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"The Obama administration announced Jan. 20 that it will not expand an exemption for religious groups that object to its requirement for health insurance plans to cover sterilization and contraception – including abortion-causing drugs – free of charge.
"Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said in a Jan. 20 statement that religious employers had to comply with the new law by Aug. 1, 2013, one year later than the initial deadline to employers who object to providing the coverage will be required ."
The day before the Obama administration announced that it would not expand an exemption for religious groups that object to the requirement for health insurance to cover sterilization and contraception – including abortion-causing drugs – free of charge, the President spoke at Disney World about his plan to increase tourism in the United States.
It appears that part of the tourism plan is to reduce the number of children born to U.S. parents so that foreign tourists will not have to wait in long lines to access Disney World attractions.
Sebelius noted that “important concerns” had been “raised about religious liberty.”
Kathleen Sebelius only needs to read the First Amendment to understand the basis for these "important concerns".
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I have underlined the statement that Ms. Sebelius needs to know concerning the limitations of government actions concerning religion in the United States. As a Catholic Ms. Sebelius should also read the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
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The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:
"The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death."
"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child's rights.
As a Catholic Kathleen Sebelius should understand that her obligation to God and the Church cannot be separated from her role as an adviser or as an executor of legislation for the President of the United States. I was only following orders is not a defense for a Catholic concerning moral issues.
Finally in light of the fact that President Obama wants to increase tourism in the United States Kathleen Sebelius might want to read the words of a former visitor to the United States.
"One of the most memorable aspects of my Pastoral Visit to the United States was the opportunity it afforded me to reflect on America’s historical experience of religious freedom, and specifically the relationship between religion and culture. At the heart of every culture, whether perceived or not, is a consensus about the nature of reality and the moral good, and thus about the conditions for human flourishing. In America, that consensus, as enshrined in your nation’s founding documents, was grounded in a worldview shaped not only by faith but a commitment to certain ethical principles deriving from nature and nature’s God. Today that consensus has eroded significantly in the face of powerful new cultural currents which are not only directly opposed to core moral teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but increasingly hostile to Christianity as such." - Pope Benedict XVI January 19th, 2012
