Religion Clause: Virginia Supreme Court Sides With Teacher Who Spok...

Religion Clause: Virginia Supreme Court Sides With Teacher Who Spok...: In Louden County School Board v. Cross , (VA Sup. Ct., Aug. 30, 2021), the Virginia Supreme Court upheld a preliminary injunction issued by ...

This week on Faith On Trial (9-2)

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Julie Blake on the new requirement by the Biden HHS requiring doctors to perform gender transition procedures even if that violates the physician’s medical judgment or religious beliefs.

Thought Control In Schools Must End

By Catholic League president Bill Donohue  

The Virginia Supreme Court made a wise decision when it said it would not accept a challenge to a lower court ruling that required Loudoun County Public Schools to reinstate a teacher who was punished for not acknowledging that boys can be girls, and vice versa. 

The victim in this case, Tanner Cross, argued that his Christian convictions did not permit him to lie about sex transitioning. He knows it is child abuse. So does every honest person who knows anything about the subject, which unfortunately excludes many in the healthcare profession and education. 

The school district violated this teacher's freedom of speech as well as freedom of religion. It had the gall to maintain that Cross was suspended not for his speech but for the "disruption" he caused at a school board meeting in May.  

He was being sanctioned because of what civil libertarian Harvey Kalven once called the "heckler's veto." In short, this means that those who are upset about someone's speech can effectively veto his First Amendment right by holding him responsible for their planned, or actual, disruptive behavior.  

This is not a matter of speculation. In 1949, the U.S. Supreme Court overthrew the conviction of a suspended Catholic priest who gave an incendiary speech in Chicago. A riot took place outside the hall where he spoke, and he was held accountable for the mob's behavior. The high court overturned his conviction. Had it not done so, it would have been the death knell to robust speech of any kind. 

There was another dustup in June in Loudoun County when parents objected to the adoption of critical race theory (CRT). School officials mandated, without offering any proof that there was a problem with racism in the district, that all teachers accept the racist dogma associated with this ideology.   

An economist who lives in this area, Max B. Sawicky, recently defended the school district for ordering teachers to abide by CRT. In an article posted by The New Republic, he lashed out at parents and teachers who objected to it. He denied that CRT was racist. He is wrong.  

"White identity is inherently racist; white people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy." Those are the words of Robin DiAngelo, one of the gurus of this pernicious brand of hate speech. 

Ironically, those who live in Loudoun are mostly white privileged people, the very ones seen as racists by CRT activists. Sawicky brags that "Loudoun is one of the richest counties in the United States," where "Joe Biden received 62 percent of the vote."  

These are precisely the kind of people who are most likely to deny that there are only two sexes. Not surprisingly, Sawicky berates "Christian fundamentalist teachers" who object to having their religious rights abrogated by sexually confused elites. He also rails against "anti-CRT fanatics" who object to branding all white people as racists. 

More important, there is no shortage of left-wing totalitarians who want to use the power of the state to dictate how people think about transgenderism and CRT. Their penchant for thought control makes these people the most dangerous segment in American society today. They need to be resisted and defeated.

Harvard Epidemiologist Says the Case for COVID Vaccine Passports Was Just Demolished | The Stream

Harvard Epidemiologist Says the Case for COVID Vaccine Passports Was Just Demolished | The Stream: Infection from COVID-19 confers considerably longer-lasting and stronger protection against the Delta variant of the virus than vaccines.

This week on Faith On Trial (9-2-21)

Julie Blake

Should doctors be forced to perform gender transition procedures even if it violates the physician’s medical judgment or religious beliefs? “Yes,” says the Biden Administration’s Health and Human Services Department’s new rule; but “No” says the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) which has filed a lawsuit to overturn the rule: American College of Pediatricians v. Bacerra.  Julie Blake, senior counsel at ADF, will join us this Thursday to discuss the rule and the lawsuit.  

Faith On Trial airs every Thursday at 10 a.m. central on Iowa Catholic Radio, 1150 AM; 88.5, 94.5, and 90.9 FM and streaming live at IowaCatholicRadio.com.

Shocking Report Shows 621 Botched Abortions That Left Baby Parts Inside Mother - LifeNews.com

Shocking Report Shows 621 Botched Abortions That Left Baby Parts Inside Mother - LifeNews.com: A “devastating” report into abortion in Wisconsin has revealed that 11% of abortions that took place there in 2019 resulted in complications, including more than 600 incomplete abortions. Instances of incomplete abortion — where parts of the aborted baby remain behind after the procedure — numbered 621 in 2019 in Wisconsin, up by over 750% […]

Massive Israeli Study Comes to Bombshell Conclusion About Natural COVID Immunity

Massive Israeli Study Comes to Bombshell Conclusion About Natural COVID Immunity

'Indoctrination is beginning even earlier than college education'

'Campus Reform' reporter Ophelie Jacobson takes a look at questions on an AP Government and Politics Exam written by the College Board, in which the questions imply that voter I.D. laws are racist, as well as problems at Iowa State University.

