Today on Register Radio, George Mason University law professor Helen Alvare tackled the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act. She noted three aspects of the decision.
"First, the bulk of the law was upheld, which means that the violations to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion which it spawned are still there," said Alvare. "Secondly, Congress has limited powers: the commerce clause and the tax and spend power. The Supreme Court said that Congress doesn't have authority to expand the commerce clause. Even though the Obama administration denied this was a tax and used the language of a penalty, the Court said that the argument that people should purchase insurance or pay a fee to the IRS acts like a tax. Lastly, the law required states to expand Medicaid insurance or risk losing all federal Medicaid funds. The Court held that this was too coercive. Congress cannot threaten the states."
Alvare added that the decision bodes well for the future of a more limited federal government.
"The law is with us, but the scope of Congress' power will be with us for a long time," said Alvare.
"The fight against the trampling of religious freedom goes on," said Alvare. "Coercing religious institutions to provide things that go against their teachings and conscience is a violation of the 1st Amendment and Federal Law. It is ridiculous that the Obama administration went to such extremes in this law."
Ultimately, she said that she is hopeful that those fighting the HHS mandate will prevail.
"I am more hopeful that we are going to win this argument in the end," she concluded.
Dangers of Same-Sex Parenting
In our second half, Register correspondent Sue Ellen Browder talked about her recent article examining the social science research study recently published in Social Science Research, which found that children raised by homosexuals fared significantly worse than those raised by a mother and father in at least 25 of 40 measures.
According to Browder, the New Family Structures study, done by University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus, found for example, that young adults between the ages of 18 to 39 who grew up in families where either parent had a same-sex romance were over three times as likely to be unemployed, they did worse in school, they had used marijuana, were more likely to have been arrested, and were more likely to have thought about suicide.
"Children raised in lesbian households were 11 times more likely to be sexually abused," noted Browder, "contradicting the popular wisdom that says that if you have a lesbian mother or two mothers, you're less likely to be abused."
Asked how this study differs from others like it, Browder explained that Regnerus screened 15,000 Americans.
"It's the biggest study of its kind," said Browder. "Most studies of homosexual families have been done with a small sample of white, well-educated, homosexual mothers and they compare them with single mothers rather than families with a mother and father."
Critics of the study, noted Browder, have said the data is flawed because it's difficult to find intact homosexual households that last, so the study compares solidly married families with broken families.
"What the study did not find is that homosexuals are bad parents, or that they caused all of the problems," noted Browder. "It's a correlation. These problems went hand-in-hand with having a homosexual parent."
To learn more, listen to today's show at 2 p.m. EASTERN Friday on any EWTN Radio affiliate. The program re-airs at 7 p.m. EASTERN on Saturday and 11 a.m. EASTERN on Sunday, and is also available on the Register Radio web page, and via podcast.
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Isn’t it ironic that the government cannot coerce the states, but it can the people? Chief Justice Roberts stated, also, that it was not the job of the judiciary to protect the people from the consequences of their choices. That is implying, however, that we are given a choice to begin with. First of all, we are so locked into the two-party system that our “choice” is only between the lesser of two evils. In addition, there is no guarantee that the elected official will follow through with policies that are for the best of the nation (or what was promised during the campaign). Secondly, if Chief Justice Roberts is the least in tune with the voice of the people, most are not in favor of this admittedly bad law.
Roberts,—just another (so called) Catholic working in Washington, DC against biblical and Constitutional principles.
Please be fair. Justice Roberts is interpreting the law, and did not ‘legislate’ from the bench. He called the tax a tax, which removes some of the cloudiness purposely written into the law. We are getting the results of our collective votes, unfortunately. Our elected officials are not serving us, but rather serving themselves through the deals they make for whatever motivation they have (retaining their seats? Gaining power in their party?) so we must educate ourselves and get involved as necessary.
Interesting but unconvincing! I think straight parents have much more to hide, from sexual abuse, starvation, outright abandonment, and even murder! The news is full of stories of unfit parents every day!
Rose, Roberts is just the end result of more “elitist” Washington, DC high profile Catholics eating their young. We would not even be talking about this were it not for socialist Catholics—namely Nancy Pelosi having pushed this through the House. The bill has its origin with Catholic Ted Kennedy. It was Catholic Bart Stupak who caved giving the bill its final need vote to pass. He sold out on abortion in order to get funding for an airport in his Michigan district and then retired from the House. These people have their own private insurance and more money to last ten generations. If you think your insurance cost will be reduced you are dreaming. It’s time Catholics in the pew wake up to realize the Catholic social gospel really is socialism. This is why the Bishops supported Obama. That is, until now, when their ox is being gored with the abortion services factor. And don’t forget another chief proponent of this entire mess is Obama Campaign Chairman and chief strategist—Catholic David Axelrod. Please stop apologizing for these people who really do not care anything about you. By definition, government is about power and control. They want to control you and impose governance over you.
@Rose: Next up is going to be a ruling on the legality of gay marriage. No doubt Catholic Ted Olson is going to be making the case for gay marriage at the Supreme Court just as he did before the 9th Circus Court of Appeals in CA to overturn the will of the people on Prop 8. You should also know that then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Catholic) and current Gov. Jerry Brown (Catholic) refused to defend the will of the people since they both were and are in support of gay marriage. The politician who really got the steamroller going in issuing licenses for gay marriage was the Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom (Catholic) who is now Lt. Gov. under Jerry Brown. Perhaps being educated by the Jesuits is reason enough to forgive both Brown and Newsom.
Posted by Rich Dykstra on Monday, Jul 2, 2012 10:18 AM (EST):Interesting but unconvincing! I think straight parents have much more to hide, from sexual abuse, starvation, outright abandonment, and even murder! The news is full of stories of unfit parents every day!”
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True.Straight parents might have more to hide statistically because there are many more straight parents.
I’m dubious about statistics,who gathered them & how they’re used & quoted.I prefer to stick to the Catechism.
@Rich Dykstra: If you are Catholic, and you think raising children in a lesbian or homosexual family is an emotionally healthy environment, you are deluded. There are many Catholics who actually agree with your viewpoint. Thus, the church has more problems than they care to admit. Nevertheless, Paul describes you well in Romans 1 as being “given over to a depraved mind.” You are thus incapable of making moral judgment.
I think what is not talked about enough is how did we get here? We act as if the forces of the homosexual parenting movement just one day got really powerful and started shoving this all down our throat. This progression began ever so slowly and at our hand. We are the ones who started divorcing just like those who have no faith at all. We are the ones who treat marriage prep like a box I have to check that is no more important than remembering to call the florist. Our clergy really haven’t invested in marriage prep at all. In fact in most parishes the only formation that is invested in is the formation of children and adults are left to fend for themselves. As for the parenting of children, especially those tragically in foster care etc, when is the last time you heard a homily encouraging us, as Christians to care for the orphans? Now, all of the sudden we want to be outraged when homosexual couples are stepping up to do the job we won’t do. We are outrages that they now are fighting for “marriage” in a way that somehow we forgot? I don’t support gay marriage and I fully accept the church’s teaching in this regard, but we can’t expect secular society to take marriage and the parenting of children any more seriously than we do. Our lax attitude towards both opened this door. And we do not seem to have the humility to admit it.
Hey Rob, all excellent points. As Catholics, we all once laughed at and mocked those Pastors like Jerry Falwell back in the 1970’s who warned these days were coming. Even my own parish priest used to ridicule Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority for his stand on cultural mores. Now, as I look back, it was our own Bishops who were always silent and afraid to speak up. They still are afraid.
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