Obama's Attack on Religious Liberty

The biggest bioethics story this week is President Obama's efforts to soften anger over his Administration's decision to force religious institutions to pay for insurance plans offering "free" contraception. The New York Times argued that this is "a phony crisis over 'religious liberty' engendered by the right."

Seeking to allay the concerns of Catholic leaders, the White House is planning to adjust its health-care rule requiring religious employers to provide women access to contraception, a senior administration official said.

The new policy would require insurance companies to directly offer free contraceptive services to employees at religious institutions that object to providing them, a senior administration official said.

Mr Obama apparently sees no rational reasons to oppose contraception, which includes the Pill, sterilizations, the abortion pill, and the morning-after pill.  All have brought dramatic social change which have imposed huge costs on the economy, including a rise in STDs, an increase in teen pregnancies, a decrease in marriage rates, a fall in the birth rate, promiscuity, etc.

Obama does not see his contraceptive initiative as an ethical issue, nor does he see any medical reasons to restrict interventions that prevent or terminate life.  However, the Presidential Policy Maker is neither an ethicist nor a medical practitioner.

Last year Obama's secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, told a pro-choice gathering, "We are in a war." The religiously conservative are trying to "roll back the last 50 years in progress women have made in comprehensive health care in America."

Now the religiously conservative must agree. "The religious truce is officially over," writes Dr Jennifer Roback Morse in MercatorNet. "The Established Church of Secular Hedonism has declared war on the rest of us, enlisting the might of the United States government on their side."
 
Dr Roback argues that hedonism has become America's official religion under President Obama. Yet another edict from the Obama administration has ended the American experiment in religious liberty.  The President should take a lesson from history. Leaders who overthrow religious liberty and the sanctity of the conscience cause divisions that are rarely repaired.

FBI File on Steve Jobs

The Mercury News website reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a file today (February 9, 2012) that it kept on Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, in which interview subjects -- who were contacted for a background check on Jobs -- discussed his drug use and tendency to "twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals."

Several of the interview subjects told the FBI agents that Jobs' ethics could bend depending on the situation. One subject described Jobs as "a deceptive individual who is not completely forthright and honest; two former Apple employees said, "Jobs has integrity as long as he gets his way."

In an FBI interview with Jobs, he told agents that he "experimented with marijuana, hashish, and LSD" from 1970 to 1974.

The FBI released its documents on Jobs today because the Freedom of Information Act -- which allows the FBI to make its files public after a person's death -- was used by a reporter to gain access to Jobs' files.

Jobs died October 5, 2011 at the age of 56 as a result of a long battle with cancer.


From Theology and Society

Yemen's Crackdown in Taizz

Human Rights Watch/IFEX) - New York, February 8, 2012 - Yemeni security forces stormed and shelled hospitals, evicted patients at gunpoint, and beat medics during an assault on Yemen's protest movement that killed at least 120 people in the flashpoint city of Taizz last year, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is in the United States receiving medical treatment, received amnesty in Yemen for such attacks.

In the 75-page report, "'No Safe Places': Yemen's Crackdown on Protests in Taizz," Human Rights Watch called on the United States, the European Union, and Persian Gulf states to publicly acknowledge that the domestic immunity granted Saleh and his aides last month has no legal effect outside Yemen.

"President Saleh's forces killed and wounded hundreds of civilians, evicted hospital patients, and blocked war wounded from reaching care," said Letta Tayler, Yemen researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Saleh is entitled to medical treatment, but he and his aides have no right to immunity from prosecution for international crimes."

When Yemenis took to the streets in January 2011 to demand an end to Saleh's 33-year rule, Taizz, 250 kilometers south of the capital, Sanaa, became a center of both peaceful and armed resistance - and the scene of numerous human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war. "No Safe Places" is based on more than 170 interviews with protesters, doctors, human rights defenders, and other witnesses to attacks in Taizz by state security forces and pro-Saleh gangs from February to December 2011.

Click here to read the entire press release.

