Liberal Catholic Chump Hall of Fame

[Mornac]

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Admitted February 2, 2012, former Democratic congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper:


Kathy Dahlkemper,  I Wouldn't Have Voted for Obamacare If I'd Known About HHS Rule

John McCormack
February 7, 2012

Former Democratic congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper, a Catholic from Erie, Pennsylvania, cast a crucial vote in favor of Obamacare in 2010. She lost her seat that November in part because of her controversial support of Obamacare. But Dahlkemper said recently that she would have never voted for the health care bill had she known that the Department of Health and Human Services would require all private insurers, including Catholic charities and hospitals, to provide free coverage of contraception, sterilization procedures, and the "week-after" pill "ella" that can induce early abortions.
 
"I would have never voted for the final version of the bill if I expected the Obama Administration to force Catholic hospitals and Catholic Colleges and Universities to pay for contraception,” Dahlkemper said in a press release sent out by Democrats for Life in November. "We worked hard to prevent abortion funding in health care and to include clear conscience protections for those with moral objections to abortion and contraceptive devices that cause abortion. I trust that the President will honor the commitment he made to those of us who supported final passage."
 
Of course, most abortion opponents disagree with Dahlkemper that the HHS regulation is Obamacare's only moral problem. Under Obamacare, each state's federally subsidized health care exchange is required to offer a health insurance plan that covers elective abortions unless the state passes a law opting out of the requirement.
 
As former Democratic congressman Bart Stupak said when the Senate passed Obamacare in December of 2009, "A review of the Senate language indicates a dramatic shift in federal policy that would allow the federal government to subsidize insurance policies with abortion coverage. Further, the segregation of funds to pay for abortion is another departure from current policy prohibiting federal subsidy of abortion coverage."
 
Stupak, Dahlkemper, and a handful of other Democrats who held back on voting for final passage of Obamacare eventually voted for the exact same language in the Senate bill because the president signed an executive order saying the law wouldn't fund abortions.

But the executive order signed by President Obama did nothing to prevent the subsidized health care exchanges from covering elective abortions

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/dem-rep-kathy-dahlkemper-i-wouldnt-have-voted-obamacare-if-id-known-about-hhs-regulation_626302.html

[Mornac]

Admitted Feb. 9, 2012 - Archbishop Timothy Dolan:


Cardinal-Designate Dolan: Obama Reneging On Birth Control Provision
Sources: President Promised Dolan That He Would 'Get Most Of What He Wanted'

February 9, 2012

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan says President Barack Obama hasn’t kept his promise, when it comes to the new White House policy on contraception.
 
Sources told CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer that Archbishop Dolan feels betrayed after his meeting with the president on the issue late last year.
 
A Catholic group in Alabama filed the first lawsuit against the Obama administration’s new birth control regulations as the controversy got even more heated Thursday.

The president ducked questions about the contraception controversy that is bedeviling his administration. The reason may be the latest attack from Dolan, who, sources told CBS 2, feels he was stabbed in the back by the president after the two met to discuss the issue.
 
“He was worried about being at odds with the Church, especially when it came to health care and education and charitable outreach,” Dolan told Kramer.
 
Kramer: “He made promises to you that he apparently hasn’t kept?”
 
Dolan: “Well, yeah. I’m honest in saying I feel a bit let down.”
 
Sources close to Dolan told Kramer that the archbishop felt betrayed after a November meeting with President Obama to discuss the contraception issue. Sources said the president promised Dolan that he would “get most of what he wanted.”
 
Instead, the administration issued a directive forcing Catholic institutions like schools and hospitals to pay for things like birth control and the morning after pill for their employees. The nation’s 355,000 churches are exempt.
 
“He assured me my administration wants to work closely with you,” Dolan said.
 
But that experience has left Dolan leery of any compromises the Obama administration might come up with.
 
“You would not be surprised that I’m a little skeptical,” Dolan said.
Democrats say it’s not about religion at all, but rather giving women the freedom to make their own choices.
 
“One million people and their dependents are employees at religiously sponsored hospitals and another 2 million students and workers are at religiously sponsored colleges and universities — far too many women to exclude from crucial health coverage,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney said.
 
