Moving Forward Doesn’t Mean Funding Planned Parenthood for President Obama’s Daughters

Editor’s note: This column was authored by Catherine Glenn Foster, Litigation Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.

It seems that every day the effects of the culture of death on our society are more and more obvious, and more and more gruesome. Just take the continued funding of Planned Parenthood with taxpayer dollars.

This ongoing controversy was highlighted recently when President Barack Obama declared yet again that he wants to continue pumping our hard-earned money into Planned Parenthood. Why? So it will still be around to perform abortions for daughters if they want one.

He drew a contrast with his political opponent, Gov. Mitt Romney, saying, “Mr. Romney wants to get rid of funding for Planned Parenthood. I think that’s a bad idea. I’ve got two daughters. I want them to control their own health care choices.”

To that end, President Obama asserted, “We’re not going backwards, we’re going forwards.”

But is it really going forward to prolong taxpayer funding of an organization that exists almost exclusively to kill innocent children, an organization where over 90% of the pregnant women who walk in, come back out without their baby? Is it really going forward to prop up “Big Abortion” so it will be there should one of your own daughters decide to have her preborn child killed?

Such thoughts should be chilling to the rational mind.

Remember that Planned Parenthood received nearly $400 million in taxpayer funds during the first year of the Obama administration, and nearly $500 million the following year. That’s well over a million dollars a day. With that kind of funding, the abortion giant was able to perform almost 330,000 abortions in 2010 alone.

In other words, President Obama has already been hard at work to make sure Planned Parenthood is around if his daughters want it. But between now and the day they might call upon the abortion giant for services, hundreds of thousands of other daughters across the country are lying on a Planned Parenthood gurney “[controlling] their own healthcare choices” at the expense of their preborn child—a child they usually aren’t even given full information about by the Planned Parenthood employee who is preying on them.

I don’t know about President Obama, but I want better than that for my daughters. I wanted better than that for Tonya Reaves, the young mother who recently died on a Chicago Planned Parenthood gurney thanks to a botched abortion and clinic staff who tried to cover up their mistakes instead of helping her.

All women deserve better than that. No woman should be lying on that gurney in an essentially unregulated clinic, where Planned Parenthood lawsuits have scared the government into keeping their hands off even the most basic, common-sense sanitation and safety regulations.

The culture of death is taking a toll on all of us. From the preborn children Planned Parenthood kills and then pulverizes, or throws in the dumpster, to the women it maims in the process, and even to the leader of the free world who wants Planned Parenthood around so his daughters can avail themselves of its “services.”

It’s time to end funding for the abortion giant. That’s what would truly be a step forward—for life.

http://townhall.com/columnists/townhallcomstaff/2012/08/04/moving_forward_doesnt_mean_funding_planned_parenthood_for_president_obamas/page/full/

Marriage is Marriage – Period

In this life, a number of relationships are of great significance, such as the relationship between a customer and his banker, a patient and his doctor, or even a congregant and his pastor. These are important relationships-some of which produce near-familial emotions, binding people together at a deep, deep level.

 

And while all of these relationships are important, they are but proximate compared with the ultimate earthly relationship—and that is marriage.

 

In fact, among relationships, marriage stands out as the one which is absolutely essential to the future of humanity. Despite this inarguable fact, marriage is under assault. And while this assault is but one front in the battle against Western Civilization as a whole, it could prove the most crucial if we lose it.

 

The enemies of marriage, striking at it tooth and nail, are varied in their approaches.

 

Those who advocate homosexual behavior, bolstered by the president’s support for same-sex “marriage,” are actively seeking to redefine marriage from what it always has been to what they demand it should become, which is anything and nothing. And this entails the willingness of many such advocates ” to invoke  the authority of ancient pagan civilizations in which practices condemned by the Judeo-Christian ethic sometimes flourished.”

 

Against all evidence, empirical and otherwise, those who wish to redefine marriage contend that permanently depriving a child of a father or mother is just as good for children as providing them homes with a father and mother. They have elevated the idea of diversity to a point approaching sacrosanct, and in so doing, have trampled the unifying qualities of real marriage underfoot.

