97percent. Perhaps. But as we saw with the 99percent, never underestimate the government or worse a political parties ability to ignore facts…or the people. Glad to hear so many spoke up.

Would it be incredibly enlightening to the government if the USCCB and other religious leaders in America elected to close their hospitals rather than conform to immoral and unethical requirements? It is rather revealing as to the state of “democracy” in America when someone states they will vote Republican. Remember Jefferson and remember Lincoln.

Obama must be stopped.  He has stirred a Christian majority into action he doesn’t even see coming..or he ignorantly chooses to dismiss at his peril.  Disquising the issue as a ‘war on women’ is transparent to his real goals ie..diminish religions influence in America and increase dependency in a secular government.  He cannot be let to succeed.

Chad Hidalgo,

Do not play any sort of word game between “democracy” and Republican. We live in a democratic republic, and even if we didn’t a psuedo-paradox between words does not count as discovering some sort of sinister trend.

As much as I am against the HHS birth control mandate, 211 comments mean absolutely nothing.  In a nation of 250 million, 211 comments are a statistical zero.

William Masterson: actually, they may carry a lot more weight than you think.  I’ve seen estimates that when a representative gets a letter, it is considered to count for anywhere from 10 to 100 other people.  I unfortunately cannot tell who the author of this document is, but I found it interesting - http://www.scribd.com/doc/13777506/Sending-A-Letter-to-Your-CongressmanSenator

That is really sad, that so many people do not understand our constitution. The employees of Catholic institutions are having THEIR rights violated by having to follow the religious beliefs of their employers. It is not like a small Church is being required to provide something to the secreatry and music director. If you want to run huge hospitals and universities, you have to provide benefits for people of all faiths.

Its so sad that the Catholic administrative employees (Bishops, Cardinals) have made a political issue out of nonsense. They should ask the women religious about the meaning of the Gospels, since the Cardinals and Bishops are obviously clueless

Want to hear the TRUTH about Obamacare? Go to www.gbtv.com/media/video.jsp?content ID+20177695

Rick,
Accepting a job with all it’s restrictions, it’s mission etc. IS A FREE CHOICE. No one is forced to work for a Catholic institution but if you do you are expected to cooperate with it’s philosophy.

I left teaching in the public schools to teach in Catholic schools at half the salary and no pension so that I would not have to conform to the philosophy of government education. I freely chose to live on less so that I could hopefully inherit the kingdom!

William Masterson and enness.

enness, true, one “complaint letter” is known to represent 100 people who also experienced that same complaint.  I worked in QA for a major tuna company and many years before a study was conducted about the percent of complaints one complaint letter represented.  The conclusion of the study determined one complaint represents 100 more people who could have made a similar complaint but didn’t.

Interesting, at the height of “consumerism” when news shows had “consumer advocate” segments, the industry duplicated the previous study on consumer complaint letters.  They found that at the height of the consumer movement, just 1 more person out of that hundred wrote a complaint letter.

It is sad that the Catholic Bishops are not overwhelmingly opposed to the HHS mandate. After all that has been said and done on national discussion, I haven’t heard a word from the Bishop of my dioceses and ZIP NADA from the pulpit.  Apparently, they agree with Obama.

“That is really sad, that so many people do not understand our constitution. The employees of Catholic institutions are having THEIR rights violated by having to follow the religious beliefs of their employers.”

Seriously? You sound like someone who wants to make it a women’s issue. It is not a “women’s” issue and it must cease to be a “women’s” issue because you are also concerned about fundamental rights. It is inherently wrong and evil for a woman to be able to decide without the consent of the man to terminate the life of his child. Granted, I know the situation is not usually where the man is even interested, but other men are interested because that is a human baby and helpless. It is beyond me how anyone can so ignorantly choose to not see abortion as murder. The general consensus so far has been that we should not elect a woman to the presidency of the United States because it would be too much of an emotional challenge. Why then do we allow women to terminate (i.e. kill) their babies? The two ideas do not at all seem disparate to me. Babies are the future of our country and we owe them every protection to ascertain their health, well-being, and moral fiber. We have relied upon the document draughted by our forefathers for more than two hundred years - we call it the Constitution, but I have to wonder whether we have any personal constitution that can be relied upon.