Yemen: Pre-Election Intimidation of Journalists

(RSF/IFEX) - 8 February 2012 - Reporters Without Borders roundly condemns a recent surge in media freedom violations and attacks on journalists at a time of political tension in the run-up to the presidential election scheduled for 21 February.

Four journalists and activist bloggers are currently under threat from a fatwa issued at the start of February by senior clerics that explicitly calls for their deaths and for the closure of the newspapers and websites that carried their articles.

It was the appearance of an article headlined "First year of a revolution" by writer and journalist Bashra Al-Moqtari on the Al-Tagheer Net website on 11 January that aroused the anger of religious leaders and members of the Islamist party Al-Islah. In her article, Moqtari voiced the frustration and disappointment of a people that have seen their revolution stolen.

"The revolution's thieves have taken over the revolution of the Yemeni people," she wrote, urging them to take to the streets to continue their fight for freedom and to refuse "the tragedy of a slow death, a tragedy perpetrated by the political elites, religious leaders and soldiers."

The fatwa's three other targets are Fakri Qassam, an intellectual and editor of an independent newspaper in the southern city of Taiz, the satirical writer Mohssein Aeyd, and the Internet activist Sami Shamssan.

Reporters Without Borders strongly condemns this fatwa, which aims to silence journalists and activists who say the revolution has been confiscated and who reject the 23 November accord mediated by the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Many newspapers meanwhile continue to be the target of threats and attacks by the supporters of former President Ali Abdallah Saleh, who is currently in the United States for medical treatment. Armed demonstrators surrounded the Sanaa headquarters of the newspaper Al-Thawra on 2 February to protest against the removal of Saleh's photo from its front page.

They branded editor Yassin Al-Masroudi as a traitor and prevented journalists from entering the building. Saleh's supporters then stormed the building and supervised the preparation of the next day's issue. Reporters Without Borders deplores such practices, which were typical of the outgoing regime, but the Union of Journalists claimed that many journalists supported the action.

Armed Saleh supporters also surrounded the headquarters of the newspaper Al-Jomhuryah in the city of Taiz on 4 February, while security forces watched without intervening. Editor Samir Al-Yussoufi reportedly received threatening messages in which he was told that the newspaper's offices would be shelled. The day before, dozens of gunmen stormed the newspaper's bureau in Sanaa.

Reporters Without Borders stresses its support for the management and staff of both Al-Thawra and Al-Jomhuryah. Such practices constitute a serious obstacle to the ability of the media to operate in Yemen.

"The intimidatory practices and death threats to which journalists are currently exposed must stop," Reporters Without Borders said. "Freedom of expression and media freedom are essential conditions for change in a country that is trying to rebuild after years of authoritarian rule and a year of repression."

On 4 February, demonstrators also forced their way into the building that houses the Yemeni satellite TV station in order to prevent its chief from entering the building. The intervention of soldiers was needed for him to be able to get to his office. The protesters were demanding the removal of the heads of the three state-owned TV stations - Al-Yemen, Saba' and Al-Iman - and the restoration of the satellite station's former logo.


For more information:

Reporters Without Borders
47, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris
France
rsf (@) rsf.org
Phone: +33 1 44 83 84 84
Fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51
http://www.rsf.org/

65 Orthodox Bishops Resist Obama's Contraception Mandate

NEW YORK, NY, February 6, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The 65 canonical bishops of the Orthodox Church have asked President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to repeal the mandate that religious institutions provide birth control, sterilization, and Plan B abortion drugs in their health care coverage.

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America – which represents 12 Orthodox jurisdictions and three million Orthodox Christians in the United States – issued a press release last Thursday calling the HHS ruling a violation of religious conscience.

“The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion,” the statement says. “This freedom is transgressed when a religious institution is required to pay for ‘contraceptive services’ including abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization services that directly violate their religious convictions.”

“Providing such services should not be regarded as mandated medical care. We, the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, call upon HHS Secretary Sebelius and the Obama Administration to rescind this unjust ruling and to respect the religious freedom guaranteed all Americans by the First Amendment.”

