Citizen Media reporting at its finest

FreeRepublic.com 

Posted on Friday, March 23, 2012 by ottbmare

Today tens of thousands of Americans gathered in 140 cities to peacefully protest the "HHS Mandate". This recent mandate of the US Department of Health and Human Services requires religious institutions and faithful employers to provide insurance coverage of contraceptive drugs and devices, sterilization services, and abortion-producing drugs, even if this coverage is anathema to them. The mandate levies crushing fines on any institution that attempts to opt out of paying for such  coverage. Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Jews, and Muslims are all strongly opposed to providing coverage of such services, and since HHS and the Obama Administration have been absolutely adamant that they would not change this provision of Obamacare, these protests were organized. 

In DC, the protest was held directly in front of HHS headquarters, where presumably Kathleen Sibelius and her minions could not be unaware of it. Organizers anticipated a few hundred demonstrators, but counted 1300 before they began the rally. In the unseasonably pleasant spring sunshine, families gathered with babies and older children; nuns, priests, and monks came to watch and pray; determined individuals brought large American flags, smaller signs, and splendid banners. Blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Asians were represented, and both Catholics and Protestants came to show support. With their signage, their prayers, and their massed voices, all proclaimed one message: We will not comply!

The principal speaker was Presbyterian minister Patrick Mahoney, the rally captain and organizer for DC. What a motivating, high-energy speaker he is! 

Other speakers included-- 
--the splendid, electrifying Star Parker, a former welfare mother who stopped living a dissolute life and became a Christian speaker, broadcaster, and writer
--Dr Milton Lee, a Korean pastor who had flown in from Seoul to thank America for her friendship
--a truly electrifying black preacher who had some serious warnings for our stubborn, unChristian president about facing Christ when he dies
--the beautiful Lila Rose, who spoke against abortion from the perspective of one who had survived an attempt to abort her
--Father Marcel Guarnizo, a holy priest, a conservative, and a brilliant scholar.

I want particularly to note the concluding remarks of Father Marcel. Many of you will have heard of the recent controversy about him, when his gentle and quiet refusal to give the elements of Communion to an openly practicing lesbian created an international media firestorm. His quietly adamant position about this finally caused the gay-sympathizing Archdiocese of Washington to punish him, withdrawing his faculty to operate as a priest in the DC area. He has been in seclusion since the incident at the end of February, and this rally was his first public appearance since then. It was a risk, for his absolute dedication to the cause of Christ has brought unbelievable hatred as well as grave threats from liberals and gays.

Nevertheless, this courageous little man would not allow threats to silence him. He gave a closely-reasoned speech which made no appeal to emotion, but discussed  our Constitution and the First Amendment. The crowd was spellbound as he created his case: that this matter is not just about healthcare, or contraception, or even abortion, but about the existence of the United States as a Constitutional republic. For in depriving us of our religious freedom and compelling us to subsidize a culture of death, the Obama Administration removes every freedom, in the manner of a totalitarian government. If this stands, he says, we have resigned all our freedoms and will be living under a totalitarian government.

LifeSiteNews.com

by Tony Gosgnach

An Ontario Court of Justice judge erupted in a lengthy, angry tirade against pro-life activist Mary Wagner – and ejected a spectator from the public gallery – in a downtown Toronto courtroom Wednesday. The judge then sent Wagner to jail for an additional 92 days, added to 88 days already served prior to trial, after finding her guilty of mischief and two counts of failing to comply with probation orders.

The charges related to Wagner’s November 8 arrest at the site of the Bloor West Village “Women’s Clinic.” Wagner has been arrested on several occasions for peacefully entering abortion facilities in Toronto, where she presents women in the waiting room with a rose and offers them pro-life counseling. 

The remarkable scene played itself out after Crown attorney Derek Ishak and defense counsel Russell Browne made a joint submission to Mr. Justice S. Ford Clements for time served plus a three-year probationary term. But Clements emphatically rejected the submission.

“She can sit in jail, if that’s the only way to protect people,” he fulminated, calling Wagner “cowardly” for “abusing other human beings” and not having the courage to make her views known through other channels. “This is an extraordinary waste of resources. Get a grip!”

“You don’t get it, do you? What’s the rule of law? You’re required to abide by it … You’ve lost the right as a citizen to be anywhere near an abortion clinic or to speak to an employee,” he said.

“You’re wrong and your God’s wrong,” he continued. “You have complete contempt … There is a right to (abortion) in this country … You don’t have a right to cause (abortion-seeking women) extra pain and grief the way you do.”

“[Abortion] is legal,” he continued, “that’s all you have to understand … You start causing people emotional pain and harm, you think that’s okay?”