“My colleagues and I stand in solidarity with American women who have waited decades for equity in contraceptive coverage,” said Westchester Rep. Nita Lowey.
 
“No one is telling the bishops anything about the religious practices of the Catholic church,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler from Manhattan. ”What is at issue here is that the bishops want the ability to impose their religious beliefs on other people, on the employees of religiously affiliated hospitals and universities.”
But Republicans in Congress plan to make the birth control provision in the Obama health care law an election year issue.
 
“This is very straightforward. This is about whether the government of the United States should have the power to go in and tell a faith-based organization that they have to pay for something they teach their members they shouldn’t be doing,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) said Wednesday.
 
House Speaker John Boehner is already laying out steps to reverse the policy.
 
“If the president does not reverse the department’s attack on religious freedom, then the Congress acting on behalf of the American people and the Constitution that we’re sworn to uphold, must,” Boehner said Wednesday.
 
Most health care plans already cover contraception and according to surveys, most Catholic women use it and according to the Center for Disease Control, 99 percent of women will use contraceptives at some point.
 
“That’s the point of the Affordable Health Care Act, that all Americans will have access to the kind of health care they need,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois).
 
Obama is standing by the new policy, but said he is looking for ways to compromise, including one option where religious employers would not have to cover birth control so long as they refer employees to an insurer who would provide it.
 
The new policy is set to take effect in August. The controversy won’t go away until some compromise is reached, and now with the suit being filed some may wait to see if it is upheld or struck down.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/02/09/cardinal-designate-dolan-obama-reneging-on-birth-control-provision/

[Case_Closed]

I think everyone should just relax and settle down.  Obama is going to cave in on this.  He always does.

[Mornac]

I don't think these people are going to let him:


Feb 1, 2012

Planned Parenthood Defends Obama Against Catholic Criticism

Following a barrage of criticism of the Obama administration from the Catholic Church, Planned Parenthood today launched a national TV ad campaign praising newly mandated contraception coverage in health insurance plans, including those offered by religiously affiliated institutions.
 
“President Obama and Secretary Sebelius stood strong to make sure all women — no matter where they work — will have access to birth control without a co-pay, saving them hundreds of dollars,” the narrator says in the 30-second spot. (You can view it HERE.)
 
The move has been celebrated by women’s rights groups — key supporters of Obama’s re-election bid — but vigorously opposed by Catholic groups, who say the requirement violates religious liberty.  Catholic teaching opposes contraception.
 
Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards dismissed the Catholic concerns about the new policy in a statement accompanying the ad, saying that birth control use is “nearly universal in the U.S., even among Catholic women.”
 
Richards cites an April 2011 Guttmacher Institute study that found 98 percent of Catholic women reported using birth control at some point in their lives. She also notes an NPR report that many Catholic hospitals and universities already offer health insurance plans that provide birth control coverage to their employees.
 
“Planned Parenthood respects religious freedom and believes that neither government nor employers should intrude on individuals’ ability to practice their own religions or faiths, including their personal decisions about health care,” Richards said.
 
The TV ad will air in West Palm Beach, Fla.; Cedar Rapids, Ia.; Lansing, Mich.; Reno, Nev.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Toledo, Ohio.; Charlottesville, Va.; and Madison, Wis.
 
Meanwhile, Catholic activists and church leaders are vowing to fight the new rules.
 
“We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law,” Thomas Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix, wrote in a letter to parishioners Sunday.  “People of faith cannot be made second-class citizens.”
 
“This is a direct attack on our religious freedom and our First Amendment rights,” Atlanta archbishop Wilton Gregory said in a letter. “I will work with the bishops, other religious leaders and our fellow Americans to remove this unjust regulation.”
 
The move could also have consequences for Obama in November.
 
“I don’t think Catholic liberals are en masse going to leave Obama but they are disappointed,” Mathew N. Schmalz, a professor of religion and comparative studies at the College of  the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., told ABC News. “High-profile Catholics who have supported Obama are put in a more difficult position because of this.”

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/planned-parenthood-defends-obama-against-catholic-criticism/#

[ivanm]

To me this is a civil rights issue, and civil or secular law prevails over church doctrine in America.  If not then we have a theocracy rather than a
representative democracy.   

