Romney continues Republican line of attack on Obama over "religious liberty"

Getty Images/Ethan Miller

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Monday stepped up the Republican charge that President Obama is infringing upon "religious liberty" by requiring faith-based organizations provide birth control coverage for their employees.

The Romney campaign on Monday was promoting a petition, which says, "The Obama administration is at it again. They are now using Obamacare to impose a secular vision on Americans who believe that they should not have their religious freedom taken away... If you have had enough of the Obama administration's attacks on religious liberty, stand with Mitt and sign the petition."

The Obama administration last month announced that it would require employers to provide full health care coverage for contraception. The rule exempts houses of worship like churches or synagogues, but other nonprofits with religious affiliations -- for instance, a Catholic university or its affiliated hospital -- will have to comply.

Conservatives have slammed the new rule as an assault on religious freedom -- something the GOP presidential candidates accused the president of even before the new rule was finalized. The administration and its supporters, meanwhile, continue to defend the birth control rule and argue that the GOP criticism will backfire in the general election.

White House spokesman Jay Carney today said the rule strikes the "appropriate balance between religious concerns... and the need to provide health care coverage across the country." He said the administration will continue to work with religious institutions to try to allay their concerns.

Mr. Obama's re-election team and its allies, meanwhile, have hit back hard at Romney in particular.

Catholics hear anti-Obama letter in church
White House defends birth control coverage policy as conservatives push back
HHS gives religious groups more time to comply with birth control coverage rule
Republican candidates decry "war on religion"

After Romney tweeted out word about his new petition, Mr. Obama's 2012 deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter tweeted, "Hope petition signers don't find out Mitts MA policies are identical."

As the Boston Globe reports, "In December 2005, Romney required all Massachusetts hospitals, including Catholic ones, to provide emergency contraception to rape victims, even though some Catholics view the morning-after pill as a form of abortion."

The campaign for Newt Gingrich, Romney's GOP rival, also pointed to this similarity in an email with the subject line, "Attacking Religious Liberty: Romney = Obama."

Gingrich has perhaps been the most aggressive in attacking Mr. Obama on issues of religious freedom. On CBS' Face the Nation Sunday, he said, "The war against the Catholic church, which the Obama administration has launched... is the most outrageous assault on religious liberty in American history."

In a memo released over the weekend by the pro-Obama group Priorities USA Action, Bill Burton wrote that the candidates have embraced "the new Republican litmus test on family planning" that will eventually backfire.

"Romney and the other Republicans candidates have aligned themselves with a minority within a minority with a moral aversion to contraception they wish to impose on the entire country," wrote Burton, a former Obama adviser. "It's a worldview that idealizes the years before women had access to birth control."

[AlvinMack]

I wonder if "religious liberty" conservatives would just as vigorously defend a hypothetical Muslim employer's liberty to prohibit employees from spending their salaries on alcohol and pork. I suspect they wouldn't; but, given that health insurance and other benefits are, along with salary, part and parcel of the incentive structure employers use to recruit, retain, and compensate their employees, this is exactly equivalent. I'll take the right wing's antics seriously when I see them defending their alleged positions even when the shoe is on the other foot.

[Fletcha7]

I'm with Mitt. I HATE it when a government tells a religion what to do! Like when the U.S. refused to grant statehood to Utah until the LDS Church outlawed polygamy. ...

[BlameRepublicanz]

this is a non-issue...the catholics complaining about it weren't going to vote for obama anyway...if anything, this will sway women to vote for Obama since a huge majority of them support cotraceptives being covered by insurance.

[diamruby]

Joseph Smith was a demented, child molester, wife stealer, who made up alot of hogwash & his demented followers have continued the tradition. And their religious cult club is making billions of tax free dollars keeping the tradition going. Most of their members are on government & church welfare because they must produce as many children as possible for the "church"!!!!

[Caydon_Robison]

diamruby, there is more proof for what Prophet Joseph Smith taught than any other religion. Prophet Joseph Smith explained many mysteries that other prophets were not able to explain in the King Follett Discourse. Based on Joseph Smith's teachings, Lorenzo Snow, the fifth president of the Mormon church, wrote that: "As man is, God once was; As God is, man may be." Look into this truth yourself. God was a man before he even became a God. This is very comforting. So we too may be exalted to be gods. This is very encouraging. Doctrine and Covenants 132:20
__________________________________________
"As man is, God once was; As God is, man may be."

