"I know in your mind you can think of times when America was attacked. One is December 7th, that's Pearl Harbor day. The other is September 11th, and that's the day of the terrorist attack, I want you to remember August the 1st, 2012, the attack on our religious freedom. That is a day that will live in infamy, along with those other dates."Now, that is quite the statement. So not only does Mr. Kelly insinuate that the Contraceptive Mandate is as dire a situation as the country faced on the days of September 11th or Pearl Harbor (just for reference, Antietam still holds as the bloodiest day on American soil), but he is arguing rather ignorantly, that it infringes upon the religious freedoms of Americans everywhere, guaranteed by the First Amendment of our constitution. To say it bluntly, it is childish hyperbole to an absurd extent. The crux of Kelly's argument is that, by forcing religious institutions to provide birth control to their employees infringes upon their religious views. He and many others backing him (Rick Santorum), keep citing the First Amendment. I find it ironic in that from my point of view if you did allow religious organizations exceptions on this issue, it would actually violate the First Amendment in two ways:
- These employers could then dictate their religious views to their employees by tailoring coverage to those views, thus infringing upon the First Amendment rights of their employees.
- Just the nature of creating an exception for religious entities in my mind does violate the First Amendment, as it says quite plainly "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of a religion."
My opinion of the entire Health Care Mandate not withstanding, the law was upheld by the Supreme Court and is on the books. Now allowing religious institutions to possibly carve out exceptions in their provided health care coverage as I have already mentioned is unconstitutional, but pushes us onto a slippery slope, as does almost anything when it comes to religion in this country. Studying history and religion my entire life, I find it to be a fair observation that people are in general, just simply less tolerant of other peoples' religious views. What do I mean by that? More often than not, when I see a push for more religion into our lives, but usually it is for only one type, Christianity. Then the same person or group advocating for the push is offended when other faiths step up for inclusion as well. Case and point, Louisiana's voucher program and State Representative Valarie Hodges, LA. So Rep. Hodges was in support of Governor Bobby Jindal's voucher program, but thought "religious" meant Christian in terms of what schools could obtain the funding. After finding out the finding could go to institutions of other faiths, she withdrew her support, with some reminding her just what religious freedom is all about.
Now let me ask, what do you think the reaction would be in this country if we had other religious organizations (most of the rancor about the birth control mandate is coming from the Catholic Church) step forward and stating that they too will structure their coverage around their beliefs? We all know the reaction around this country if an Islamic entity were to do so, people would be screaming "Sharia Law!" from the mountaintops and just like, Rep. Valarie Hodges, would show their blatant hypocrisy towards the First Amendment and freedom of religion in this country.
To wrap this all up, the Republican Party needs to focus their message on getting back to small government and not these social issues and not just small government with the exception of one's religious beliefs, either. It has once again dredged up the issue of birth control, in a presidential election year no less, further alienating more women and moderate voters who could vote for Romney in November. I find the great thing about this country is that not only was it founded by people escaping religious persecution, but we are free to worship whatever religion we wish, as often as we wish, as we wish. Let's not allow religious employers to dictate otherwise.
As far as Mr. Kelly goes, he not only needs to be shouted down from people on both sides (Sen. Inouye from Hawaii, a Pearl Harbor survivor and WW2 veteran has already provided his remarks), in comparing the contraception mandate to two of our darkest days in history that also brought the United States into further conflicts and loss of life, but he needs to apologize and resign. No, that isn't an exaggeration, it is based off the fact that Mr. Kelly does not understand the First Amendment and he also has no qualms in violating the Congressional Oath of Office, mainly, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." What good is taking an oath if you aren't held to it? Yes, we all know he won't resign and he has yet to apologize either; so it is going to require that he be voted out. We are looking at you, citizens of Pennsylvania District 3.
References:
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/01/13070876-republican-likens-contraceptive-mandate-to-pearl-harbor-911?lite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Kelly_(Pennsylvania)
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/fact-checking-free-birth-control-day/story?id=16900144#.UBlqADGe7fu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valarie_Hodges
http://m.livingstonparishnews.com/mobile/news/article_6c2da5fe-c1e5-11e1-ae3b-0019bb2963f4.html
http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/07/louisiana_lawmaker_needs_lesso.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office#Federal_Executive_and_Legislative_Branch_Oaths
http://dc808.blogs.civilbeat.com/post/28509942096/inouye-linking-health-mandate-pearl-harbor-complete
Next up: I will continue to discuss the Republican Party and its current devotion to social issues, with a focus on Abortion.
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