I think it has been pointed out that a large number of Catholics use contraceptive devices in spite of the church's objection. So maybe it is time the Catholic Church crawled out from under the rock of dogma it has been hiding under. 

Sorry Mornac, but I call it like I see it. 

[Case_Closed]

Interesting fix he's gotten himself into.

"Do I tell the Jesus Freaks to fuck off or the bitches to eat shit and die?"

[Case_Closed]

If we are forced to pay for birth control pills as a "civil right," shouldn't we also be forced to pay for prophylactics?

Where does it end?  Dildos?

[Observer]

To me this is a civil rights issue, and civil or secular law prevails over church doctrine in America.  If not then we have a theocracy rather than a
representative democracy.   

I think it has been pointed out that a large number of Catholics use contraceptive devices in spite of the church's objection. So maybe it is time the Catholic Church crawled out from under the rock of dogma it has been hiding under. 

Sorry Mornac, but I call it like I see it. 

How did someone else paying for somebody's contraceptives become a "right"?

Is there no sense of personal responsibility left in this country?

[Mornac]

Admitted Feb.10, 2012 –Vice President of the United States, Joseph Biden and former White House Chief of Staff, John Daley:



Feb 9, 2012
Policy and Politics of Contraception Rule Fiercely Debated Within White House

“What are we doing here?” asked Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, stepping outside his wheelhouse to ask about a rising storm involving the Obama administration and the Catholic Church. “What’s the point?”
 
It was the Fall of 2011 and Panetta had read about a proposed Obama administration rule that would require employers – excluding houses of worship but including religious organizations such as charities, hospitals, and schools – to offer health insurance that fully covered contraception.
 
Panetta — a Catholic, former U.S. Representative, and White House chief of staff — didn’t quite understand why the Obama administration would be stepping into this conflict.
 
Panetta’s fears have to a degree been realized as White House officials now find themselves taking heat on a policy debate about conscience and religious liberty; the Obama administration is working to find a way to allow religious organizations to not pay for services they find morally objectionable, while also ensuring that, say, the women nurses and doctors who work at Catholic hospitals have full access to birth control. Some officials are discussing a way to introduce something like the law in Hawaii, where religious organizations don’t have to pay for employee insurance that covers contraception, but they do have to inform employees how they can get it on their own.
 
The debate within the White House on this issue was, sources say, heated, and President Obama was legitimately torn. Panetta wasn’t alone in his concerns. For months, Vice President Joe Biden and then-White House chief of staff Bill Daley argued internally against the rule, sources tell ABC News. Biden and Daley didn’t think the rule was right on either the policy or the politics, sources said. Joshua Dubois, head of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, also expressed concern.
 
The policy was wrong, the two Catholic men, Biden and Daley, argued, saying that the Obama administration couldn’t force religious charities to pay for something they think is a sin. Sources say that Biden and Daley in these internal debates emphasized the political fallout more so than the policy issue. Catholics are the ultimate swing voters, they argued. President Obama won the Catholic vote 54-46% in 2008, but he lost among white Catholics 47-53%, according to exit polls.
 
But Biden and Daley faced a strong group making the case for the rule within the administration – including Catholics such as senior adviser David Plouffe and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, senior White House advisers Valerie Jarrett and Pete Rouse, and then-domestic policy council director Melody Barnes. Others outside the White House also pushed hard for the rule, including former White House communications director Anita Dunn, Senators Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Planned Parenthood Federation of America president Cecile Richards. (Some of the details of this internal division were first reported yesterday by Bloomberg’s Mike Dorning and Margaret Talev.)
 
For these advocates, this issue was logical and based on science: birth control saves women’s lives, reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies, and is a fundamental issue of a woman controlling her own health care. And the politics were in the long term good, they said. Even with the current controversy raging, many Democrats maintain that the voters they need to vote for Obama in November – young voters nationwide, women voters in battleground states such as Colorado, Virginia, and Pennsylvania – support the president’s decision.
 
Those advocating for the rule argued that the Catholics likely to be most offended by this rule – those who attend mass at least once a week – voted for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., 59-41%. (Though sources say this tidbit was not discussed internally at the White House, it’s interesting to note that President Obama narrowly won the Catholics who don’t attend church regularly, 52-48%.)
 
