Posted by Heather Gardner (June 9, 2012 at 11:35 pm)
A crowd of 300 gathers to STAND UP in Athens, Georgia
Athens, Georgia is well known by its residents as a hub of liberal politics where anything with so much as a right-wing stripe is summarily dismissed. Yet, this hotbed of liberal ideology–the home of Georgia’s flagship university–still managed to produce 300 protesters for Friday’s Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally.
This level of attendance represents a 50 percent increase over the attendance at the March 23 Stand Up Rally in Athens. In a community where the prevailing viewpoint is left-leaning, to say the least, opposition to this administration’s obstruction of religious liberty is growing. [Continue reading …]
Posted by Monica Migliorino Miller (June 8, 2012 at 9:52 pm)
We had a wonderful lineup of speakers at the Detroit Rally today.
-Stacy Swimp
-Pastor Claude May
-Fr. Eric Fedewa
-Prof. Mary Healy
-Bishop Ira Combs
-Teresa Tomeo
-Sr. Rose Marie Kujawa
-Bishop Michael Byrnes
-And the musical talent of Dino Valle
Here is a great way to share the Religious Freedom Rally with friends or family who may have missed it.
It is a full youtube playlist of all the Detroit speakers. By sharing this link, you help to extend the message that so many rallied for today.
We need to keep this conversation going at work, at home, when we are out in public, and in our own corner of the digital continent.
Building on the momentum of a successful Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally on March 23rd, the June 8 rally did not disappoint. Featuring our own Bishop William Medley – Diocese of Owensboro, the rally maintained an enthusiastic level throughout the hour long program. At the sound of the noon siren, the crowd of at least 400 citizens was spread across the lush lawn at Moreland Park, taking advantage of shade trees to listen to an impressive array of speakers and singers.
Both Federal and State level representation was heard sharing their inspiring and informative messages: US Senator Rand Paul, US Congressman Brett Guthrie and KY Senator Joe Bowen each either spoke or sent officials of their administrations. We also heard a moving account from a representative of Silent No More, who explained her reason for publicly sharing her heart-wrenching experiences as a post-abortive woman. [Continue reading …]
Posted by Janet Le Blanc (June 5, 2012 at 11:19 am)
The theme song for the Stand Up of Religious Freedom Rally in Augusta, Maine is God Bless the USA. This song address how many of us feel about the United States. Freedom was paid for with the blood of many—a sacrifice, so freedom will stand.
The words, “I gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today,” embraces the call every United States citizen, who cares about freedom has.
The purpose of the Religious Freedom Rally is to Stand Up and defend the rights given to us in the U.S. Constitution.
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 …]
One of the more fascinating commentaries on the HHS Mandate that has appeared recently is that written by University of St. Thomas law professor Michael Stokes Paulsen, entitled “Obama’s Contraception Cram-down: The Pork Precedent.”
Paulsen’s use of the words “cram-down” was quite deliberate, calling it “a perfect term” to describe the HHS’s policy:
The whole point, it seems, is to override religious objections to such a policy to the maximum extent politically possible, out of an intense ideological commitment to contraception and abortion as ‘preventive health care.’ It is vital, the ideologues say, to prevail over religious objections precisely in order to advance, and permanently entrench, this particular ideology and, further, to vindicate the power of government to impose such policies on everyone. Religious objections must be overcome, in part for the sake of overcoming religious objections.
He goes on to say that the HHS Mandate calls to mind a story from the book of Fourth Maccabees, one of the books of the “Apocrypha.”
In the second century B.C., the Seleucid Emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes decreed that all Jews would be forced to violate their consciences by eating pork and food sacrificed to idols. [Continue reading …]
The president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan, issued a letter [PDF] to his brother bishops on Friday in which he strongly hinted that the USCCB intends to file a legal challenge to the Obama Administration’s HHS Mandate:
[O]ur bishops’ conference, many individual religious entities, and other people of good will are working with some top-notch law firms who feel so strongly about this that they will represent us pro bono. In the upcoming days, you will hear much more about this encouraging and welcome development.
As with so many of the public statements issued by U.S. Bishops regarding the HHS Mandate, Cardinal Dolan did not mince words, calling the mandates, at various places, “choking,” “suffocating,” and “strait-jacketing.” [Continue reading …]
Lawsuits were 
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made some rather candid admissions at an April 26 Congressional hearing.
One of the more fascinating commentaries on the HHS Mandate that has appeared recently is that written by University of St. Thomas law professor Michael Stokes Paulsen, entitled “Obama’s Contraception Cram-down: The Pork Precedent.”
The president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan, issued a