Gingrich's Attack on Religious Freedom
February 6, 2012
1:30 p.m. CST
This morning I read an article in the news. I have reposted the following article in it's entirety. It was written by Amy Bingham of ABC OTUS News and reported on Yahoo! on it's front page this morning, February 6, 2012.
The article is titled "Gingrich Blasts Obama's Birth Control Policy as 'Outrageous Assault' on Religion."
Newt Gingrich upped his attacks against President Obama on Sunday over his administration's requirement that some religious hospitals offer co-pay-free birth control under the new health care law.
Gingrich's comments come after a week of outrage from the Catholic Church and his fellow GOP presidential candidates over the policy.
"This is a tremendous infringement of religious liberty," Newt Gingrich said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "Every time you turn around the secular government is shrinking the rights of religious institutions in America."
While the policy was proposed in August, the issue resurfaced last week after Catholic churches across America read letters from the church's leadership last Sunday condemning the administration's policy.
The letters came in response to a Jan. 20 announcement that Catholic hospitals where the majority of employees are not Catholic will be required under the new law to provide free contraception.
"The fact is what you're saying is there cannot be a genuine Catholic hospital," said Gingrich, who converted to Catholicism in 2009. "It will have to be subordinated to a secular government."
Gingrich, also appearing today on CBS's "Face the Nation," added that the policy proved that the Obama administration was at "war" with the Catholic church and launching "the most outrageous assault on religious freedom in American history."
The former House speaker said policies such as this prove that Obama is "so unacceptable" that he will support his rival Mitt Romney in the general election if the former Massachusetts governor is the Republican nominee.
"I believe President Obama is such a direct threat to the future of this country that I will support the Republican nominee because I believe that President Obama is a disaster," Gingrich said.
But with the primary season still raging on, Gingrich vowed that his campaign was nowhere near over.
The former speaker finished a distant second behind Romney Saturday in the Nevada caucuses, but said today on "Meet the Press" that he will be in "much more favorable territory" by Super Tuesday, when his home state of Georgia goes to the polls.
Gingrich vowed that "by the time Texas is over, we'll be very, very competitive in delegate count."
Texas's primary is currently set for April 3, but a Supreme Court legal battle over the Lone Star state's redistricting maps threatens to delay the primary until later in the year.
Where do I begin?
Let's start with the idea that in order to have religious freedom, you must be Catholic. Or how about the novel idea that in order to be Christian, you must be Catholic. I have news for Newt. Not all Christians are Catholic. Not all Christians have a problem with using contraception. Not even all Catholics have a problem with using contraception. Not all employees of Catholic Institutions are Christian. Not all Christian employees of Catholic Institutions are Catholic. Mr. Gingrich, who are you to say what the religious beliefs of others should be?
The law with which Newt Gingrich and the Catholic Church take issue only applies to religious organizations that have a majority of non-Catholic employees. Who is taking away whom's religious freedom? If you are saying that a majority who are not of the religion of the minority are required to live by the religious beliefs of the minority, those are the religious freedoms you are infringing!
Mr. Gingrich claims issue with the idea that Catholic hospitals are therefore subjegated to a secular government, but that's not new. They were subjegated to a secular government when the law required that the religious hospitals had to hire those not of the same religion, as long as those employees could perform the jobs. There was no mandate that he had to be Catholic, Christian or non-religious in order to work in Congress!
Newt takes issue with Catholic organizations having to bow to the religious freedoms of employees who are not Catholic, but I have a question. At what point did those organizations have the right to think that Christian principles of religious freedom only applies to them? Mr. Gingrich is quick to point to a Catholic hospital's alleged right to mandate the religious tone of their employees' sexual conduct and family planning methods, or non-methods as the case may be, but he fails to attempt to allege that a Catholic hospital should have the right to hire only those who already believe the same way. And why is that? It's because he already knows that secular law protects those who apply for work, that everyone has the right to hold a job they can perform regardless of their religion. So who is he to say that once you get that job, that you must therefore relinquish your own personal birth-control practices? Who is he to mandate that all Christians must therefore be Catholic?
By the same token, who is he to say that only the Catholic Church has the right to say what morals should be? I would also like to know by what right any religious person has to say that anyone even has to be religious in any form? He complains that secularism has taken over the government and it's laws, but isn't that the whole point of religious freedom? Isn't the law supposed to represent everyone? What I see is that secularism covers everyone regardless of which religion, or non-religion, they have. Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?
Mr. Gingrich has lost his focus on one key point. This country is a melting pot, not just of color, race, national origin, and language, but also of religion. The law is not a religious law, but a secular law that binds all groups under a uniform code of behavior that is supposed to be tolerant of everyone's needs, not just the religious beliefs of those making the laws. Until and unless you are there to serve honorably and tolerantly of those who don't believe the same as yourself the same as those who do believe the same, you don't belong in government at any level.
Mr. Gingrich, the Constitution of the United States begins with this preamble:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
It does NOT begin with:
We the Catholics of the United States, in Order to form a more Christian Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Catholic Constitution for the United States of America.
No part of the Constitution is especially favorable to any specific religious group. No politician should consider his leadership as such either.
