religion

New at Live Action – Michelle Goldberg’s Lame, Arrogant Excuses for the Obama Birth Control Mandate

Calvin Freiburger birth control, Constitution, dishonesty, freedom, health care, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Live Action, Michelle Goldberg, Newsweek, Obama, ObamaCare, religion
My latest Live Action post:
Hot off the heels of trashing Lila Rose, Newsweek’s Michelle Goldberg jumps into the ObamaCare-contraception fray with a Daily Beast column arguing that forcing Catholic institutions to offer birth control is no big deal. Unfortunately for the Obama Administration, however, her apologia is a train wreck of distortions and non sequiturs:

But many Catholic institutions are already operating in states that require contraceptive coverage, such as New York and California. Such laws are on the books in 28 states, and only eight of them exempt Catholic hospitals and universities. Nowhere has the Catholic Church shut down in response. 

Really? According to the non-partisan National Conference of State Legislatures, the actual number of states with religious exemptions is twenty, making the truth the exact opposite of what Goldberg describes. Maybe that has something to do with why Catholics would consider the White House’s decision a dramatic change in the status quo?

New at Live Action – Newt Gingrich Tries to Paint Mitt Romney as an Enemy of Catholic Hospitals

Calvin Freiburger birth control, Catholic Church, conscience rights, dishonesty, Gingrich, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Live Action, personal attacks, religion, romney

My latest Live Action post:

What many have decried as an unusually nasty campaign got even nastier earlier this week, as Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich accused rival Mitt Romney of being insensitive to religious liberty and conscience rights:

“You want a war on the Catholic Church by Obama? Guess what: Romney refused to allow Catholic hospitals to have conscience in their dealing with certain circumstances,” Gingrich said, apparently referring to the handling of emergency contraception in universal health care laws.

But HotAir.com provides more context, revealing that the truth is more complex. In 2005, Romney actually did just the opposite: he vetoed a bill that would have forced Massachusetts hospitals to offer abortive contraception:

[T]his particular bill does not require parental consent even for young teenagers. It disregards not only the seriousness of abortion but the importance of parental involvement and so would weaken a protection I am committed to uphold.

Read the rest at Live Action.

New at NewsReal – No Islamophobia Epidemic Here: The Surprising Truth About Hate Crimes in America

Calvin Freiburger anti-Semitism, bigotry, Christianity, dishonesty, hate crimes, Islam, Islamofascism, NewsReal, religion

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

Rep. Peter King’s announced congressional hearings on Muslim extremism have brought on a tidal wave of condemnation of the level to which America allegedly embraces anti-Islamic bigotry, so it’s important to take a look at how American Muslims are really treated in this country.

We’ve noted before how polling data indicates that the American people don’t consider most Muslims to be terrorism supporters and FBI numbers show that Muslims actually comprise a very small share of the nation’s annual hate crime victims. And yesterday, the Center for Security Policy released a new report on religiously motivated hate crimes between 2000 and 2009, which “contradicts the false assertions that hate crimes against Muslims have increased, and that the alleged cause is widespread Islamophobia in America.” CSP president Frank Gaffney says:

This report is important because it exposes a false belief perpetuated by a few vocal groups that religious bias crimes against Muslims are on the upswing.  The truth is quite the opposite.  These arguments, unsubstantiated by hard factual data, are corrosive to community relationships at every level of American society, and a potential threat to national security.

First, the report’s summary chart [download here] shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans are peaceful to members of all faiths. There were a total of 6,319 anti-religious hate crimes perpetrated against Americans of all faiths in the last decade. As despicable as every single act was, that number is well within the range we should expect in a free society of over 300 million people (consider that in 2008 alone there were 16,272 murders, 89,000 rapes, and 441,855 robberies). Neither Jews, Christians nor Muslims are suffering any kind of hate-crime epidemic.

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.

ALL Alert: Catholics vs. Catholic Health Association

Calvin Freiburger abortion, ALL, Catholic Church, Catholicism, health care, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, pro-life, religion, Religious Left, social issues
This just in, from Michael Hichborn at American Life League:

CATHOLICS URGE BISHOPS TO END RELATIONSHIP WITH CATHOLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION

Washington, DC (9 February 2011) – American Life League is urging the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to dissolve its relationship with the Catholic Health Association, following a series of reports linking CHA to support for abortion.

American Life League cited the following reasons for the USCCB to end its ties with CHA:

• CHA fully endorsed pro-abortion Obamacare, in direct opposition to the U.S. bishops
• CHA member Catholic Healthcare West gives millions of dollars to pro-abortion, pro-same-sex marriage organizations
• CHA’s recent Chairman of the Board was a “co-architect” in the creation of Healthy San Francisco, which covers birth control and abortion on demand
• CHA president, Sr. Carol Keehan, maintains a duplicitous position in claiming that local bishops have the authority to interpret the U.S. bishops’ ethical and religious directives (ERD), while maintaining that St. Joseph’s Hospital properly applied the ERDs in approving and performing an abortion in 2009.

“It’s clear that CHA is more interested in politics and money than maintaining Catholic teaching,” said Michael Hichborn, director of American Life League’s project, Defend the Faith.

