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Jewish World Review March 2, 2012/ 8 Adar, 5772 The Left, Not Social Conservatives, Threatens Religious Liberty By David Limbaugh
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Now hear this: No Republicans on the national political scene, including Rick Santorum, threaten our religious liberty. Many Democrats, including President Obama and Senate Democrats, do. And they've struck again with the Senate's defeat of the Blunt amendment. President Obama, who seems to spend as much time community organizing as he does attending to his executive duties, doubtlessly conspired with his crack opposition research trolls and the liberal media to shoehorn the contraception issue into the 2012 presidential campaign. What do I mean about Obama's spending time community organizing? Well, he is using the office of the presidency to intimidate the Koch brothers into disclosing their donors' names. He and his minions falsely, with malice aforethought, accused the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of receiving foreign contributions, with no evidence, and when challenged to substantiate it, they taunted that it was up to the chamber and its defenders to prove a negative. Obama's Justice Department has taxpayer-funded employees posing as ordinary American citizens and posting pro-Obama agenda comments on various websites. His Justice Department attacks Republicans genuinely attempting to monitor actual voter fraud and protects his friends who engage in real-life voter intimidation. I could go on. What do I mean about Democrats and their cronies shoehorning the contraception issue? I'm hardly among the first 100 people to point out that George Stephanopoulos gratuitously injected into a GOP presidential debate a bizarre question about contraception. Mitt Romney was so taken aback he was almost rendered — uncharacteristically — speechless. In no time, talk shows and the Internet were abuzz about the issue, and a video of Rick Santorum talking about contraception went viral. Even some on the right — though not social conservatives — were apparently led to believe that if elected president, Santorum would single-handedly usher in a Catholic theocracy. It didn't seem to matter that in that same video, Santorum expressly assured us that he would not attempt to force his views on contraception through legislation. When you ask complainants to specify exactly how Santorum or any other social conservative represents a threat to religious liberty or would even remotely infringe on any of our constitutional rights concerning it, you get nothing but innuendo and fantastic hysteria. Santorum and other social conservatives may well annoy those who don't want to hear about social issues, but they do not represent any kind of threat to religious liberties, nor are they any less concerned about the cataclysmic fiscal and economic issues threatening our nation or any less determined and equipped to address them simply because they also care about social issues. President Obama and the Democratic leadership, on the other hand, do represent a threat to religious liberty, and they invoke religion as often as Republicans — whether from the presidential bully pulpit and National Prayer Breakfast podium or in their churches. Democrats warn that Republicans will use their governmental power to cram our religious values down their throats, but at least when we vote our values, we do so through the constitutionally prescribed democratic processes rather than through undemocratic, tyrannical judicial usurpations such as with abortion and same-sex marriage jurisprudence. President Obama is the one who, in a flagrant breach of his numerous promises, is facilitating the federal funding of abortifacients and cramming this issue down the throats of the several states. He's the one forcing us — because of his "religious" values; listen to his prayer breakfast speech — to buy health insurance and telling us what types of coverage must be included in the health insurance policies we purchase, even if some of those violate our rights of religious and moral conscience and thus our religious liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. He's the one who, when called on this outrage, patronizingly pretended to compromise on the issue by forcing insurance companies to pay for these objectionable practices, as if those costs wouldn't be passed through to those with conscience objections and as if the insurance companies have no conscience protections themselves. He's the one who, along with his Democratic majority in the Senate, tabled the amendment by Sen. Roy Blunt to allow employers to opt out of providing health care coverage that violates their conscience rights. The Blunt amendment, it should be noted, wouldn't deny any woman access to contraceptives or even abortifacients; it would just exempt employers from being forced to subsidize them. As usual, the government compulsion proceeds from the left, not the right. Adding insult to injury, Democrats, as usual, drench their support of the coerced coverage in the euphemism of women's health. We social conservatives might annoy you because we sometimes talk about our faith-based values (while the left talks about its values just as much), but we represent no threat to anyone's religious liberties. The same cannot be said about the habitually projecting political left.
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David Limbaugh, a columnist and attorney practicing in Cape
Girardeau, Mo. Comment by clicking here.
© 2010, Creators Syndicate
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