 

This assault on marriage is also being carried out by those contending for polygamy. However, the danger of these relationships was recently highlighted by the British Columbia Supreme Court, which ruled Canada’s laws against Polygamy ” must remainin place because of the harm polygamist marriages would pose to children.”

 

Others pursue quasi-polygamy in hopes of escaping such prohibitions. This arrangement is one in which a man has numerous wives, yet he only recognizes one in a state-condoned, official marriage. All his other wives, whom he uses and abuses as he sees fit, are simply regarded as “spiritual spouses.” It’s a play on words, but the damage it causes to families is no less significant.

 

Against these and many other marriage deviations stands the genuine article—the union of one man and one woman. Established in a garden long ago, it is based on the complementariness of the male and female body to produce life and unity between a husband and wife, their offspring, and their Creator. This is marriage without hyphenations and qualifiers, where a mother and a father raise a family in the way mothers and fathers have been raising families since the dawn of time.

 

In other words, the marriage we defend and protect is just that—marriage.

 

Marriage is marriage, and nothing else is. And the future of humanity literally depends on it staying that way.

Alan Sears

Alan Sears, a former federal prosecutor in the Reagan Administration, is president and CEO of the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance employing a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

http://townhall.com/columnists/alansears/2012/06/07/marriage_is_marriage__period/page/full/

Why No State, Including Colorado, Should Accept “Civil Unions”

Note:  This testimony was provided to the Colorado House Judiciary Committee on May 3, 2012 concerning Colorado S.B. 002, a proposed “civil unions” bill.

Well-meaning folks, including legislators, who oppose redefining marriage, yet support civil unions and domestic partnerships for same-sex couples, do so with the mistaken belief that both sides of the marriage debate will be satisfied with this apparent compromise. In practice, however, neither side is happy. And more importantly, as a legal matter, civil union laws absolutely undermine the case for marriage.

Make no mistake about it; a vote for this bill is a vote for same-sex “marriage.” In every U.S. jurisdiction where civil unions or domestic partnerships have been enacted, those who advocated for their passage subsequently rejected them as inadequate and demanded that marriage be redefined. (That dynamic has occurred in California, Washington state, New Jersey, Vermont, the District of Columbia, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, Hawai’i, Illinois, and Nevada, where civil unions provided the legal rights and privileges of marriage; the celebration of those new legal rights were immediate followed with demands for a new definition of marriage.)

For example, the proponents of a civil union bill in New Jersey hailed it as “a wonderful moment—and a step toward equality.” Now, those who wanted civil unions characterize the law as “a failed experiment.” Why is that? It’s because achieving civil unions is a calculated step to achieving court-ordered same-sex “marriage.”

Here’s how the strategy works. Civil union and same-sex “marriage” proponents push for civil unions, claiming that it’s only fair to give some formal government recognition to same-sex relationships. Once passed or judicially imposed, they sue arguing that the laws are discriminatory because they are really marriages deprived of the name.

In New Jersey, the proponents of the civil union bill claimed to have played “a key role” in drafting it. But they are now attacking the very law that they helped pass, claiming that it is discriminatory because it allegedly creates a “separate and unequal” status.

In Connecticut, proponents of civil unions bragged that they “took the lead” in supporting civil union legislation but later brought suit arguing—without even a hint of irony—that the civil unions law violated equal protection. The Connecticut Supreme Court agreed and ruled that the civil union law effectively undermined the state’s interest in marriage as an opposite-sex union.

That same strategy worked in California, where the Ninth Circuit held in Perry v. Brown that the state’s domestic partnership scheme (which gave all the rights and benefits of marriage to same-sex couples) undermined the state’s interests in marriage as a union of a man and a woman. As UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh noted about Perry, “if the decision is upheld, this means that the arguments that civil unions are a ‘slippery slope’ to same-sex marriage were absolutely right.”

So far, this tactic has worked well. So it’s not surprising that recently proponents of same-sex “marriage” in Hawaii and Nevada filed suit in federal court claiming that, as a result of their respective civil union laws, their states’ laws defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman now violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Federal Constitution.

