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Subscribe to RSSCENTENNIAL, CO — Mitt Romney injected himself into a battle between religious groups and the Obama administration on Monday night, calling a new requirement that health care plans include coverage for contraception a "violation of conscience."
Before one of the largest crowds of his campaign, Romney decried the new rule, which requires religious institutions like hospitals, universities and charities to provide coverage for contraceptive services as part of their health care plans, regardless of the particular group's teachings on contraception.
While churches are exempt from the new requirement, it has quickly become a lightning rod issue for social conservatives, with the Catholic Church leading the charge against it.
"We must have a president who is willing to protect America’s first right, a right to worship God, according to the dictates of our own conscience," Romney said to an audience of nearly 3,000 people gathered in a high school gymnasium. "We'll either have a government that protects religious diversity and freedom, or we'll have a government that tells us what kind of conscience they think we ought to have."
Romney, who rarely discusses social issues unprompted on the stump, on Monday made his opposition to the mandate a major applause line at his rally outside Denver.
The issue has quickly become a part of the Republican campaign; Newt Gingrich has accused the Obama administration of waging a "war against religion" with the regulation.
Romney's comments echo a Washington Examiner op-ed piece he wrote last week, in which the former Massachusetts governor used even more forceful language to describe the new rule as "trampling" religious freedom.
"The Obama administration is forcing religious institutions to choose between violating their conscience or dropping health care coverage for their employees, effectively destroying their ability to carry on their work," Romney wrote, saying he "stands with" Catholic bishops opposed to the mandate.
Romney's focus on an issue of particular interest to Catholic voters comes on a day in which his campaign has focused its fire on Rick Santorum, a devout Catholic who has made social issues a cornerstone of his campaign.
The former Massachusetts governor's comments tonight could be seen as an attempt to try to peel away voters from Santorum, the Republican rival a Romney campaign senior adviser acknowledged could snap Romney's electoral win-streak with an upset in Minnesota or Missouri tomorrow.
Democrats called the attacks on the law hypocritical, and were quick to point out similar provisions in the healthcare law Romney passed in Massachusetts.
“It's the ultimate hypocrisy that Mitt Romney is hitting the President for the same birth control policy he oversaw and protected as Governor," Obama campaign adviser Stephanie Cutter said in a statement. "The problem for him is that women are on to him. The trust of voters is priceless in elections, and unfortunately for him it can’t be bought.”
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To control the population and avoid over population, every woman who has had two children only, should be sterilized.
as much I want to disagree with that statement, seeing as how people shouldn't be controlled like that, when I consider people like the Duggars, or somebody in my own family (who had 11 kids because they're catholic)... Population control becomes hard to disagree with. Especially in Catholics... It's as if they're anti birth control so they can create masses of children who will be catholic to create more masses of catholic children. Much like a virus. Some people are out of control, and those people need to be limited. Resources are already an issue, and I'm not even talking about fresh water.
Bet most people don't know that 28 states already require health insurance plans to cover contraceptives; 8 of those states require it with no exemptions, not even for churches or any other religious institution. In fact many major Catholic universities and hospitals, even if they are not located in one of the 28 states that require them to cover contraceptives for employees, do so.
The right wing zealots assaulting women's rights, including Willard, are counting on us not knowing, not being informed. Don't let them get away with it.
S e p e r a t i o n — o f — c h u r c h — a n d — s t a t e . . .
LEARN WHAT THAT MEANS.
You want to get knocked up in this economy because a book told you a condom or a pill is bad, you deserve what misery you get. Religion is the absense of common sense and reasoning. Is it any wonder that with a government that's infected with religion is screwed up... After all, last year the government almost shut down over planned parenthood...
So much for the seperation. Rome is still dictating how people can live.
religion is fake so who cares what they think
Not about abortion to me, could be another medical issue. I don't think the govt should mandate anything that violates what religions believe.
Just like Obamacare is not about healthcare to me. The govt is forcing you to buy a product (health insurance) just to be a citizen or be fined. If that passes future govts one might be on the other side of could force everyone to buy a gun because the govt deems properties to be safer and insurance lower.
Or force people to wear hats and long sleeves or be fined because it lowers health care costs from skin cancer.
Or stop smoking cigarettes or be fined because of its huge health costs.
Slippery slope when our govt starts telling us what we have to buy.
Would you rather health care providers be allowed to not provide health care to the ones that did not plan to have health insurance? Health care providers are not allowed to turn away the uninsured so the rest of us are already forced to pay for someone else.
There are Catholic organization who employ thousands. How many Catholic health systems, hospitals, universities, and colleges are there? Should they have the right to offer a health plan which is in line with the basic principles of their faith? Have we forgot about the meaning of the Constitution? Have we forgot about the Founding Fathers?