Last month, in an online video report entitled, “Nun-Catholic Healthcare,” ALL revealed that CHA spends one fourth of its annual budget to pay its six highest paid employees, including Sr. Keehan’s $900,000 salary.
 

“When one considers that the mission of the USCCB is to ‘support the ministry of bishops with an emphasis on evangelization,’ maintaining a relationship with a group like CHA can only hinder that mission,” said Hichborn.

American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Jim Sedlak at 540.659.7685.

New on NewsReal – Maybe America Could Use a Muslim Sitcom After All

Calvin Freiburger bigotry, Hollywood, Islam, Islamofascism, Left, NewsReal, political correctness, politics, religion, TV

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

Remember Katie Couric’s insipid suggestion that Americans needed a Muslim version of The Cosby Show to help us get over our seething Islamophobia? It earned derision in the blogosphere for its condescending view of the country as a hive of bigotry and its refusal to give the Islamic world any share of the blame for Islamic image problems, but PopEater reports that the idea is picking up steam among Muslims in the television industry:

“We want to see a typical Arab-American family that is just like every other family in America,” said Arab-American comedian Dean Obeidallah, who has developed a pilot for Comedy Central. “Television has had the ability to demonize Muslims and Arabs, but we realize that it also has the ability to humanize us.”

Couric’s suggestion might not be as radical or as far off as her critics decried. In fact, Muslim-American writers say that broadcast and cable networks are starting to be more receptive to scripts prominently featuring both Arabs and practitioners of Islam. A decade-removed from the September 11th terrorist attacks, television may finally be ready to portray Muslim-Americans as more than terrorists and taxi cab drivers.
“Hollywood would definitely embrace a Muslim ‘Cosby Show’ with one caveat: It would have to be really good. It’s the one factor that has linked shows about minorities like the ‘Cosby Show’ or even ‘Will & Grace.’ Currently, I believe Americans are open to any minority as long as the show speaks to universal human truths and makes them laugh,” said Muslim-American Hollywood television and movie producer Tariq Jalil, the executive producer of the comedy ‘Marmaduke.’ [Emphasis added.]

That’s true—as we discussed on January 3, neither the words nor the deeds of the American people indicate hostility toward American Muslims—and it’s nice to hear Jalil acknowledge what Couric didn’t, but that also undermines the alleged need for more Muslim programming in the first place.

Read the rest on NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – Bill Maher Rewrites and Ignores History to Pit the Founding Fathers Against the Tea Party

Calvin Freiburger conservatism, dishonesty, Founding Fathers, God, history, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, junk science, Maher, NewsReal, religion, revisionist history, science, slavery, Tea Party

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

Left-wing satirist Bill Maher is taking his hatred of the Tea Party movement to the next level. Evidently epithets like crazy, stupid, and racist no longer satisfy him, and he’s decided it’s time to hit “teabaggers” where it really hurts: by mocking their reverence for America’s Founding Fathers, suggesting the Founders’ values aren’t their own:

“[T]he Founding Fathers would have hated your guts…and what’s more, you would have hated them. They were everything you despise. They studied science, read Plato, hung out in Paris, and thought the Bible was mostly bullshit.”

Maher got a crack in at the Founders as well, saying they had a moral code, but it didn’t come from the Bible…”except for the part about, ‘it’s cool to own slaves.’”


Here, Maher is repackaging the ridiculous straw man that conservatism is not only incompatible with reason and science, but that right-wingers actually pride themselves on disregarding the insights of modern intellectuals in favor of gut instinct and unchanging tradition. But this is a complete distortion of conservative arguments.

We have no problem with true intellectualism or reevaluating our positions in light of new evidence; what we object to is the arrogance of societal elites who look down upon the decision-making abilities of the average American, especially in decisions concerning the individual’s personal affairs. We object to “expertise” being taken as a license to make policy outside of the democratic process.

Read the rest on NewsRealBlog.

Around the Web

Calvin Freiburger abortion, atheism, blogosphere, Coulter, defense spending, gay marriage, GOP, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, New York Times, religion, Sarah Palin, violence, vote fraud

The New Hampshire GOP says “screw marriage.”

What’s the worst lie Ann Coulter has ever seen in the New York Times? It’s a doozy.

My NRB colleague Paul Cooper has a cool list of pro-life heroes.

How many “memorial services” can you think of with their own official logos and t-shirts?

Wisconsin Republicans plan to push voter ID. Now there’s change I can believe in!

In the wake of Tucson, Sarah Palin’s getting an “unprecedented” amount of death threats. But don’t hold the scumbags to their own standard and blame Paul Krugman, James Clyburn, or Chris Matthews, No sir.

Joe Carter contemplates atheist anger toward God. Why vent at someone you don’t think is there?

And check out the case against cutting defense spending.

Another Catholic Leader for Amnesty

Calvin Freiburger Catholic Church, Catholicism, Charles Chaput, Christianity, conservatism, DREAM Act, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, illegal immigration, immigration, religion, Religious Left

Among the unpleasant truths more conservatives need to confront is the fact that organized religion isn’t always on our side. In particular, the Catholic Church has allowed itself to be hijacked by the Left, particularly on health care, the Middle East, and illegal immigration.

