Last Friday’s Stand Up for Religious Freedom rallies were a rousing success with tens of thousands of Americans from coast to coast taking to the streets to defend our cherished liberties.
News coverage of the event was widespread with hundreds of stories in local and national publications in nearly every market where a Rally was held.
But despite the coverage being very broad, it lacked something in the way of depth and all of us who attended Friday’s Rallies need to set the record straight. Some common errors popping up in many stories included: [Continue reading …]
Thursday, June 7—very day before our HUGE Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally—the Obama White House is holding a “Online Women’s Health Townhall” meeting at 10 a.m. Eastern.
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius—one of the architects of the HHS Mandate—is one of the scheduled guests for the online forum, and they’re calling for questions and comment from the public.
Is this timing deliberate? Is the Obama administration trying to spin this controversial issue in advance of Friday’s Rally?
We can’t say. But what we can do is get out voices into Thursday’s LIVE discussion.
Let’s crash Obama’s “women and health” forum and let Obama and Sebelius know exactly what we think of their approach to “women’s health”! Get all the details right here—including how to submit questions and where to watch.
Submit your questions and comments on the unjust HHS Mandate, and while your at it, mention Friday’s Rally!
A lot of people are buying into the lie that the HHS Mandate really isn’t that bad or that it really doesn’t force employers to violate their consciences.
Our friends at the Alliance Defense Fund have produced a great new video that explains exactly how Obamacare and the HHS Mandate forces us all to pay for contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs—and just how much may shock you.
Share this incisive video with all your friends and social media contacts!
A new film that opened last weekend tells an amazing story you won’t want to miss!
“For Greater Glory” tells the epic true story of Mexico’s Cristero War, which rocked 1920s North America. Audiences nationwide have been amazed at the parallells between the religious persecution in Mexico in the early 20th century and the threat of religious persecution in early 21st century America.
You can read more about the Cristero War in the Knights of Columbus Columbia Magazine and you can find out more about the film and showtimes near you here.
Please support this amazing pro-religious freedom movie that dovetails so well with the message of the Stand Up for Religious Freedom Campaign!
National Rally Co-Chairman Eric Scheidler and Pro-Life Action League communications Director Matt Yonke appeared with Josh Brahm on the most recent episode of the popular Life Report podcast to talk about the HHS Mandate and the Stand Up Rally effort.
This podcast is a great way to introduce friends to the problem with the HHS Mandate and what they can do to fight it!
Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally Co-Chairman Eric Scheidler just had an article entitled, “Nationwide Rally June 8 Demands Health Care Laws Respect Religion” posted on the Manhattan Declaration blog, spreading the word to thousands about the June 8 Nationwide Rally.
Here’s an excerpt:
When President Obama moved forward with health care reform in 2009, he made a critical error. He chose to partner not with the Catholic hospitals and other faith-based charities that for centuries have been meeting the health care needs of poor and disadvantaged, but with Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion chain.
From that partnership came the HHS Mandate, which considers fertility — a marker of good health — to be a kind of disease requiring mandated preventive care, and places the imagined “right” to free contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs above our most basic freedoms of religion and conscience.
That is the Planned Parenthood vision of health care, and it’s got to go.
Back in March the first Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally took place. Over 63,000 concerned citizens protested the HHS Mandate in 145 cities coast to coast, calling for the restoration of religious freedom.
On Friday, June 8, at noon local time in all six time zones, we return to the public square with the second Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally. But now we’re demanding more than the mere toleration of our religious convictions by America’s health care laws.
We’re calling on our leaders in Washington to give Christian health care institutions their rightful place when health care reform is on the table — as it will likely be in the next Congress.
Yesterday, 43 Catholic institutions filed suit against the Obama Administration over the HHS Mandate.
News of these lawsuits shouldn’t come as a surprise. Since early March, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been all but guaranteeing that lawsuits would be filed.
A few weeks later, Dolan, appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation, said, “We didn’t ask for this fight, but we won’t back away from it.”
Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon points out in the Wall Street Journal how it’s come to this in an op-ed appropriately titled, “Why the Bishops Are Suing the U.S. Government” that is accompanied by a picture of some of the 2,300 participants at the Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally in Philadelphia on March 23 (see above, right).
Professor Glendon writes:
The main goal of the mandate is not, as HHS claimed, to protect women’s health. It is rather a move to conscript religious organizations into a political agenda, forcing them to facilitate and fund services that violate their beliefs, within their own institutions. [Continue reading …]
Lawsuits were filed by 43 Catholic institutions in federal court today against the Obama Administration over the HHS Mandate.
Among the plaintiffs, the University of Notre Dame is the most significant.
In announcing its lawsuit, Notre Dame’s president, Father John Jenkins, CSC, sent an email to university employees in which he wrote:
Today the University of Notre Dame filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana regarding a recent mandate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). That mandate requires Notre Dame and similar religious organizations to provide in their insurance plans abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilization procedures, which are contrary to Catholic teaching. The decision to file this lawsuit came after much deliberation, discussion and efforts to find a solution acceptable to the various parties.
Let me say very clearly what this lawsuit is not about: it is not about preventing women from having access to contraception, nor even about preventing the Government from providing such services. [Continue reading …]
Despite a strong rebuke delivered to Georgetown University by the Archdiocese of Washington, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius addressed the graduates of the school’s Public Policy Institute this morning.
In her remarks, Sebelius couldn’t resist wading into the area of church/state relations. Toward the end of her speech, she said the following:
Ultimately, public policy is about making difficult choices. Today, there are serious debates underway about the direction of our country – debates about the size and role of government, about America’s role as a global economic and military leader, about the moral and economic imperative of providing health care to all our citizens. People have deeply-held beliefs on all sides of these discussions, and you, as public policy leaders, will be called on to help move these debates forward.
These are not questions with quick and easy answers. When I was in junior high, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was running for president. I wasn’t old enough to vote, but it was the first national campaign I really remember. Some of then-Senator Kennedy’s opponents attacked him for his religion, suggesting that electing the first Catholic president would undermine the separation of church and state, a fundamental principle of our democracy. The furor grew so loud that Kennedy chose to deliver a speech about his beliefs just seven weeks before the election. [Continue reading …]
The Archdiocese of Washington has sharply criticized Georgetown University’s decision to invite HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to address its School of Public Policy’s upcoming diploma ceremony.
A recent the editorial in Catholic Standard, the Archdiocese of Washington’s official newspaper, notes:
Founded in 1789 by John Carroll, a Jesuit priest, Georgetown University has, historically speaking, religious roots. So, too, do Harvard, Princeton and Brown. Over time, though, as has happened with these Ivy League institutions, Georgetown has undergone a secularization, due in no small part to the fact that much of its leadership and faculty find their inspiration in sources other than the Gospel and Catholic teaching. Many are quite clear that they reflect the values of the secular culture of our age. Thus the selection of Secretary Sebelius for special recognition, while disappointing, is not surprising.
Monsignor Charles Pope, a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, comments thusly on the importance of the preceding paragraph: [Continue reading …]
Last Friday’s Stand Up for Religious Freedom rallies were a rousing success with tens of thousands of Americans from coast to coast taking to the streets to defend our cherished liberties.
Thursday, June 7—very day before our HUGE Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally—the Obama White House is holding a “Online Women’s Health Townhall” meeting at 10 a.m. Eastern.
Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally Co-Chairman Eric Scheidler just had an article entitled, “Nationwide Rally June 8 Demands Health Care Laws Respect Religion” posted on the 
Yesterday, 43 Catholic institutions 
Lawsuits were 
The Archdiocese of Washington has sharply criticized Georgetown University’s