Pardon the pun but: Amen, brother
Since I live in one of the United States that annual pap smears and mammograms are covered by health insurance free, it is good to have 2 federal senators and state govenor that are women. Guess what is important to them! Also intiatives as voted by the people of Washington State twice, our Reproductive Right to have abortions is not abridged. Of course we don't discriminate against religions or people who are not religious.
Memo to the Catholic church: "Women are people too and can make their own decisions about their bodies".
And the Catholic counterargument - your decision is between you and God; but why should WE pay for it?
And what about people like me who use birth control pills for reasons other than contraception? I use birth control pills (not hormone replacement therapy that is something different) to control perimenopausal symptoms mainly keeping my monthly cycle in check. If I don't use them my period won't stop. I guess if I worked for the church I would have to have a hysterectomy.
I'm Catholic and I think it's time for the Church to come into the 21st century. Who are they do dictate whether or not my husband and I should have children and how many we should have? Most people can't afford a large family anymore.
Let priests get married and we'll see the Church change their stance on birth control real fast.
You DO have the option of attending another church, right? At least you do this Sunday. Give Him four more years, and you might only be able to attend Rev Wright's house of worship.
Rmoney the Rmormon should butt out of enforcing one party's conscience on another. That's why we don't trust Rmoney the Rmormon in the first place -- he tithed the temple 10% of the tens hundreds of millions of $$$$ he made destroying companies and crushing worker's pensions. He don't get to tithe 10% of America to the pedophile bride-takers marrying 13-year-old girls.
Really - Romney should butt out of imposing his morals on others? But Sebelius should? That, my friend, is called hypocrisy.
Yadda yadda - everyone up in arms because Catholics are looking to protect their right to religious freedom.
No one has discussed the rationale behind the exemption in Obamacare for Christian Scientists; why did that exemption fly without a wimper, but everyone is yelling at Catholics for complaining about having to fund contraception?
When the government mandates that circumcision to be illegal, or that since pork is so good for you that anyone running a food kitchen must provide bacon - will someone raise hell on behalf of Muslims (or Jews) and their associated charities?
If Obamacare deems that insurance plans need to provide wine for everyone to drink because it is good for your heart, is someone going to raise hell on behalf of the employers that insist on temperance for religious reasons?
Wake up folks, liberty is at risk.
ABO 2012
My own religious conviction is that God punishes us with disease and rewards us with good health, and that it is a sin to ever try to intervene in his will medically.
I'm therefore stripping practically everything out of my employees' policies. If I can't, I won't be able to sleep nights, because I would have a guilty conscience imagining to what nefarious ends they might choose to apply their insurance toward, and of course I can't be stopped from stripping out those policies, because my Republican friends are backing me on this, since it is a matter of my own religious freedom.
Plus, I save a lot on the health premiums I pay to cover my work force, since their pay package basically only includes chiropractic care and homeopathy, which don't offend my religious scruples because I deem them entirely ineffective.
Just because health plans would have to cover the cost of birth control doesn't mean you would be forced to use birth control. If you don't believe in birth control then don't use it but the coverage would be there for those who do choose to use it.
Perhaps it's time for the I R S to re examine the Church's TAX EXEMPT status and start taxing them a same rate we all pay.
These churches receive TAX EXEMPT STAUS BY AGGREEING NOT TO POLITICIZE FROM THE PULPIT!!!
Let's see the church put their money where their BIG MOUTHS ARE!!!
WAKE UP I R S... we're being screwed for BILLIONS HERE!!!
Um, yeah... while we are looking at tax status of the Catholic Churches for pushing back against Barry O, lets make sure we are all fair and hopey and changey and look at the hundreds of churches that campaigned FOR Barry O in 2008;
and Rev Wright's little house of horrors for the decades of anti-American blathering from that pulpit.
ABO 2012
My own religious conviction is that God punishes us with disease and rewards us with good health, and that it is a sin to ever try to intervene in his will medically.
I’m therefore stripping practically everything out of my employees’ policies. If I can’t, I won’t be able to sleep nights, because I would have a guilty conscience imagining to what unnatural ends they might choose to apply their insurance, and of course I can’t be stopped from stripping out those policies, because my Republican friends are backing me on this, since it is a matter of my own religious freedom.
Plus, I save a lot on the health premiums I pay to cover my work force, since their pay package basically only includes chiropractic care and homeopathy, which don’t offend my religious scruples because I deem them entirely ineffective.
Frank, become a union shop, and you can get (will get?) all the cool exemptions.
I reckon for a business owner though, going union is actually akin to selling your soul to the devil.