It should be clear by now that opposing same-sex “marriage” while supporting civil unions and domestic partnerships is akin to the Trojans dragging a wooden horse into the middle of Troy. This committee should be well aware that any civil union scheme that they chose to wheel through the front gate will unravel the institution of marriage, which the people of this state continue to cherish.

Byron Babione

Byron Babione is senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund (www.telladf.org), a legal alliance employing a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

http://townhall.com/columnists/byronbabione/2012/05/06/why_no_state_including_colorado_should_accept_civil_unions/page/full/

Can a Muslim Lead the Christian Campus Club?

If we follow the logic of the Supreme Court, a Muslim could lead the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship club on your local campus. As absurd as this sounds, it is the very real, potential outcome of some recent Court rulings, and it is in keeping with the decisions made independently by a number of colleges and universities.

In June, 2010, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the “University of California’s Hastings College of the Law acted reasonably, and in a viewpoint-neutral manner, in refusing to officially recognize and give funds to a campus chapter of the Christian Legal Society because the group refused to abide by the school’s requirement that student groups open their membership to all” (as reported by Peter Schmidt for The Chronicle of Higher Education).

The university had been sued by the Alliance Defense Fund when, “The school refused to recognize the campus Christian Legal Society chapter, Hastings Christian Fellowship (HCF), because it [would] not agree to a non-discrimination policy that would require the group to admit homosexuals and non-Christians as members and officers.”

In expressing the majority opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that it is “hard to imagine a more viewpoint-neutral policy than one requiring all student groups to accept all comers,” noting that, “Hastings, caught in the crossfire between a group’s desire to exclude and students’ demand for equal access, may reasonably draw a line in the sand permitting all organizations to express what they wish but no group to discriminate in membership.”

In a strongly-worded dissenting view for the minority, Justice Samuel Alito claimed that “the majority opinion rested on the principle of “no freedom of expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country’s institutions of higher learning,” warning that, “The court’s treatment of this case is deeply disappointing” and its decision “arms public educational institutions with a handy weapon for suppressing the speech of unpopular groups.”

The court’s decision also opens the door for campus lunacy. What if a bunch of ardent Republicans decided to take over the campus’s Democratic club? Or atheists decided to take over the Hindu club? Or Jews for Jesus decided to take over the Hillel club? Or Greenpeace devotees decided to take over the hunting club? Or meat-lovers decided to take over the PETA club? Or gay activists decided to take over the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship club? Or evangelical Christians decided to take over the LGBT club? (Oh wait. I’m sure someone would find a way to stop that.)

Is it unreasonable that campus groups would require members – let alone officers – to adhere to their values and beliefs? Isn’t that the purpose of the club?

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported on the decision by Vanderbilt Catholic (a campus group with 500 members) to leave Vanderbilt University “in a dispute over the school’s non-discrimination policy that bars student groups from requiring their leaders to hold specific beliefs.” (All students are allowed to attend meetings but the leaders must adhere to specific beliefs.) As P.J. Jedlovec, the group’s president, stated, “If we were open to having non-Catholics lead the organization, we wouldn’t be Catholic anymore.” This is not exactly rocket science.

While Vanderbilt Catholic has simply chosen to buck the system, other Christian groups still trying working within the system at Vanderbilt have been suspended. (For the record, Vanderbilt was founded as a Methodist institution.)

The Post article noted that, “Similar disputes have taken place in California, New York and North Carolina. The University of Buffalo suspended the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in December after a dispute over a gay student member. The University of North Carolina-Greensboro refused to recognize a Christian group called Make Up Your Own Mind because it discriminated on the basis of faith for leaders. The school relented after being sued.”

Note carefully the words “discriminated on the basis of faith for leaders.” How can it be called “discrimination” when a Christian group requires its leaders to hold to Christian values and beliefs? Rather, it is “discrimination” when the university refuses to allow a Christian group to be Christian.

Last month, the Supreme Court turned down an appeal brought by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of Christian groups challenging the policy at California state universities which did not allow them to restrict “membership in their groups to people who agree with their Christian values and beliefs.” Unfortunately, as noted by ADF attorney Jeremy Tedesco, “one of the key points in the whole case is that every other group on campus is allowed to restrict their membership and their officers to people who agree with the values the group was formed to advocate on campus.”

