The devastating tornadoes that ripped through the South and Midwest last week left broken homes and shattered lives in their wake. While the wind and rain still blew, churches, ministries, and charitable organizations fanned out across many states to help pick up the pieces. Public policy should respect the vital role these Good Samaritans play and, at the very least, not harm their ability to serve the common good. In southern Indiana, the New Albany Salvation Army set up food canteens to feed survivors. In Missouri, volunteers from Mennonite Disaster …
It’s a rare moment indeed when Catholic priests speak from the pulpit on political issues, but across the country, pastors and bishops are taking a stand in opposition to Obamacare’s attack on religious liberties. Those individuals are joining with leaders across many faith backgrounds in saying “enough is enough” — they refuse to stand idly by as the White House mandates that virtually all religious employers, with the exception of churches, provide health care coverage for contraception — including abortion-inducing drugs — thereby trampling upon their constitutionally guaranteed free exercise of religion. …
Vice President Biden didn’t get the story quite straight. As the Obama Administration reels from the backlash for Obamacare’s anti-conscience mandate that forces religious employers to provide coverage and pay for abortion-inducing drugs, Biden yesterday set out to convince America that the Administration has a “new” version of the mandate that respects religion. The only problem is, the version is neither new nor respectful of religious liberty. To set the record straight, we’ve put together a point-counterpoint response to the Vice President’s remarks. Simply put, the federal government should not …
Once again, President Barack Obama has proposed lowering the income tax deduction for charitable giving. In his proposed budget for fiscal year 2013, the President calls for reducing the charitable deduction rate from 35 percent to 28 percent for those in the top tax bracket (individuals making $200,000 or more or families making $250,000 or more). By decreasing the value of itemized tax deductions for higher-income taxpayers, Obama’s proposal would weaken the incentive for the wealthy to give to organizations that help the poor. President Obama has tried this before. …
Efforts to repel the Obama Administration’s attack on liberty of conscience suffered a setback today on the floor of the U.S. Senate, but in the process kept alive an issue on which an extraordinary variety of Americans are willing to continue fighting – and with good reason. The core hubris of President Obama’s attack on conscience is his apparent belief that manipulations of language alone can defuse the controversy over his preventive services mandate and its destructive effects on religious entities and other employers. But there is subject matter that …
Today the U.S. Senate failed to save religious liberty from Obamacare’s collision course with freedom. The Senate blocked, by a vote of 51-48, a bipartisan amendment introduced by Senator Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) that would have preserved the religious liberty American individuals and institutions have enjoyed until this latest Obamacare mandate was finalized in mid-February. Obamacare’s anti-conscience mandate for preventive services forces insurance plans, including those carried by religious employers, to provide coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization–even if such coverage violates their beliefs. Only houses of worship will be …
Since 1791, when the Bill of Rights was formally adopted, America has enjoyed the legal protection of religious freedom, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Today, 221 years later, centuries of progress in the protection of religious and other liberties is at risk of being rolled back in one fell swoop. The culprit: Obamacare. As we all know, President Obama’s health care law will mandate that religious hospitals, charities, and schools abandon the tenets of their faiths and provide their employees insurance coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization. This anti-conscience mandate is but …
In this week’s Heritage in Focus, Heritage expert Jen Marshall discusses the controversy over Obamacare’s anti-conscience mandate. Click here to listen. Is this issue about more than just religious liberty? How is Heritage continuing to fight Obamacare? Is opposition to this mandate anti-women? Click above to hear Jen answer these questions and more.
Congress recognizes more each day that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known widely as the Obamacare statute, interferes unconstitutionally with the liberty of Americans. From the Obamacare individual mandate to buy health insurance that awaits the action of the Supreme Court, to the Obamacare mandate that many religious hospitals, charities, and schools abandon the tenets of their faiths and include in their group health insurance for employees coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization, Obamacare assaults the Constitution and American freedom. Fortunately, Members of Congress and the American …
Today, the House Judiciary Committee held a full committee hearing to investigate the Obama administration’s unprecedented overreach through the latest Obamacare mandate’s assault on religious liberty. Asma Uddin, an attorney with The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, testified at the hearing on the administration’s insulting disregard for the right to religious freedom. “As a Muslim-American woman and an academic, I have spent my career fighting for women’s and minority’s rights, and the fact that I must be here today to explain why our constitutional rights exist is extremely offensive to …