The bishops urged the faithful to take action. The statement calls upon “all the Orthodox Christian faithful to contact their elected representatives today to voice their concern in the face of this threat to the sanctity of the Church’s conscience.”

Influential leaders in the Orthodox Church expressed their appreciation that the bishops had spoken out. “The statement issued by the Orthodox bishops reflects a welcome voice in the public square that has too often been silent due to our unhappy divisions as American Orthodox Christians,” said Fr. Chad Hatfield, the president of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, New York, in a statement e-mailed to LifeSiteNews.com.

Fr. Peter-Michael Preble, an Orthodox priest and writer in Massachusetts agreed, “I don’t think we should shy about controversial topics.” Fr. Preble wrote an article in The Huffington Post asking the hierarchy of his church to publicly address the subject. “This seemed to be more of a national issue that the bishops as a whole had to say something about, and they weren’t, and I was afraid we were losing ground,” he told LifeSiteNews.com. “The Roman Catholic bishops were carrying the majority water on this issue and taking the brunt of the heat, and I just thought we had to do something.”

After reading the statement, Fr. Preble said, “I’m very pleased with the fact that [the bishops] did speak out, and I hope that this is the start of other statements that they will make about other issues, as well.”

The nation’s Orthodox Christians join a growing number of non-Catholics who had officially opposed the contraception mandate, which religious institutions will be required to observe by next August. Dr. Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said on his daily podcast last Tuesday that any law requiring people of faith to violate their conscience “is not only a Catholic issue…our religious liberty is being similarly subverted and attacked.”

Late last year 60 religious leaders, mostly Protestants as well as two Orthodox Jewish spokesmen, signed a letter to President Obama, stating, “It is emphatically not only Catholics who deeply object to the requirement that health plans they purchase must provide coverage of contraceptives that include some that are abortifacients.”


The Orthodox Church is the second largest church in the world. The North American bishops posted their press release last Thursday, the date Orthodox Christians celebrate the presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple.

Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America was traveling and was not immediately available for comment.


The statement reads in full:

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America, which is comprised of the 65 canonical Orthodox bishops in the United States, Canada and Mexico, join their voices with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and all those who adamantly protest the recent decision by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and call upon all the Orthodox Christian faithful to contact their elected representatives today to voice their concern in the face of this threat to the sanctity of the Church’s conscience.

In this ruling by HHS, religious hospitals, educational institutions, and other organizations will be required to pay for the full cost of contraceptives (including some abortion-inducing drugs) and sterilizations for their employees, regardless of the religious convictions of the employers.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion. This freedom is transgressed when a religious institution is required to pay for “contraceptive services” including abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization services that directly violate their religious convictions. Providing such services should not be regarded as mandated medical care. We, the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, call upon HHS Secretary Sebelius and the Obama Administration to rescind this unjust ruling and to respect the religious freedom guaranteed all Americans by the First Amendment.


Contact Information:

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America
 
Related reading:  Evangelicals and Jews Unite Against Obama's Birth Control Mandate

Federal Appeals Panel Overthrows Prop 8

A federal appeals panel in San Francisco ruled Tuesday that California’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the constitutional right to equal protection.

The panel overturned Proposition 8 by a 2 to 1 decision.  Prop 8 was approved by 52 percent of the state’s voters in 2008 and amended the state’s constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman. The U.S. Supreme Court could be the next stop for the measure.

Congressmen Steer Millions to Pet Projects

Thirty-three members of Congress have steered more than $300 million in earmarks and other spending provisions to dozens of public projects that are next to or near the lawmakers' own property, according to a Washington Post investigation. Under the ethics rules Congress has written for itself, this is both legal and undisclosed.

In the first review of its kind, The Post analyzed public records on the holdings of all 535 members and compared them with earmarks members had sought for pet projects, most of them since 2008. The process uncovered appropriations for work in close proximity to commercial and residential real estate owned by the lawmakers or their family members. The review also found 16 lawmakers who sent tax dollars to companies, colleges or community programs where their spouses, children or parents work as salaried employees or serve on boards.


Read the full Washington Post report here.