So, according to the court’s decision, it is not discriminatory for the College Democrats to require that its leaders be Democrats, but it is discriminatory for a Christian group to require that its leaders be Christian. How remarkable.

It appears, then, that a PETA campus group might not be overrun (or run) by cheeseburger-munching students but a Christian group just might be overrun (or run) by Muslim students. I can hear Justice Alito (and the other dissenting justices) saying, “I told you so!”

Tags:                 Discrimination            ,                                    college campus            ,                                    Tolerance            ,                                    Christians            ,                                    Student Clubs

Michael Brown

Michael Brown holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and has served as a professor at a number of seminaries. He hosts the nationally syndicated, daily talk radio show, the Line of Fire, and his latest book is The Real Kosher Jesus.

http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbrown/2012/04/06/can_a_muslim_lead_the_christian_campus_club/page/full/

What if a T-Shirt Maker Refused to Make Shirts Supporting Marriage

Imagine a T-shirt print shop run by owners who openly practice homosexual behavior. Let’s call it “Tolerance 101.” They make T-shirts for community events, annual “gay pride” rallies, and sports teams around their city. Now, imagine that a major Christian ministry contacts the company to have them make T-shirts that will be worn at an event supporting marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Tolerance 101 declines to the make the shirts. In short, the managing owner exercises his prerogative as a business owner to refuse to communicate a message in genuine conflict with his beliefs. Tolerance 101 does business all the time with heterosexuals and even has heterosexual employees, so it’s not about discrimination against any person. It’s simply about not wanting to further a message the owners so deeply oppose.  Tolerance 101 even goes the extra mile and finds another T-shirt shop willing to do the job at the same price.

This scenario never happened, but if it did, it’s almost certain that the Christian ministry would not be traipsing off to the local human rights commission to file a discrimination complaint. But turn the tables and see what happens.

A company called Hands On Originals decided to not make T-shirts for an upcoming “gay pride” event in Lexington, Kentucky. As a result of Hands On Originals’ decision, the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization of Lexington has filed a complaint with Lexington’s Human Rights Commission and is pushing what many would consider an all-out smear campaign against the T-shirt company for exercising a prerogative it would almost certainly want to reserve for itself.

This has caused the dominoes to start tipping one against the next, and an investigation has been launched into Hands On Originals because of its decision. And this investigation will certainly require the involvement of managing owner Blaine Adamson and others.

For example, Raymond Sexton, the executive director of the Human Rights Commission told Fox News that Hands On Originals will be “required by law to participate in the investigation.” Added Sexton: “We have subpoena power and have the backing of the law,” he said. “We are a law enforcement agency and people have to comply.”

Adamson, for his part, has respectfully responded that his company “employs and conducts business with people of all genders, races, religions, sexual preferences and national origins. However, due to the promotional nature of our products, it is the prerogative of the company to refuse any order that would endorse positions that conflict with the convictions of the ownership.”

But the bottom line in this juxtaposition of Tolerance 101 and Hands On Originals is that the former would certainly be extended a broader degree of freedom and professional discretion than the latter.  Tolerance 101 might even get kudos for its “courageous” stand against “bigotry” and its supporters would be quick to proclaim that the First Amendment protects Tolerance 101 from being punished for refusing to promote a viewpoint with which it disagrees. This duplicity is widely known but rarely addressed. And it allows homosexual activists to have their cake and eat it too, while condemning those who refuse to go along with the agenda.

It is the prerogative of a business owner to decline to aid in promoting a message that he cannot in good conscience promote. And this prerogative belongs to all business owners, whether they agree with the demands of those pushing a particular social agenda or not.