The statistics mean nothing as the mandate does absolutely nothing to protect the private individual who must pay for health insurance out of pocket or works for a non-religious employer.

The number one cause of death for American women is not child-birth, it is heart disease.  If our administration truly cared about “women’s health” it would be investing more dollars into research on illnesses such as heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes, etc…

Once again, our nation in putting ideology against reasonable science.  Sad.

Laura Weinberg, I agree with you.  There are so many true health issues that could be address with those dollars that would save the lives of thousands of women, that would help help women lead happier, healthier lives.  But, no, the administration wants to focus on reproduction as if reproduction is the only woman’s issue.

We must also remember subsidiarity… all ‘private’ decisions made over our lives by the government is a bad idea. IF those poisonous social programs were not in place, then we could give those extra dollars to outreach programs funded by donations and private individuals.

That way, what’s best for us would not be forced out of us with the threat of violence or prison. This is just the logical outcome of that “I know better, and it’s better if I make you do good” mentality. Someone will come along with a different idea of what is good, and use the government to force you to do it. This is a mere symptom of our obedience to Leviathan.

Rick,

I think you are a little confused as to what precisely is going on here. None of the Catholic (or other Christian/religious) institutions are “forcing” anyone to follow the beliefs of their religious employers. The religious employers are simply saying that if you want to use contraceptives and/or abortifacients, you will have to pay for them yourselves because it violates our (the employer’s) conscience to do so. The religious institutions aren’t telling any employees what those employees can or can’t do; they are simply stating what they, the employer, should not have to pay for. Any employee of a Catholic institution can purchase and use contraceptives but will have to do so on his/her own dime.

Think about it this way - since when are you entitled to your employer paying for anything you want? The answer is and should be never.

On a separate note, since when did the word “benefit” come to mean “right” and “entitlement”?

Mr. Drake, I am an avid fan of your radio show and very much appreciate your enlightening blogs!                      ****MC, thank you for your thoughtful commentary—it’s absolutely “spot on”!  A question for Rick: are you the guy who calls the Catholic Answers & EWTN Open Line programs all the time? Your rhetoric sounds remarkably like his.  For those of you who are not devoted listeners, there is a person who calls himself Rick (or somtimes Mike) who regularly calls these shows with questions designed to “trip up” program hosts and guests on matters of Catholic theology, practice, apologetics, and Scripture. I enjoy hearing Patrick Coffin, Patrick Madrid, Jimmy Akin, Fr. Serpa, Fr. Pacwa, Fr. Trujillo (and all of the other wonderful apologists) graciously & adroitly respond to Rick’s rather inept & persistent argumentation. Kudos to all of these defenders of the one, true Catholic faith.  I urge all seekers of the truth to listen to these incredible radio programs. If you don’t have a Catholic radio channel, these programs are available via podcast.

Big difference between Church and State: with the Church, punishment for transgression is in the next life; with the State, punishment for transgression is in THIS life.  That’s why it’s religious freedom that is being attacked here by anti-Catholics enforcing their views on everyone, not the other way around.  The Church respects the free will that God gave all of us—She tells us what God’s will is, but She doesn’t exactly send priests to everyone’s home to make sure no hanky-panky takes place.  The State could very easily do something like that.  Separation of Church and State is meant to protect religious people from the government, not the other way around—that’s “freedom” FROM religion, which is just the opposite.  Freedom of religion is the freedom to both seek and act upon fundamental truths (theological and moral) that transcend man-made institutions like governments and so are not subject to them.  Consequently freedom of religion is the most important freedom we have, the bedrock of all freedom—that and the right to life (for ALL, from natural conception to natural death) are crucial, and this mandate is threatening to take away both.  Therefore it undermines the Church, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution and is grossly immoral.