The Washington Post’s superb pundit, Charles Krauthammer–a secular Jew (I believe)–demolishes President Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in a column decrying the anti constitutional Free Birth Control Rule promulgated under Obamacare as it affects Catholic institutions.  (Here was my take.)

After discussing Obama’s speech at a prayer breakfast, which need not concern us here, Krauthammer gets down to the very serious and important to American freedom business at hand: From “The Gospel According to Obama:” 

And thus, the word came forth from Sebelius decreeing the exact criteria required (a) to meet her definition of “religious” and thus (b) to qualify for a modicum of independence from newly enacted state control of American health care, under which the aforementioned Sebelius and her phalanx of experts determine everything — from who is to be covered, to which treatments are to be guaranteed free of charge.

Criterion 1: A “religious institution” must have “the inculcation of religious values as its purpose.” But that’s not the purpose of Catholic charities; it’s to give succor to the poor. That’s not the purpose of Catholic hospitals; it’s to give succor to the sick. Therefore, they don’t qualify as “religious” — and therefore can be required, among other things, to provide free morning-after abortifacients.

How I wish I had written that. But there’s more:

Criterion 2: Any exempt institution must be one that “primarily employs” and “primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets.” Catholic soup kitchens do not demand religious IDs from either the hungry they feed or the custodians they employ. Catholic charities and hospitals — even Catholic schools — do not turn away Hindu or Jew. Their vocation is universal, precisely the kind of universal love-thy-neighbor vocation that is the very definition of religiosity as celebrated by the Gospel of Obama. Yet according to the Gospel of Sebelius, these very same Catholic institutions are not religious at all — under the secularist assumption that religion is what happens on Sunday under some Gothic spire, while good works are “social services” properly rendered up unto Caesar.

Indeed. And for not having the “proper” views on certain cultural issues, they must be forced to submit–or leave their good works behind.

Like so many Leftists today, Obama isn’t interested in Constitutional liberty, but the raw exercise of government power.  And Obamacare has become the vehicle.

PETA has had its outrageous lawsuit claiming that whales are “slaves” thrown out of court. From the AP story:

An effort to free whales from Sea World by claiming they were enslaved made a splash in the news but flopped in court Wednesday. A federal judge in San Diego dismissed an unprecedented lawsuit seeking to grant constitutional protection against slavery to a group of orcas that perform at SeaWorld parks, saying the 13th amendment applies only to humans.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller stopped the case from proceeding two days after he became the first judge in U.S. history to listen to arguments in court over the possibility of granting constitutional rights for members of an animal species. “As ‘slavery’ and ‘involuntary servitude’ are uniquely human activities, as those terms have been historically and contemporaneously applied, there is simply no basis to construe the Thirteenth Amendment as applying to non-humans,” Miller wrote in his ruling.

Duh.  The idea that Lincoln and Company would have considered animals covered by the 13th Amendment is ludicrous–and Frederick Douglas would have found the obnoxious notion positively insulting.

Dismissing this case isn’t enough.  PETA is a serial frivolous lawsuit and administrative complaint filer. It will appeal this case and continue its abuse of the legal system until it is punished for so doing.  Sanctions!  And in addition, make it pay Sea World’s attorney’s fees. Enough is enough.

Boy, for all the criticizing of religion by secularists, many sure seem to want to be considered “religious.”  First, there is the proposal to erect a “Temple of Atheisim.” Now, a soldier wants the U.S. Military to recognize humanism as a religion.  From the AP story:

Soldiers who don’t believe in God can go to war with “Atheist” stamped on their dog tags, but humanists and others with various secular beliefs are still officially invisible in the Army. Maj. Ray Bradley is applying to be the first humanist recognized as a “distinctive faith group leader” by the Army. In the meantime, he can’t be designated as a humanist on his official records or dog tags, although he can be classified as an atheist.

The distinction may not seem like a large one to those unfamiliar with humanism, but the Fort Bragg-based officer says it’s the equivalent of being told that “Christian” is an acceptable designation, but not “Catholic.” “Humanism is a philosophy that guides a person,” Bradley said. “It’s more than just a stamp of what you’re not.” Humanism’s core beliefs range from the assertion that knowledge of the world is derived from observation and rational analysis to the conviction that working to help others also promotes individual happiness.