Tags:                 Gay Marriage            ,                                    Marriage            ,                                    First Amendment            ,                                    Freedom of Speech

Byron Babione

Byron Babione is senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund (www.telladf.org), a legal alliance employing a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

http://townhall.com/columnists/byronbabione/2012/04/03/what_if_a_tshirt_maker_refused_to_make_shirts_supporting_marriage/page/full/

Bank of America Representative Opposes Pro-Family Legislation in North Carolina

On May 8, North Carolinians will vote on Amendment One:  an act which amends “the constitution [of North Carolina] to provide that marriage between a man and woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in [the] state.” President Barack Obama has spoken out against Amendment One, the ACLU is lobbying against Amendment One, and the California Democratic Party has registered its disdain over the possibility that Amendment One might pass.

And while none of this is particularly ground-breaking news—it’s not uncommon to see President Obama, the ACLU, and the Democratic Party align against something that protects marriage—people may be surprised to know that representatives from Bank of America are also doing their part to try to make sure Amendment One doesn’t pass.

For example, Catherine Bessant, global technology and operations executive at the Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America, has appeared in a video opposing Amendment One and is on record saying, “Amendment One has the potential to have a disastrous effect on our ability to attract talent and keep talent in the state of North Carolina.”

Of course, the claim that the marriage amendment is going to hurt business is just a smokescreen unless it’s spoken out of ignorance. Which is true for Bessant is not known.  But North Carolina Rep. Paul Stam has made it clear that the amendment was framed in a way that doesn’t prevent private employers from offering civil-union benefits to an employee’s same-sex partner: “We added that language specifically to allay unfounded assertions that this was going to hurt businesses. They can give any kind of benefit they want. Where’s the beef?”

Nevertheless, the sad thing is that in reaction to an amendment that’s pro-family—and North Carolina’s Amendment One is pro-family—there are actually individuals who put financial interests first. (It’s all somewhat reminiscent of when many people—including some evangelical Christians—voted for Bill Clinton and justified doing so by seizing on the mantra,   “It’s the economy stupid.”)

But this time around, it’s not the economy that’s involved here, despite what some are claiming. Amendment One has been fashioned in such a way so as to guarantee that it isn’t. And this makes Bessant’s words all the more inaccurate.

Bank of America spokesperson Nicole Nastacie said that, while Bank of America won’t take an official position on Amendment One, “employees are allowed and encouraged to be involved in their personal capacity in dialogue and debate on important public issues.”

Let’s hope the bank sticks to its laudable policy if another executive stands up to in support of marriage and Amendment One.

Tags:                 Gay Marriage            ,                                    Marriage            ,                                    Family Values            ,                                    ACLU            ,                                    North Carolina            ,                                    Barack Obama

Brian Raum

Brian Raum serves as senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund.
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http://townhall.com/columnists/brianraum/2012/03/29/bank_of_america_representative_opposes_profamily_legislation_in_north_carolina/page/full/

The Fight Against Abortion Distortion in Rhode Island

While the Supreme Court prepares for the showdown over the constitutionality of ObamaCare next week, another important battle over the controversial law is playing out in a state court in Rhode Island.

Rhode Island Right to Life and 38 members of the Rhode Island General Assembly are fighting to stop Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s unilateral creation of an ObamaCare health insurance exchange that would subsidize elective abortions without a vote by the peoples’ elected representatives.  At issue is whether even the basic constitutional separation of powers will be another casualty of the abortion distortion, the tendency of the law (the First Amendment, parental rights, standing, etc.) to be distorted in order to facilitate abortion.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a.k.a., ObamaCare, asks that states create (or have the federal government create for them) health insurance exchanges that will approve qualifying plans for uninsured persons.  Premiums for plans in an exchange are then subsidized with federal taxpayer dollars.

And because the Hyde Amendment, a decades-old federal law limiting abortion funding or subsidies does not directly apply to ObamaCare—and is subject to annual expiration—elective abortions for any purpose could be subsidized by taxpayer dollars in a state health insurance exchange. The only thing standing in its way would be President Obama’s executive order (of dubious authority) stating that abortion restrictions in the Hyde Amendment would be applied to the health insurance exchanges.  And of course his executive order is subject to his own rescission or amendment at any time.  Even those who rely on the executive order to claim, wrongly, that Obamacare doesn’t fund elective abortions must acknowledge that President Obama can rescind that order at any time.  Abortion funding rests on his shoulders.