He then asked Wagner whether she would stay away from abortion sites for three years as required by the proposed terms of probation.

“I will not,” Wagner replied firmly.

“Then you’re going to jail,” said Clements.
Read this story at lifesitenews.com ...

American Minute with Bill Federer

British Journalist Malcolm Muggeridge explained how Hitler's universal healthcare plan eventually led to the Holocaust:

"We have been accorded, for those that have eyes to see, an object lesson in what the quest for 'quality of life' without reference to 'sanctity of life' can involve...The origins of the Holocaust lay, not in Nazi terrorism...but in pre-Nazi Weimar Germany's acceptance of euthanasia and mercy-killing as humane and estimable."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer rebuked German Christians who stood silent while Hitler intimidated church leaders to accept the socialist, anti-life agenda of the National Socialist Workers Party (NAZI).

The New York Times reported Oct. 10, 1933:

"Nazi Plan to Kill Incurables to End Pain; German Religious Groups Oppose Move...The Ministry of Justice...explaining the Nazi aims regarding the German penal code, today announced its intentions to authorize physicians to end the sufferings of the incurable patient...in the interest of true humanity.

The Catholic newspaper Germania hastened to observe: 'The Catholic faith binds the conscience of its followers not to accept this method.'...In Lutheran circles, too, life is regarded as something that God alone can take...

Euthanasia...has become a widely discussed word in the Reich...No life still valuable to the State will be wantonly destroyed."

Bonhoeffer warned Germans not to slip into the cult of Führer (leader) worship, as he could turn out to be a Verführer (mis-leader, seducer).

Jimmy Carter, in his book Sources of Strength, 1997, wrote:

"Rev. Niebuhr urged Dietrich Bonhoeffer to remain in America for his own safety. Bonhoeffer refused. He felt he had to be among the other Christians persecuted in Germany.

So he returned home, and...in resistance to Hitler...preached publicly against Nazism, racism, and anti-Semitism...Bonhoeffer was finally arrested and imprisoned.

Born FEBRUARY 4, 1906, he died April 9, 1945, just a few days before the allied armies liberated Germany. He was executed on orders of Heinrich Himmler. He died a disciple and a martyr."

Jimmy Carter concluded:

"The same Holy Spirit...that gave Bonhoeffer the strength to stand up against Nazi tyranny is available to us today."

As a young man, Bonhoeffer was deeply effected by the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York, where he taught Sunday School and formed a life-long love for African-American spirituals.

Bonhoeffer challenged believers:

"To endure the cross is not tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ"

In his most widely read book, The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer wrote:

"Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace."

On February 16, 2002, Dr. James Dobson told the National Religious Broadcasters:

"Those of you who feel that the church has no responsibility in the cultural area...

What if it were 1943 and you were in Nazi Germany and you knew what Hitler was doing to the Jews...Would you say, 'We're not political-that's somebody else's problem'?"

Dobson concluded:

"I thank God Dietrich Bonhoeffer did not give that answer, and he was arrested by the Nazis and hanged in 1945, naked and alone because he said, 'This is not right.'"

He calls on the people to reject elites' 'choice of evils' dilemma

WND.com

*excerpt*

The elitist faction that engineered Barack Obama’s occupation of the White House is clearly determined to overthrow government of, by and for the people founded upon the God-acknowledging principles of America’s Declaration of Independence and established by the Constitution of the United States. Though, at the very least, a large plurality of Americans oppose the elitists’ moral and economic deconstruction of liberty, the results of Florida’s just completed GOP primary vote suggest that, as in 2008, the sham electoral process of the twin-party system will offer them no more than a Machiavellian “choice of evils” in the 2012 general election. They can have Mitt Romney, the proven crypto-socialist former governor of the ailing socialist Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Or they can rely on Newt Gingrich, who frothed with enthusiasm for Alvin Toffler’s literally elitist “Politics of the Third Wave”.

Among other things: Toffler’s writings call for abolition of the United States Constitution and the concept of national sovereignty. Toffler calls for a world government, which will be ruled by technocratic elites. There are entire subchapters in the book titled “the sub-elites” and the “super-elites.” The Third Wave lays out a society similar to Huxley’s Brave New World, but sprinkled with some Republican lingo. Toffler suggests religion should be replaced with loyalty to government and refers to religion in our current system as “cults.” The book describes a society where abortion, homosexuality, and divorce are not only accepted but idolized. After all, Toffler proclaims the need to reduce world population, which the aforementioned would indeed facilitate. Gingrich calls Toffler his mentor, which explains Gingrich’s connection with the militant environmental movement. In 2007, Gingrich wrote … “A Contract with the Earth,” [in which ] Gingrich describes himself as a “green conservative” and states that environmental issues transcend politics and cannot be dealt with using conventional governance.