Please.  The point of secular humanism is to eschew religion as a means of promoting human welfare and determining “Truth.”

Should we have “Stoic” dog tags?  How about “Utilitarian” dog tags?  And what about Christian humanists, do they have two religions?  This “religion envy” is bizarre.

Oh, this isn’t good.  Those Himalayan glaciers that were supposed to have disappeared by 2035 according to the IPCC (since retracted as nonsense), haven’t even shrunk in ten years.  From the Guardian story:

The world’s greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows. The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50bn tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall.

And another one (prediction) bites the dust.

Oh, and the Arctic melt ain’t what it was projected to be either, to the tune of 30% less than thought. From the U.S. News and World Report:

The team used data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellite, which was launched as a joint project between NASA and Germany in 2002. The GRACE satellite measures gravity, which is related to mass, in 20 distinct regions worldwide. Wahr says that gives the team more accurate estimates, because previous teams had to measure ice loss at “a few easily accessible glaciers” and then extrapolate it to the 200,000 glaciers worldwide.

As projection after dire prediction has failed to materialize, the credibility of the sector continues to plummet, and for good reason.

My take: This doesn’t prove anything one way or the other–except that “the scientists” don’t know as much as they claim and that climate modeling is not accurate because the “climate” is far more complex than the designers yet understand.  We should not turn our economies upside down and turn the world over to technocratic rule on something that is so uncertain.

Yes, of course, the scientists still say that none of this matters and WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!  Think of the lost grant money and social ostracism they would face if they didn’t.

We have discussed the issue of “medical conscience” often here over the years, a social trend in which we see doctors threatened with the ability to practice medicine if they don’t adhere to the modern anti Hippocratic view.  For example, in Victoria, Australia, doctors have to peform abortions or refer to doctors that they know  will.

But now, in a potentially dangerous precedent that could presage the practice of medicine requiring the correct political views, a doctor with a spotless medical record and apparent perfectly fine educational credentials appears to have been denied a medical license in Kansas due to being a “birther” about President Obama.  From the KCTV story:

A Kansas board that denied a licensed doctor of osteopathic medicine a license was primarily concerned about the man’s political views. The Kansas State Board of Healing Arts is a 15-member panel appointed by the governor and decides the fate of doctors in Kansas.

Terrence Lee Lakin rose to the ranks of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. He served on the front lines in Afghanistan and the war zone in Bosnia as well as a medical mission to Honduras. He saved lives around the world and received a Bronze Star for his service. “I like helping people,” said Lakin. “And I’ve been, since college wanting to be in medical field and help others.”

But a dispute over whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States led to Lakin being forced from the military and apparently led to the Kansas board in October denying him a medical license to practice in the Sunflower State. The board repeatedly refused comment on their decision, but a transcript of Lakin’s shows board members didn’t concern themselves with Lakin’s 18-year spotless medical record. “They hammered me for my political views,” said Lakin. 

Lakin received a dishonorable discharge for refusing a lawful order, based on his belief that President Obama was in office unconstitutionally.  But that doesn’t seem to be the issue, which would be clear cut and not require an extensive questioning of his beliefs by the board. (And, might I add, would almost surely not have disqualified him if he had refused to go to Afghanistan or Iraq because he thought they were illegal wars from a left wing perspective.)

The Oct. 21 hearing about Lakin’s medical license lasted just 16 minutes. Lenexa physician Michael J. Beezley kicked off the questioning about Lakin’s thoughts on the president.

“So I guess you need to explain the difference between going to Afghanistan in 2004 and going over there after President Obama was elected,” said Beezley.  “Is that the big kick?”

“Yes,” replied Lakin.

Ellsworth Dr. Ronald Whitmer then followed up.

“Do you believe he was a U.S. citizen, President Obama?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Lakin replied.

“…the long form of his birth certificate has been publicized,” Whitmer said. “What does it take to make you believe that he is a U.S. citizen?”

“I think that I have a question and I don’t think that question’s been answered, but if this has to do with my medical capabilities…,” said Lakin…

If the dishonorable discharge was sufficient moral turpitude to disqualify the doctor, that should have been the issue. His (nuts, in my view) politics should never have come up. At the very least, this decison smacks of the politicizing the practice of medicine: Believe rightly as viewed by the licensing board or be denied your profession! This is getting very scary.