The members of the Rhode Island General Assembly take very seriously their constitutional responsibility to make law.  They also are concerned about the prospect that the state’s citizens could be forced to subsidize elective abortions in violation of their consciences.

In fact, the state’s founder, Roger Williams, a conscientious objector himself, once wrote, “Men’s consciences ought in no sort to be violated, urged, or constrained.”  That’s why the state Senate overwhelmingly approved a measure to create a health insurance exchange that would have required insurance providers covering elective abortion to separate this coverage and require an additional non-subsidized premium.  However, during the last legislative session, the plan could not get the required votes to pass in the House prior to adjournment.

This still left the House time to get the needed votes together.  After all, the exchanges need not be operational until Jan. 1, 2014.  Most states have not created exchanges yet.  So there was plenty of time to let the legislature work through the process of creating an exchange that did not subsidize elective abortions.

But Gov. Chafee refused to let the democratic process run its course.  Instead, he unilaterally created an exchange in violation of the Rhode Island Constitution’s separation of powers and without any limitations on abortion subsidies.  The Obama administration responded to Gov. Chafee’s unilateral declaration by awarding him $58 million (roughly $58 per person or $58,000 per square mile of Rhode Island) just in start-up funds and consultant fees.

The ultimate constitutional merits of ObamaCare will soon be determined by the Supreme Court.  But those worried about the law’s massive shift in regulation of healthcare from the states to federal government should be alarmed about a precedent that takes the lawmaking bodies in the states completely out of the equation.

And those concerned about the potential for abortion subsidies in ObamaCare should rightfully be concerned that this is yet another example of how those friendly to abortion funding in the state and federal governments will ignore legal constraints if it helps them to prevent obstacles to taxpayer funding for elective abortions.

The zealous proponents of the culture of death will not rest in their efforts to force taxpayers to fund their deadly agenda, even at the expense of the separation of powers and rights of conscience.

Tags:                 A Culture of Life            ,                                    Abortion            ,                                    Obamacare            ,                                    Rhode Island

Casey Mattox

Casey Mattox is counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund.

http://townhall.com/columnists/caseymattox/2012/03/24/the_fight_against_abortion_distortion_in_rhode_island/page/full/

First Abortion Pills For All, Now Surgical Abortions, Too? by Alan Sears

When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, i.e., ObamaCare, was being debated in public and in Congress during 2010, Americans who supported life were told again and again that the legislation would not cover abortion.  But like so many other aspects of Obama’s healthcare overhaul, what was promised and what was received turned out to be two different things – especially considering that many legislators read the bill only after they signed it into law.

For example, the Obama administration has now made it clear that the individual mandate in ObamaCare will contain a charge—an “abortion premium mandate”—to forcibly collect monies from millions of Americans who participate in state-administered “insurance exchanges” to pay for elective abortions. And nothing in the final rule that the Department of Health and Human Services issued March 12 concerning the establishment of exchanges required by ObamaCare alters that in the least.

The administration’s plan is to “collect a $1 abortion surcharge from each premium payer” once ObamaCare goes into effect in 2014. Or to put it another way, Americans enrolled in federally-subsidized ObamaCare plans will pay $1 a month to subsidize the abortion industry whether they are pro-life or pro-death, religiously opposed to abortion or religiously indifferent, morally outraged by killing children in the womb or morally obtuse on the matter.

This means President Obama’s war on rights of conscience continues apace.

But since Americans should not be compelled to pay for other people’s elective abortions, the Alliance Defense Fund joined the Bioethics Defense Fund in filing a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of numerous pro-life medical groups on Feb. 13.

The brief lays out the case by highlighting the “inescapable requirements upon all individuals who are, even unwittingly, enrolled in a health plan–either on their own or by their employer–that happens to include elective abortion coverage.” These “enrollees are compelled by the Act to pay a separate premium from their own pocket to the insurer’s actuarial fund designated solely for the purpose of paying for other people’s elective abortions.” Moreover, the requirement denies “enrollees the ability to decline abortion coverage based on religious or moral objections.”

