President Obama has begun his reelection campaign in earnest as he crosses the country to attend political rallies and dinner parties to raise funds.
Last week at a Democratic National Committee event in St. Louis, he bantered with the audience about the proposed Department of Health and Human Services regulations that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have decried as an “unprecedented attack on religious freedom.” When the proposed regulation was described by the president, audience members yelled out in support of his new policy. President Obama then shouted out in return, “Darn tooting” in affirmation of his policy.
The new proposed regulation which is to be implemented as part of the so-called Obamacare is to require all private health care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and FDA-approved contraceptives including those that cause abortion without charging any fees or co-pay. These regulations involve a coverage mandate that is “unprecedented in federal law and more radical than any other state contraceptive mandate enacted to date.” They would require Catholic institutions and agencies to pay for the evils of sterilization, contraception and abortion in their health care insurance policies and contain a “religious exemption” so narrowly drawn that Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Chairman of the U.S. Conference of Bishops’ Pro-Life Committee, suggested that it protects no one and even “Jesus himself, or the Good Samaritan of his famous parable, would not qualify as ‘religious enough’ for the exemption, since they insisted on helping people who did not share their view of God.”
It is evident that the proposed regulations President Obama expresses so much pride in would force most major Catholics institutions, many who work on the frontlines of the church’s mission to serve the poor and sick, “to choose between dropping health insurance coverage for their employees and students or violating the moral teachings of their own church.”
President Obama’s braggadocio about the new regulations is as offensive as the regulations themselves. In his arrogant praise of an oppressive policy the president has not only declared war on religious freedom but has aimed his proud pro-death policies squarely at the Catholic Church. Catholics should be outraged at Mr. Obama for his shameful act of arrogance in St. Louis last week but most especially at his continued attack upon their freedom to practice their own faith freely. Mr. Obama owes every Catholic in this country an apology for his shameful praise of totalitarian policies that seek to attack and assault religious freedom for all those who practice the Catholic faith in the United States. “Darn tooting, Mr. President!”