Now, Archbishop Charles Chaput has endorsed the deeply-flawed DREAM Act:

Archbishop Chaput said the bill “is about fairness to high school graduates who were brought to this country unlawfully through no fault of their own, since they came with their parents.”

He added that those who would benefit from the act are “talented, intelligent and dedicated young persons who know only the United States as their home.”

He called the bill “a practical, fair and compassionate solution for thousands of young persons in our nation who simply want to reach their God-given potential and contribute to the well-being of our nation.”

“This important piece of legislation is critical for the lives and hopes of thousands of young people across America,” the Denver archbishop said, urging people to contact their federal senators and representatives. Voting in favor of the act “is the right and just thing to do,” he said.

First, methinks the archbishop should familiarize himself with the bill a little more; the requirements for qualification are extremely lax, people are eligible until they’re thirty-five, and those who’ve made it can use their status to bring in more relatives – making the DREAM Act hardly practical, and about rather more than “fairness to high school graduates.”

Second, someone needs to explain to me how Catholic principles – heck, how any flavor of Christianity – requires us to look the other way as our immigration laws are violated, or how it’s inhumane to treat the citizens of other countries as, er, the citizens of other countries.

Fortunately, the DREAM Act is dead for now. But the Catholic Church shows no signs of waking up from its nightmare any time soon.

New on NewsReal – Are Social Conservatives "Statist Control Freaks"? Not So Fast

Calvin Freiburger abortion, ACLU, Christianity, conservatism, education, evolution, freedom, gay marriage, homosexuality, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, marriage, NewsReal, religion, social conservatism, social issues, statism
My latest NewsRealBlog post:

This weekend, NewsRealBlog’s Lori Heine objected to Ann Coulter’s recent column attempting to tie WikiLeaks enabler Bradley Manning to the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Today, she responds to several critical commenters. I’m not terribly interested in revisiting DADT right now—my position is that I’ll defer to military experts on what changes should be made to the current policy, but I insist that the decision be based on military criteria alone, not political correctness or kowtowing to the whims of the radical gay Left.  Lori argues her position well, and successfully refutes several of her critics.
However, I must take issue with the way she conflates social conservatism with statism:

One form of fun of which big-government statists on the social Right never seem to tire is the purity game.  True believers must toe the line and never stray from it, even one jot or tittle.  “You are no conservative,” another commenter harrumphed at me.  Since this person evidently thinks only the big-government, control-freak statists on the social Right are the “real” conservatives, then according to his definition of course I am not.  Nor would I ever want to be.

What I am is a former Leftist progressive who has come to the conclusion that libertarian conservatism is – for a wide variety of reasons – the right direction for America to take.  The relentless and childish tug-of-war of the past few elections has convinced me that the Left and the statist Right are actually as alike as Tweedledee and Tweedledum and that they are, together, pulling the country apart.  Just as Leftists view any liberal who believes in small government and individual initiative a heretic, so do those on the Right who view anyone who does not share their fantasies about Granny Government and her all-powerful magic wand “not a real conservative.”

What I think of the “purity game” is no secret, either, but here I want to consider this talk of “big-government, control-freak statists on the social Right” who believe the government has an “all-powerful magic wand.”

Maybe I just missed them, but I’m struggling to recall a significant number of examples of this nefarious social-con variation. To be sure, there are a select handful of individuals who come to mind—for instance, Joseph Farah and Peter Sprigg—but beyond that, I don’t know how any significant, respected portion of the social conservative movement fits the bill.

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – Smithsonian Scandal Raises Questions: What’s "Good" Art, and Why Should I Pay for It?

Calvin Freiburger blogosphere, Christianity, Founding Fathers, Hannity, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, morality, NewsReal, religion, tax funding

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

The Christmas season just wouldn’t be Christmas these days without government-sponsored desecration of images sacred to most Americans. By now you’ve probably heard about the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery’s charming new exhibit depicting, among other things, a bloody Jesus Christ covered in ants. That part of the exhibit has been removed, but it still features “male genitals, naked brothers kissing, men in chains, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts, and a painting the Smithsonian itself describes in the show’s catalog as ‘homoerotic.’”

True to form, Media Matters is trying to defuse outrage over the controversy by repeatedly pointing out that while the Smithsonian may receive taxpayer dollars, this particular exhibit was funded privately. Here they highlight last night’s exchange between Sean Hannity and Democrat strategist Joe Trippi, who “tries to get Hannity to understand” that simple distinction:

http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/player.swf 

TRIPPI: The money for this exhibit was all private foundations. 

HANNITY: But I don’t agree with that analysis. It’s like saying, we fund the ability for them to open their doors every day. So they don’t get to open the door, except for the American taxpayer.

TRIPPI: The American taxpayer paid for the building and those kinds of things, but it’s an art museum, I mean – and this particular art exhibit is the influence of gay and lesbian artists on portraiture.

HANNITY: Fine. If they wanna have an art museum with this stuff, we shouldn’t pay to open their doors so they can put this type of stuff in there! 

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.