Romney: "We'll either have a government that protects religious diversity and freedom, or we'll have a government that tells us what kind of conscience they think we ought to have." This from the ex-governor who had similar legislation passed in Massachusetts.
How about a government that protects all persons' diversity and freedom, religious or otherwise; freedoms that Santorum, in particular, would like to replace with a Theocracy!
And, this same sentiment coming from all of the Republican candidates. They all try to enforce their views of morality as it applies to homosexuality, religious rituals in schools (as long it is Christian, must have!), abortion...etc. Is that not telling the American people what kind of conscience they think we ought to have?
If employees want to use contraception and other products/procedures banned by the their employers, they should seek other employment. The employers would soon run out of am employee pool from which to hire.
The Catholic lay people reject the contraction ban, or either they have given up having recreational sex. I know plenty of Catholics, and they choose contraception. Many Catholics also choose adultery, fornication, predatory priests, divorce and remarriage, etc. etc. The church is fighting a lost battle!
Can someone help?
My own religious conviction is that God punishes us with disease and rewards us with good health, and that it is a sin to ever try to intervene in his will medically.
Now I realize that my freedom of my religion/conscience allows me to strip practically everything out of my employees' pay packages in terms of their health choices. But what about the cash portion of their pay packages? How can I control what my employees do with their cash? Because certainly I don't want them doing sinful things with it. Please help, this is weighing on my conscience and I can hardly sleep nights, thinking about what my wages might be paying for.
If a Catholic woman wants to buy contraception not covered by insurance, why not pay for it from the money she was going to donate to the Catholic Church?
OK, Mitt baby, so just to make sure we're clear, it's a violation of conscience to ask religious non-tax-paying organizations to pay premuims to insurance companies if those insurance companies in turn pay for birth control, though somehow paying cash to employees who can in turn spend that cash on anything, including abortions is OK, and on top of that, it is not a violation of conscience to oversee the buyout and dismantling of an Iowa Steel company and notice a loophole in federal regulation that allows you to sell off the companies assets in a way that takes away the pension fund for the employees of that company even though the fund was made up of their money deducted from their paychecks over many years, and as part of the deal for noticing the loophole and taking away the pensions of these people, you also get a 7-figure fee, oh and by the way you've already got over 100 million dollars in assets before the entire process started. OK. Good, I wasn't sure what conscience meant, but now you have certainly cleared that up for me.
The government isn't trying to force people to use birth control only to have insurance companies include it in their plan for people who choose to use it. Processing an insurance claim is not a religious rite. (no pun intended)
Before ObamaCare was passed, Obama promised Catholic Bishops that he'd respect religious beliefs, the First Amendment.
Obama LIED.
Republicans had to literally Raise hell to get Obama to do what he said he'd do.
We cannot trust Obama/Democrats... they continue to Lie over and over.
Oh, pleeeeezzz! The Democrats lie????!! You must be drinking something with an opiate in it. You Republicans are the originators of the political lie. Where are all those JOBS that were promised during the last election? Huh? How about the G.O.P. stop playing obstructionist politics long enough so Obama can actually get one darn thing passed?
Here we go again! The wing-nuts for killing abortion doctors are now saying that contraception "Stops a beating Heart" Gimme a break! Since when? It's not even a close call on this issue! Don't shove your ignorance down my throat! The last time I checked a used condom it DIDN'T HAVE A PULSE!
Obama is right about this, these religious institutions skate all too often and enough is enough! They don't have to be in business as a business operation and affiliate themselves with a religion. That's their choice. So stop dictating how to run health care and President Obama won't tell you how to run your Church.
It's time to repeal the tax-exempt status of these religious institutions that are so actively involved in politics. It's a bold-faced lie to say they aren't involved in politics and then be out campaigning against certain POLITICAL legislation.
Romney is simply a joke, that's all there is to it. He'll say anything to get elected and now that he's been caught up to he's a dangerous corned animal. The current group of G.O.P. Presidential contenders is a farce. You couldn't script it to be funnier. It's sad as well when this is the best that the country can muster for President. It's Obama hands down!
The fight over sustaining access to birth control is preventing women speaking honestly about the Pill, and hormonal contraceptives in general. In the US women are too scared to criticize the Pill as they think anything less than zealous enthusiasm will be seized upon by the Right and used as fodder in their bid to ban birth control. This situation means there is very little accurate information getting through to women about the risks of hormonal contraceptives - from the quality of life-threatening to the truly life-threatening. Those on the Right that are looking to ban birth control or limit access - like Mr. Rick Santorum - are manipulating information, this is true, but so are those who claim to be working for women, who claim to have women's best interests at heart - feminists, activists for reproductive rights and the women's health movement.