P.S. Lest you say the board is in Kansans, and hence conservative, most were probably appointed by the radical former governor and now head of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius. But liberal/conservative shouldn’t matter.  If his military record is grounds for denial in KS, fine. But his politics?  Absolutely not.

One of the supposed protections of euthanasia is the doctor saying no when, as one example, when killing isn’t warranted.  (Doctors also say know if participating in killing of a patient is against conscience, of course). Ditto assisted suicide in Oregon and Washington.

But that has always been a false premise. If a patient’s own doctor says no, just go death doctor shopping.  If you go to an assisted suicide/euthanasia advocacy group for a referral, chances are you will get your death wish granted.

And now, in the Netherlands, mobile euthanasia clinics!  From the Dutch Press Review story:

De Volkskrant and Trouw report on a new development in euthanasia practice. De Volkskrant reports that, beginning in March, people who have been refused euthanasia by their own doctor will be able to call in one of six travelling teams. The groups, consisting of a doctor and a nurse, will be based in The Hague but will deal with cases throughout the country. The legal criteria that the patient must be in a situation of unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement will still apply.

Trouw reports that the association behind the plan, Right to Die NL, is “doing everything it can” to allay fears and objections. One such fear is that dedicated teams will develop a kind of tunnel vision and will focus too strongly on meeting the patient’s desire for euthanasia at the expense of other options. But the association tells the paper “It can just as easily turn out that the patient’s doctor was right to refuse euthanasia. It won’t be a case of ‘your wish is our command’.”

I don’t believe that for a second, but if the death wish is not a command, why not?  If someone wants to be made dead, who are these mobile euthanasia purvayors to say no?  Fear not, they mostly won’t.  They are running mobile homicide clinics for a reason.

Culture of death, Wesley?  What culture of death?

David Brooks is no conservative, even though he is supposed to fill that role on the NYT op/ed page.  (Actually, Ross Douthat does.)  He has a column today criticizing the Obama Administration’s Free Birth Control Rule.  And like too many liberals, he is primarily (exclusively?) concerned with technocratic results rather than the limits on government power established by the Constitution. 

Thus Brooks isn’t concerned that the Free Birth Control Rule violates the First Amendment’s guarantee that the U.S. Government will not interfere with the “free exercise” of religion.  No, the rule is merely misguided because it interferes with sociological best practices for reducing poverty.  From “Flood the Zone:”

The key to this flood-the-zone approach is that you have to allow for maximum possible diversity. Let’s say there is a 14-year-old girl who, for perfectly understandable reasons, wants to experience the love and sense of purpose that go with motherhood, rather than stay in school in the hopes of someday earning a middle-class wage.  You have no idea what factors have caused her to make this decision, and you have no way of knowing what will dissuade her. But you want her, from morning until night, to be enveloped by a thick ecosystem of positive influences. You want lefty social justice groups, righty evangelical groups, Muslim groups, sports clubs, government social workers, Boys and Girls Clubs and a hundred other diverse institutions. If you surround her with a different culture and a web of relationships, maybe she will absorb new habits of thought, find a sense of belonging and change her path.       

To build this thick ecosystem, you have to include religious institutions and you have to give them broad leeway. Religious faith is quirky, and doesn’t always conform to contemporary norms. But faith motivates people to serve. Faith turns lives around. You want to do everything possible to give these faithful servants room and support so they can improve the spiritual, economic and social ecology in poor neighborhoods.  The administration’s policies on school vouchers and religious service providers are demoralizing because they weaken this ecology by reducing its diversity. By ending vouchers, the administration reduced the social intercourse between neighborhoods. By coercing the religious charities, it is teaching the faithful to distrust government, to segregate themselves from bureaucratic overreach, to pull inward.       

All of that may be true but, even if this rule helped the hypothetical 14-year-old, it would be wrong.

Brooks misses (or doesn’t care) that we are now in a full-fledged constitutional crisis. Obamacare is a disaster–nay, a catastrophe–for the principles underlying American rule of law, which requires that the federal government operate under limited powers.  Indeed, the president is undermining limited government both coming and going:

1. He is expanding the breadth, scope, and application of the Commerce Clause to the snapping point by asserting that the federal government is empowered to control private non behavior if it believes the non behavior creates a national problem.