The two sides couldn’t even agree about what they were debating. In the fall, Richards brought in polling indicating that the American people overwhelmingly supported the birth control benefit in health insurance. She also highlighted statistics showing the overwhelming use of birth control.
 
The Vice President and others argued that this wouldn’t be seen as an issue of contraception – it would be seen as an issue of religious liberty. They questioned the polling of the rule advocates, arguing that it didn’t explain the issue in full, it ignored the question of what religious groups should have to pay for. And they argued that women voters for whom this was an important issue weren’t likely to vote for Mitt Romney, who has drawn a strong anti-abortion line as a presidential candidate, saying he would end federal funding to Planned Parenthood and supporting a “personhood” amendment that defines life as beginning at the moment of fertilization.
 
Political hands disagreed with that interpretation. Cultural issues will play a bigger issue in the 2012 election than they did during the economic crisis of 2008, they said. Some of the suburban women up for grabs in this election, ones who are starting to feel more confident about the economy, can be firmly won over if they learned about this rule – if they also were told that President Obama supported an exemption for houses of worship while Romney opposes not only abortion but federal funding for contraception.
 
Some in the White House thought that the president’s hands became tied when Sebelius issued the proposed rule in August; they would have preferred a delay so as to work out some sort of arrangement with religious charities and schools. The president was boxed in by this rule, they say; after the rule was issued, any discussion about expanding the exemption became a rallying cry for groups that support contraception and legal abortion, such as Planned Parenthood. When President Obama met with Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in November, discussing this topic as well as others, these groups sounded the alarm.
 
In addition to lobbying by Richards and Dunn, Rouse — a former Senate staffer so plugged in he has been called “the 101st Senator” — spent a great deal of time talking to Boxer, Shaheen, and other senators who felt strongly in support of the rule.
 
The president ultimately sided with the rule’s advocates. He and Secretary Sebelius felt that the policy needed a way to treat religious universities, hospitals, and charities different than general employers, White House officials insist, which is why the Department of Human Services announced that the policy would not be fully implemented until August 2013, giving the administration and these groups more time to work on a policy that would alleviate most concerns.
 
The president wanted the decision about the rule to be announced before the State of the Union, so as not to step on his economic message. So much for that.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/policy-and-politics-of-contraception-rule-fiercely-debated-within-white-house/#

[Mornac]

Admitted Feb. 12, 2012, Notre Dame University:

Unacceptable!

[notoc]

Unacceptable!

Let's pretend that this legislation is passed and that 98% of those Catholics who are offered the choice of taking or not taking the insurance coverage exercise their free will and take it. What are you going to do then, other than shout louder ... and then, when the 98% still don't listen to you ... threaten them with excommunication?

[Mornac]

Let's pretend that this legislation is passed

--We don’t have to pretend – it’s been passed. It goes into effect next summer.

and that 98% of those Catholics who are offered the choice of taking or not taking the insurance coverage exercise their free will and take it.

--Yes?

What are you going to do then,

--About what?

other than shout louder

--At whom?

... and then, when the 98% still don't listen to you

--What am I supposed to be telling them?

... threaten them with excommunication?

--It is not my responsibility nor is it within my authority to to excommunicate anyone.

[johnhp]

--We don’t have to pretend – it’s been passed. It goes into effect next summer.
--Yes?
--About what?
--At whom?
--What am I supposed to be telling them?
--It is not my responsibility nor is it within my authority to to excommunicate anyone.

And here we have Mornac's confession that this issue is sound and fury signifying nothing on his part.

[notoc]

--We don’t have to pretend – it’s been passed. It goes into effect next summer.
--Yes?
--About what?
--At whom?
--What am I supposed to be telling them?
--It is not my responsibility nor is it within my authority to to excommunicate anyone.

Have you ever used contraception, Mornac?

[Mornac]

Have you ever used contraception, Mornac?

--So you're just going to ignore all four of my questions and ask one of your own instead? You dissapoint me more by the day notoc.

Make a note of this: Whenever you ask a personal question that has no bearing on the subject at hand the answer will always be that it’s none of your business. What you do need to know is that I believe in and stand behind 100% of Catholic teaching – including the consequences of transgressing it.