People in more than 100 cities across the nation will gather on Friday to take a stand for their constitutional rights and religious freedoms.
After President Obama stated last month that all religious institutions will be forced to include contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs in their insurance coverage under the new health-care law, Americans have turned their outrage into one unified voice for freedom.
“Stand Up For Religious Freedom—Stop the HHS Mandate” rallies aim to serve as a time and place for people to protest against the recent contraceptives mandate and publicly voice their demand that the government protect their religious liberty.
The Liberty Counsel argues that the Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate shows that the Obama administration lacks an understanding of the First Amendment. Religious institutions that are self-insured, such as Liberty University, the world’s largest Christian school, will still be required to pay directly for contraceptives and abortifacients for their faculty and staff. With the enactment of this mandate, the basic rights of religious organizations, including charities and Catholic hospitals, will for the first time be forced to compromise their core beliefs.
“Two years ago we warned about these mandates,” says Mathew Staver, founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. We stated that ObamaCare would be the biggest funding of abortion in history. Today, what we said would happen is now happening. ObamaCare is an assault on human life, religious liberty and conscience.”
Friday marks the second anniversary of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—aka “ObamaCare”—under which this mandate will be issued. The Supreme Court will begin hearing oral argument against this legislation on Monday. The rallies are timed to gain the attention of the nation.
Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, is hosting a Stand Up for Religious Freedom rally in the nation’s capital. As Mahoney sees it, the faith community can never be silent or indifferent when it comes to matters of justice, human rights and religious freedom.
“Through these rallies, we want to send a clear message to President Obama and HHS that we will never comply with an unjust or immoral government mandate that would require us to violate our faith and our conscience,” Mahoney says.
“The HHS mandates and the issue of religious freedom have now ignited a political firestorm that will be a major issue in the 2012 presidential elections. In an odd way, President Obama’s forcing Christian institutions to violate their conscience and core beliefs has energized the faith community in a way that none of the republican candidates have yet been able to accomplish.”
See an error in this article?
To contact us or to submit an article