[ChipTex]

Romney is an elder in the Mormon church - the Scientology of the 19th century, founded by a con man, based on a hoax. Mitt not only drank the Kool Aide, he ate the powder. He's is no position to talk about religion. Might stick to what he knows - LBOs and firing people.

[Caydon_Robison]

ChipTex, there is more proof for what Prophet Joseph Smith taught than any other religion. Prophet Joseph Smith explained many mysteries that other prophets were not able to explain in the King Follett Discourse. Based on Joseph Smith's teachings, Lorenzo Snow, the fifth president of the Mormon church, wrote that: "As man is, God once was; As God is, man may be." Look into this truth yourself. God was a man before he even became a God. This is very comforting. So we too may be exalted to be gods. This is very encouraging. Doctrine and Covenants 132:20

[syslmod]

what about the religious freedom of employees of these ORGANIZATIONS who's religions are fine with contraception. If your religion is o.k. with something and that religion says it is o.k. to do something (e.g. the pill), isn't it a violation of the 1st amendment rights to force someone to pay for something that would have been provided by another religious backed institution (e.g. Methodist).

[billholahan]

Obama's health plan, including birth control, has nothing to do with the worship of God, as Mitt Romney insists. There is absolutely no prohibition of religious practice on the part of the patient in a health care center, other than to pray for healing and wellness. That will never change.

Regarding the Catholic Church's oppositionn to Obama's health plan: The Catholic Church, with its priests, bishops, cardinals, and popes has always been an exclusive private club that prohibits sexuality until marriage, and forbids its congregants from using any form or birth control. Catholics are free to face their disagreements with their own churches' doctrine. How well they follow or make peace with their faith depends upon themselves, their priests, and God.

When the Catholic Church receives government money to run a hospital or employs non-Catholic workers, it can't expect everyone to convert to Catholicism before being admitted to a hospital or being employed. When the Catholic Church accepts tax-payer's government money, it has to understand that it cannot impose its Catholic laws either upon non-Catholic patients or workers or any other citizen of our country.

Catholics are in no way facing discrimination under Obama's health care, they are still free to practice their faith. The government is not waging war on religion. Religions have to realize that the government will not create laws to impose their own religious laws. This is true for all religions, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist alike.

So, Catholics who know it is forbidden to use birth control will make their own decisions, but the government will not punish them if they break Catholic laws - that is up to the Church itself. What punishment would be imposed? Could a Catholic be sent to a prison in the Vatican, or merely suffer spiritual blackmail? Are Catholics free to leave their church? Yes, they are free, but they can also use their own judgment on matters of their personal lives.

No one is prohibited from practicing their faith or religion now or when the health care is enacted.

[myth1958]

This is a good issue for Obama: do women (and men) have the right to birth control as a part of overall health care coverage? Newt Gingrich said this was "the most outragious assault on religious liberty in American history. Perhaps the historian, Newt, should check his books. There was the time the United States forced the Mormons to abandon polygamy - at the time a central tenet of their faith. And religious organizations are subject to many of the same laws governing the rest of us: child abuse; equal rights; sexual harassment. In fact, today's churches must live within a lot of laws. This is hardly the worst example, nor a cause for Republicans to joust over. Family planning is our right - to heck with Rome, Mecca or Jerusalem. We can make up our own minds how many kids we want. Period.

[jnostromo]

Who is going to pay for all the unwanted children born? Are the right wing religious fanatics going to step up and open their pockets to pay for food, clothing , education for these kids? Oh that's right, we establish abstinence as a national practice..LOL that will solve the problem...

[Zann-Zel]

Zann-Zel February 7, 2012 9:23 AM EST
If you want Religion to be in control of our government, which one do you wanna use? Catholic? Mormon? Baptist.......

Do all you Southern Baptists wanna be controlled by Catholics?
Do all you Catholics wanna be controlled by Baptists?
How many wanna be controlled by Mormons?

The moment we allow Religion to be in control over Government, we start fighting amongst ourselves as to which religion is in control - JUST like the middle east!
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No one EVER answers this! : (
Come on now people! Before you decide religion should control your government you've got to pick a religion - get busy! Lets hear those votes! WHICH religion shall rule the United States of America?