How can the GOP’s partisan apparatchiks and dutiful talking bobbleheads deadpan the suggestion that either one of these elite faction marionettes represents a conservative alternative?

Read this article at wnd.com ...

America's Principles In Public Policy -> Committee to Defend the Natural Family

RenewAmerica.com

Judie Brown

A recent study is attempting to convince Americans that obtaining an abortion is actually a safe alternative to giving birth. But those of us who know, understand, and value human life, know that this is a ridiculous conclusion. Today's commentary addresses this. Read on for Judie Brown's insights...

Read this story at renewamerica.com ...
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_America's Party Principles In Public Policy -> Equal Protection for Posterity

American Life League

Judie Brown

I have read with interest the thunderous proclamations of sanctimonious outrage from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in response to Obama’s order that conscience protection does not apply to his mandatory birth control coverage in health insurance plans. I find the USCCB’s hand-wringing rather disturbing. After all, history teaches that Obamacare and its progeny might never have become law if the bishops, united in their resolve, had opposed it from the start and pointed out the specific flaws in what is now the law of the land.

The backstory on this most recent government requirement goes like this: Obamacare first came to the public’s attention in 2009 as a proposal introduced in both houses of Congress. At the time, American Life League sent out a warning aimed at Catholic charitable organizations including Catholic Charities, the Society of St. Vincent DePaul, and the Catholic Health Association—three major Catholic groups that were not only supporting the newly introduced Obamacare but that were rallying their troops to contact Congress and get involved in helping pass the proposal.

Try as we might to convince those organizations—including the USCCB—that Obamacare was fraught with problems, their support continued with the single caveat that the healthcare proposal must be “abortion neutral.” The USCCB has argued for years that every American has a right to healthcare and that the government should be providing it, though the current law is flawed. 

In August of 2009, “The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) . . . ruled that a small Catholic college must include coverage for artificial contraceptives in its employee health insurance plan, raising new concerns about the need for conscience protections and religious exemptions in America’s health care policies.” The college, Belmont Abbey, stood up to the federal agency, arguing that its religious liberty must be protected and that if it were not, the president of the college would prefer to shut it down. 

Still, few Catholic leaders seemed to see the problematic nature of supporting Obamacare!

Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, took a very public position in favor of Obamacare early on and, for a time, stood at odds with the Catholic bishops on some aspects of the proposal. Our documentation aside, Sister Keehan would not publicly address fundamental Catholic healthcare principles as evidenced in her 2010 debate with me. In fact, the bishops themselves avoided these principles, never pointing out that the only way the USCCB could support Obamacare would be if the proposed law eliminated all funding for abortion, contraception, in vitro fertilization, human embryonic stem cell research, sex education, and euthanasia. In other words, any attack on human dignity would have to be specifically eliminated from healthcare reform proposals if Obama wanted USCCB support. 

The USCCB never made that case. 

Fast forward to today and the unadulterated gall of [Alleged] President Barack Obama, who personally called Cardinal-designate Dolan, Archdiocese of New York, “to inform the archbishop he had decided to move ahead with the federal sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate despite pleas from Dolan, the Catholic bishops, and prominent Catholic lay people that the mandate was an unambiguous and unprecedented attack on the free exercise of religion that is expressly guaranteed by the 1st Amendment.”

In a USCCB media release following the Obama administration announcement, we find Sister Carol Keehan voicing “disappointment” at the administration’s strong-arm tactics.

Cardinal-designate Dolan is also quoted as saying, “The Obama administration has now drawn an unprecedented line in the sand. . . . The Catholic bishops are committed to working with our fellow Americans to reform the law and change this unjust regulation. We will continue to study all the implications of this troubling decision.” In fact, the USCCB is even considering a lawsuit. 

But wait a minute. Where have these people been for the past four years? Why didn’t they work with other Americans four years ago to stop this draconian law from ever being passed in the first place?

Now that the horse is out of the barn, they are screaming? Give me a break! What else can you expect when you sit down with the devil?  

__America's Party Principles In Public Policy -> Equal Protection for Posterity

BioEdge.org

Michael Cook

Remember the Avis Rent-a-Car commercials from the 1960s? Maybe not. Anyhow, they tripled the company’s market share with the slogan, “Avis Is Only No. 2, We Try Harder.” The Belgian right-to-die lobby seems to have the same can-do attitude. In the journal Health Policy, researchers associated with the End-of-Life Care Research Group at Ghent University and the Vrije Universiteit Brussels have lamented the low take-up of the services of doctors specialising in facilitating euthanasia.

Read this story at bioedge.org ...