Obama Care Attacks Separation of Church and State
Obama administration declares the Church and the Constitution no longer relevant to modern society in one fell swoop.
By John S. Carroll, Candidate for the U.S. Senate
President Obama has repaid the Catholic Church for its support of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by seeking to breach the Constitutionally protected separation of church and state. His Health and Human Service Department effectively denied conscience protections to church-run schools, hospitals and social service agencies, ruling that they must provide free contraception to employees, in violation of church teaching.
As a staunch constitutionalist, a Catholic and a believer in pro-life; this offends me on three levels. This is nothing less than an affront to American democracy and an assault on the U.S. Constitution. My opponent in the Hawaii’s Republican Primary, Ex-Governor Lingle, shares none of my three beliefs and will let this issue pass in the “spirit of bi-partisan placation.” This is just one reason she should not be elected to represent Hawaii’s Republicans as their Senatorial candidate.
This can and should be Obama’s undoing. I sincerely hope that the Church and the Catholic Health Association have learned their lesson. And that lesson is that people who espouse socialist “reforms” cannot be trusted. Their promise that no abortion funding was contained in Obama Care was as hollow as their oath to uphold the United States Constitution. The Catholic Church as well as all Christian denominations are now in a fight to protect their very existence. Make no mistake about it, this attempt to force secular authority on them is just the beginning.
The separation of church and state is not a new concept. English philosopher John Locke argued that government lacked authority in the realm of individual conscience. Thomas Jefferson, an admirer of Locke’s ideas wrote:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.
Whomever is elected to serve Hawaii in the U.S. Senate will be in a fight to protect our Constitution. Lingle will compromise; I will not.
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