Sadly, it appears that just as Congress passed ObamaCare under the cover of night in March 2010, the aspects of the legislation tied to the abortion mandate were done in an underhanded fashion as well:

Due to the public uproar [over]…elective abortion coverage, the drafters [of the Act] devised a scheme to avoid the direct federal funding of abortion. This goal of avoiding the use of tax-payer subsidies for abortion coverage was unfortunately achieved by a means that violates the First Amendment; namely, by compelling the taxpayer to personally pay a separate abortion premium.

 

There is too much at stake for Americans to simply look the other way on this particular issue. The same president who issued a mandate in February to force most employers, including religious ones, to provide insurance that covers contraceptives and abortifacients for their employees—whether the employer has a faith-based objection or not—is also telling Americans they will fund the elective, surgical abortions of other Americans.

The First Amendment and our rights of conscience are at stake.  No less than freedom itself is threatened by this mandate.

http://townhall.com/columnists/alansears/2012/03/15/first_abortion_pills_for_all_now_surgical_abortions_too/page/full/

Open Doors and Closed Minds by Mike Adams

There is simply no intolerance like that of so-called gay rights activists. In recent years, they have passed feminists as the most censorious political faction in higher education. Homosexual activists at Ohio University demonstrate that the gay rights movement is not about equality. It never has been. It is about forcing your views on others and forcing your opponents into closeted lives as second class citizens.

The most recent outbreak of homosexual hysteria began in the Fall Quarter of 2011. The Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) decided to fund religious speaker Frank Turek. Then, Open Doors, the campus LGBTIQQA (alphabet soup of victimhood) union protested due to Turek’s opposition to same-sex marriage. In other words, Open Doors wanted OU to close its doors to Turek because he is not as tolerant as they are. How queer is that logic?

The SAC is a commission of the Ohio University Student Senate that uses a portion of student general tuition to fund student organizations and student events. Any student organization program that uses university funding is under the direction of SAC’s general assembly. That includes Ratio Christi, a religious student organization that I have spoken for on more than one occasion.

Ratio Christi focuses on logical reasoning for the belief in the Christian worldview. So it made sense for them to invite Frank Turek to speak at OU. Turek spoke about his book “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.” He did not, however, speak about his book “Correct, Not Politically Correct: How same-sex marriage hurts everyone.”

Despite the fact that Turek came to speak on matters wholly unrelated to homosexuality, Open Doors opposed SAC’s allocating of their tuition money to fund Turek. Even when the subject is not homosexuality, the homosexuals have to change the subject to homosexuality. Their lives revolve around it. They simply cannot function unless they are proclaiming their victimhood.

The SAC did not capitulate to Open Doors demand that the Turek speech be cancelled. However, they did something almost as bad: they apologized to Open Doors. This is totally unacceptable.

Imagine what the conversation must have been like as SAC apologized to Open Doors. Maybe it went something like this: “We are truly sorry that you had to endure the thought that someone was present somewhere on campus – even for a couple of hours – who did not share your views on a subject he was not discussing. We know this was a trying time for your emotionally fragile constituency. We also know you were upset that not all student funds go to people who agree with you at all times and on all issues. So, we’re going to make it up to you. We’re buying extra condoms and contraceptives this year and using only student fees to do it. That will make the Christians just as angry as you were!”

How stupid are these people? Well, “stupid” is not a good choice of words. Let’s listen to their own words as quoted by a local newspaper reporter: “We were really confused and kind of pissed off,” said Open Doors co-chair, Michael Pistrui, after learning about SAC’s decision to fund Turek.

“Confused” and “pissed off” pretty well sums it up, doesn’t it. Gay activists are confused by a First Amendment that applies equally to everyone. And that pisses them off because they don’t really support equality.

But the story at OU gets worse. SAC is actually considering changing funding rules to ensure that such an incident never happens again. And that should be easy, shouldn’t it. Keeping homosexuals from getting angry is a pretty simple task. You just reward them for being angry and censorious and suddenly they become happy and tolerant, right?

Wrong.

SAC Treasurer Chris Wimsatt was quoted by The New Political as saying “We can’t decide to de-fund it after we already decided to fund it” suggesting that the principal moral and legal issue concerning the speech was contractual, not constitutional. In other words, cancelling the speech would have offended an isolated contract rather than offending a bedrock constitutional principle. Wimsatt said the effort to protest the matter was, “too little, too late” somehow suggesting that an earlier protest might have succeeded.