2. At the same time, Obama is obliterating the First Amendment’s guarantee of free exercise of religion, reducing it to the puny “freedom of worship,” which isn’t much of a right at all, and in fact, will (as intended) drive religion out of the public square so government can fill the vacuum.

And here’s the principle at stake: If Obamacare can suck the vitality out of an enumerated right of the people, and transform it into a hollow symbol, then the government can destroy any of the  freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights that the powers that be view as impeding favored policy imperatives.  And if that scythe can swing from left-to-right, it eventually can also swing from right-to-left.

Brooks criticizes Obama for being too “technocratic.”  But only a technocrat could miss the elephant in the living room: If this stands, we won’t be Nazi Germany.  But we will not be free–at least not as we Americans have always understood the term.

This is the consequence of the ridiculous practice of legislating to headlines too often seen in the states’ legislatures and Congress.  In this case, Jack Kevorkian was publicly promising to assist suicides.  And what did the brainiacs in the Georgia Legislature do in response?  Ban assisted suicide?  No, that would have been principled and smart.  Instead, they essentially banned assisted suicide advertising, and now, the Georgia Supreme Court has unsurprisingly tossed the law (as I suspected would happen). From the Time story:

The Georgia Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling concludes the 1994 state law “restricts speech in violation of the free speech clauses” of the U.S. and Georgia constitutions.  The court’s opinion held that Georgia only criminalized assisted suicides that include a public offering to assist. It said the law didn’t expressly prohibit assisted suicides, meaning some were legal in Georgia.

The opinion, penned by Justice Hugh Thompson, said lawmakers could have imposed a ban on all assisted suicides with no restriction on protected speech, or it could forbid all offers to assist in suicide that are followed by the act. But lawmakers decided to do neither, the ruling said. “The State has failed to provide any explanation or evidence as to why a public advertisement or offer to assist in an otherwise legal activity is sufficiently problematic to justify an intrusion on protected speech rights,” the ruling said.

America used to be known for competence.  No more. Good grief.

State laws against assisted suicide have never been declared by a state high court to be unconstitutional, and have been declared explicitly constitutional in Florida, Alaska, and I believe, California–as well as 9-0 in the US Supreme Court.  So Georgia Legislature, you had better get to work just outlawing assisted suicide or your state will soon be known as Switzerland South–only worse, as it is now assisted suicide anarchy in Georgia–with people traveling there for the Final Exit Network to “counsel” them on their helium-induced final exits.

I suspect the Obama Administration will try and back off their anti Catholic “free birth control” rule because it is very bad politics.  But first, they will try to spin it as not anti religion.  They will pretend it isn’t narrowly drawn.  And that’s just what HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius attempted today in USA Today–and it’s a crock.  From “Contraception Rule Respects Religion:”

The public health case for making sure insurance covers contraception is clear. But we also recognize that many religious organizations have deeply held beliefs opposing the use of birth control. That’s why in the rule we put forward, we specifically carved out from the policy religious organizations that primarily employ people of their own faith. This exemption includes churches and other houses of worship, and could also include other church-affiliated organizations.

What, she thinks people can’t read? Does she believe mendacity by omission isn’t still mendacity?

First, there are four criteria, all of which must be met to qualify for exemption, not just “employ people of their own faith,” including the requirement that the organization primarily “serve” people of its own faith:

1. The “inculcation of religious values” is “its purpose.”

2. It “primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets.”

3. “It primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets.”

4. It is a non-profit organization under sections of the code that “refer to churches, their integrated auxiliaries, and conventions or associations, as well as to the exclusively religious activities of any religious order.”

Moreover, the Preliminary Rule, unchanged in the Final Rule, explicitly states that it protects “houses of worship:”

Specifically, the Departments seek to provide for a religious accommodation that respects the unique relationship between a house of worship and its employees in ministerial positions.

Thus, most Catholic organizations will be forced to provide free birth control, sterilization, and abortifacient coverage even though it is a direct violation of faith.  This includes, hospitals, elementary and high schools (can you imagine the howling if these schools refused to admit non Catholic kids?) universities, Catholic Charities, nursing homes–even Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Mercy hospices.  (Again, can you imagine the Sisters refusing to care for non Catholics?)

