Stand Up Rally Co-Directors Respond to Latest HHS Mandate “Accommodation”: Religious Freedom Still Under Attack
Posted by Eric Scheidler (February 1, 2013 at 4:21 pm)
Today the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced proposed new rules allegedly intended to accommodate the moral objections of religious employers to the HHS Mandate.
Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally co-directors Eric Scheidler and Monica Miller, who coordinated over 250 individual rallies coast-to-coast last year in opposition to the HHS Mandate, issued the following statement in response:
Nearly a year after promising to provide an “accommodation” for religious employers who object to the HHS Mandate, the Obama administration has finally issued proposed new rules. While we await a full analysis of these proposed rule changes from legal experts, a first look at what the Obama administration is offering makes it clear that the objections of religious employers have not been taken seriously.
The Obama administration is now offering a complicated scheme whereby employers can “self-certify” to the insurance provider they’ve contracted with that they are “exempt” from the contraceptive mandate, and leave it to the insurer to arrange free contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs for employees, or students, in the case of educational institutions.
At the end of the day, religious institutions like Catholic hospitals and Christian universities are still being forced by the federal government to participate in a scheme whereby their employees are provided free contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.
It’s unconscionable that employees and students at an institution like Ave Maria University, which upholds the unchanging Catholic doctrine that contraception assaults human dignity, would receive free contraceptives thanks to their employment or enrollment there.
More disturbingly still, businesses like Hobby Lobby, which are not dedicated to specifically religious purpose but which nevertheless operate upon a basis of faith, are offered no protection whatsoever for their religious and moral objections to providing these services. The Obama administration is still claiming the right to decide who gets to exercise freedom of religion in the public square.
We encourage all who have been opposing the HHS Mandate to object to these unacceptable proposed rule changes during the public comment period before final rules are issued in April. Meanwhile, our public protest and education efforts will continue unabated.
Already on it. I’m doing my best to spread the word here in NH: http://bit.ly/WG6Zd6
God bless you & your efforts!
February 1st, 2013 at 4:59 pm
How does one officially object?
February 1st, 2013 at 8:00 pm
I will be putting the word out in Redding, CA tonight. Thanks for the update. As usual, one cannot go by what the president says, but what he does.
February 1st, 2013 at 11:41 pm
We are all aware of these “twisted” new regulations – spreading the information to all concerned….let us know IF he are going to RALLY again!!!
Thank YOU for your continued great work…Patricia
Charleston SC
February 2nd, 2013 at 7:31 am
I think we need to become genuinely afraid for Mr. Obama’s soul, and the souls of those who are in league with him. We need to begin daily prayer for their conversion to Christ. This petition is in our daily Liturgy and in all our prayers here at the house. Let us raise concerted prayer that God will be able to pierce the barrier that stands between Him and them, that He will disarm the demonic forces that are taking advantage of them and that they will become vulnerable to His transforming Grace. As with all attacks of ecstatic evil, there is more than politics going on, here.
February 3rd, 2013 at 1:11 am