Apparently, according to the Catholic Church, president Obama is waging a war on their religion. The war the Catholics claim, is the requirement approved by the president’s administration that calls on employers to provide an option for contraception in their employees health care policies.
Of course, no one is explaining that this law has been in effect for the last 10 years through the EEOC — Equal Employment Opportunity Commission , or the fact that the Catholic University in Washington DC is already providing this option to their employees. And everyone seems to forget the waiver included in the law for Churches.
But manufactured crisis is what gets the spotlight, and even Congressional Republicans like John Boehner has joined the war, choosing his obvious position and firing on the president.
“In imposing this requirement, the federal government is violating a First Amendment right that has stood for more than two centuries, and it is doing so in a manner that affects millions of Americans and harms some of our nation’s most vital institutions,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said. “If the president does not reverse the Department’s attack on religious freedom, then the Congress, acting on behalf of the American people and the Constitution we are sworn to uphold and defend, must.”
That is expected. Congressional Republicans have been looking for any reason they could find to oppose this president. But it was something said by Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, that caught my attention.
Mr. Santorum, the present leader in the Republican presidential field actually suggested that women priests create a hostile environment.
What they’ve done here is a direct assault on the First Amendment, not only a direct assault on the freedom of religion, by forcing people specifically to do things that are against their religious teachings. . . . This is a president who, just recently, in this Hosanna-Tabor case was basically making the argument that Catholics had to, you know, maybe even had to go so far as to hire women priests to comply with employment discrimination issues. This is a very hostile president to people of faith. He’s a hostile president, not just to people of faith, but to all freedoms.
We had already awarded the say anything to get elected trophy to Mitt Romney, but now here comes Santorum. We just placed the order for a second trophy.
While I do agree that the government needs to be careful when protecting people's First Amendment rights, I do not like the tone of Sartorum's comment. Women are highly revered and respected in the Catholic Church, so his tone is uncalled for…And this will not be much of a war for President Obama and Catholic voters because Catholic Bishops are fighting this due to the conflict of the issue and Catholic teachings–but the average Catholic is pretty laidback when it comes to political and social issues.