And don’t forget this gem from Sebelius’s announcement; forced speech by exempt organizations that violate their faith:

We intend to require employers that do not offer coverage of contraceptive services to provide notice to employees, which will also state that contraceptive services are available at sites such as community health centers, public clinics, and hospitals with income-based support.

Mendacity won’t protect us from noticing the bigotry of this Administration against Catholic (in particular) faith.  Reread my NRO piece, “Free Birth Control vs. Freedom of Religion.

Oh, and don’t forget, the Obama Adm. refused to renew an anti sex trafficking federal grant to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops because it won’t distribute ”reproductive” services that violate the Catholic faith–despite an exemplary record of success in the field.  Less egregious, because he who provides the money has a legitimate claim to be able to make the rules, but significant nonetheless about its priorities.  At some point, one-plus-one equals two.

As the Planned Parenthood/Komen debacle continues to unfold, I still believe that Planned Parenthood has been badly wounded going into the future.  What metaphor should we use?  The bloom is off the rose?  No, PP is nothing like a flower.  The wolf has thrown off the sheep’s clothes?  Better.  The vampire has shown her fangs?  Well, you get the point.

The shrieking and gnashing of teeth about cutting off a small fund (by PP standards) shows just how rabidly pro abortion the so-called pro choice lobby really is. According to this view, once Komen began funding PP, it became obligated to continue so doing indefinitely–otherwise the abortion license will be endangered.  We see this view in a column by Katha Politt in The Nation.  First, she notes that Komen has not promised to fund PP in the future, just complete current funding.  From “Komen’s Ambiguous Apology:”

The original banning always referred to the future, and as to that, Komen says only that PP can apply for funding, not that Komen will continue to make grants to it as it has for many years. Nothing prevents Komen from altering its criteria in ways designed to exclude PP—for example, as Brinker suggested to Mitchell, deciding against funding breast care outside of mammogram centers.

Can you imagine?  Komen actually reserved the right to reject the grant application?  I guess it should instead be forced to immediately divert a proper percentage of its raised funds, and as soon as it is received, bring it in a chest with a full prostration to the Planned Parenthood treasurer.

But here’s the revealing section:

Komen miscalculated by thinking its base cares only about breast cancer: in fact, those women in pink t-shirts and sneakers, raising their thousands upon thousands of dollars a year for breast cancer research, understand quite well that women’s health means more than tumor-free breasts. If Komen understood that but thought—and maybe still thinks—it can deceive those activists, or gradually shed them and acquire a whole other, equally dedicated, base of anti-choicers, it will dwindle and die.

Clearly, the rabid furor of PP defenders–to the point of being willing to substantially harm the fight against breast cancer–was not about the disease.  It wasn’t even about pro choice. It was adamantly and fervently pro abortion.

I used to buy the pro choice idea and accepted at face value the continual assurances from that lobby that “nobody likes abortion.”  Then, in the late 80s, when I was a fill-in talk show host on KGIL in LA, I was asked to come in and decided to do a show about adoption.  I brought in an adoption attorney.  I think I had a woman who had given up her child–a true act of selfless love–and perhaps, as I recall all these years later, an adopting couple.

Silly me: I thought it would be utterly non controversial and helpful. Well, you would have thought I had done a show advocating the drowning of puppies, “pro choicers” who called into to the show (and the station demanding that I be fired) were so mad.  The phones were so hot, we barely got to talk adoption at all.  Some said that by highlighting “a different choice,” which was what I called the show, I was making an unwarranted moral claim against abortion.  (That had not been my intent.) I came away from that interview deeply shocked and sobered.  I ended the program by stating I had always believed that pro choice was just that.  Now I knew it is actually often pro abortion.

This Planned Parenthood debacle vividly revealed for all to see that its base of support is rabidly pro abortion too. That won’t go over well in a country like the USA where (mostly) pro life is probably the majority view, pro choice is often the justification for supporting the current regime, and pro abortion is seen widely as disgusting and immoral.  In the long run, PP will be hurt far more by that spectacle than it would have been losing the relatively small annual contribution from Komen.