Regardless, the way forward is very simple. Conservatives should sponsor a speech next year called “The Gay Assault on Free Speech Equality.” When the Open Doors Gaystapo succeeds in shutting the doors to the speaker, they will humiliate themselves in the court of public opinion. Then my friends at the Alliance Defense Fund will come in and sue the SAC for viewpoint-based discrimination in the allocation of student activity fees.

What is needed is a plaintiff willing to put his finger in the glory hole of gay hypocrisy. Shaming the shameless will never be enough to prevent the fall of Athens.

http://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2012/03/15/open_doors_and_closed_minds/page/full/

Ultrasounds Are Only ‘Rape’ If They Prevent An Abortion

Virginia recently enacted a new law making theirs the eighth state to require an ultrasound to be performed prior to an abortion. As with other states that have passed similar measures, Virginia’s law provides the mother “an opportunity” to view the ultrasound image of her [baby] prior to the abortion,” but it is an option she can decline.

And because ultrasound technology poses a threat to the abortion industry—inasmuch as it allows a mother to see the life within her in a way that we couldn’t even imagine decades ago—supporters of death have been rallying the troops against the progress being made in Virginia and equating such ultrasounds with rape.

Their basis for making this claim is that women who want to have an abortion, but are less than 12 weeks along in their pregnancy, will have to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound: one in which “a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced.”

Straining to prove this mad assertion, abortion supporters are claiming that such an ultrasound requirement will result in women being “forcibly penetrated,” and therefore, violated by the state.

What’s strange is that these same people have no ethical qualms about allowing an abortionist’s scalpels and vacuum devices to be inserted into a woman as her baby is literally ripped from the womb limb by limb. And they apparently feel no angst over a pre-born child being injected with medicine that stops his or her heart so that labor can be induced and the stillborn child can be disposed of in a trash can (or a dumpster) in much the same way one would dispose of a banana peel or moldy bread.

Of course, there is no constitutional prohibition on providing women with full information about this life-and-death decision, as the Supreme Court has affirmed.  Nor is the ultrasound requirement an unlawful “search” by the government, any more than would be a legal requirement that a doctor take an x-ray of a broken limb before setting it.  In fact, even abortionists like Planned Parenthood admit that they routinely do ultrasounds before abortions to confirm gestational age – it is the standard of practice for this “business,” as confirmed by the pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

If the truth were told, what bothers opponents is not really the ultrasound requirement per se, but the combination of the ultrasound and the waiting period which gives the mother time to see and think about things before making a decision which, as the Supreme Court acknowledged in a recent case, “she may come to regret.”

Here’s the exact wording of the law:

Except in the case of a medical emergency, at least 2 hours before the performance of an abortion a qualified medical professional trained in sonography and working under the direct supervision of a physician licensed in the Commonwealth shall perform fetal ultrasound imaging and auscultation of fetal heart tone services on the patient undergoing the abortion for the purpose of determining gestational age. The ultrasound image shall be made pursuant to standard medical practice in the community, contain the dimensions of the fetus, and accurately portray the presence of external members and internal organs of the fetus, if present or viewable.

The combination of a waiting period and an ultrasound is a one-two punch against the culture of death, and its proponents don’t like it. They’d rather keep everything moving quickly so the woman doesn’t have time to think about the fact that she’s ending a human life – one that is her own flesh and blood. Members of the culture of death, used to peddling what the Supreme Court has called “the abortion distortion,” can call it “rape,” but reasonable people see this for what it is—an attempt to appeal to every sensibility in the mother’s heart and mind in the hope that she will become fully aware of what she’s actually doing to her pre-born child.

Tags:                 A Culture of Life            ,                                    Abortion            ,                                    Pro-Life            ,                                    ultrasounds

Steven Aden

Steven H. Aden is senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund (www.telladf.org).

http://townhall.com/columnists/stevenaden/2012/03/06/ultrasounds_are_only_rape_if_they_prevent_an_abortion/page/full/