this and more to slow our current free fall in to a country of Secular Socialist Totalitarianism.
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