 

Harold Hill In The White House

By Deacon Mike Manno

As many of you will remember I live in Iowa — West Des Moines — to be exact. My house is about 130 miles south of Mason City, the boyhood home of Meredith Willson, creator of that wonderful musical, Music Man and the artful Harold Hill, er, Professor Harold Hill, music connoisseur.

Hill, of course, was a flim-flam man who, with no music experience, tried to sell the good people of River City on the idea of a city band. That was the scam, he sold the townsfolk on the idea, took orders for band instruments and uniforms, then planned to skip town before the uniforms and instruments arrived without giving the promised music lessons.

Yet he’s caught in his lie and to get out of it he performs what can only be described as an illusion, causing the townspeople to believe their kids can actually play music. All leading to the climactic scene where Hill leads his faux band down Main Street as those watching see it as a full-dressed band playing Seventy-Six Trombones.

Now why would Harold Hill remind me of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.? I think it is their shared ability to get folks to see what is really not there. Mr. Biden and his minions have created an illusion around the president just like Harold Hill created an illusion around the townsfolk in River City that their kids could really play music and become a marching band.

The illusions created give a false impression of the man: that he is competent, a common man, and most disturbing, he is a devout Catholic. Let me take you to my starting point.

Back in May of 2019 a nurse at the University of Vermont Medical Center, identified only as “Rachel,” was forced to assist in an abortion against her religious and moral reservations. The nurse had for some time indicated her objection to the procedure and was included in the center’s list of objectors. On the day in question, the nurse was asked to assist with a medical procedure, but was not told it was an abortion. It was only when she walked into the room that she found the procedure she was to assist with was an abortion.

The doctor performing the abortion knew of her objection and greeted her with the words, “Don’t hate me.” She objected to assisting, and while there were other center personnel who could have assisted the doctor, forced her to assist under threat of termination and loss of her nursing license.

The nurse filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Trump administration. The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR), after an investigation reported, “UVMMC [the medical center] maintains a staffing policy that facially violates the Church Amendments because the policy admits to circumstances where UVMMC can and will force staff — on pain of adverse action or discipline — to participate in abortions against their moral or religious objections. The policy also violates UVMMC’s agreement, as a condition of receiving HHS funds, to comply with federal law, including the Church Amendments and HHS’s grants regulations.”

The Church Amendment, referenced above, is a federal statute that provides conscience protections for healthcare workers. Enacted in 1970 it protects medical persons from assisting or performing abortions or sterilizations if such would be against the individual’s religious beliefs or moral convictions.

The OCR also reported, “As part of its investigation, OCR contacted UVMMC repeatedly in a good faith effort to seek cooperation from UVMMC, but the hospital refused to conform its policies to federal conscience laws, provide all the documents requested by OCR, or produce witnesses for OCR interviews.”

Last year the Department of Justice filed suit against the center. It alleged that at least 10 nurses had been coerced into assisting in approximately 20 abortions against their will. It noted that some staff members were allowed to refuse assistance in some matters, and only the pro-life staffers were forced to assist with abortions. It also alleged that the center’s policy: “Refusing to provide care [based on conscience objections] will result in the employee being placed on paid leave while the incident is reviewed. The review may result in corrective action up to and including termination of employment” was, in itself, illegal.

Roger Severino, director of OCR at the time, said, “Forcing medical staff to assist in the taking of human life inflicts a moral injury on them that is not only unnecessary and wrong, it violates longstanding federal law. Our investigation has uncovered serious discrimination by UVMMC against nurses and staff who cannot, in good conscience, assist in elective abortions.”

According to the OCR suit, the hospital “discriminated against conscience objectors because of their religious beliefs or moral convictions opposing abortion.” UVMMC is said to have “forced and attempted to force or required conscience objectors to assist with abortions when such personnel object that assisting with abortions violates their religious beliefs or moral convictions.”

A clear case of the violation of religious and conscience rights.

But that is not the way the Biden administration saw it. Through Mr. Biden’s fellow pro-abortion Catholic, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, OCR’s lawsuit was “voluntarily dismissed” by the Department of Justice in July.

Of course Planned Parenthood of Vermont supported the dismissal. “The Department of Justice did the right thing by dropping this politically motivated lawsuit against UVM Medical Center. For patients, health care is personal, not political, and it is time to end government interference when it comes to abortion care,” said spokesperson Lucy Leriche.

The center’s Dr. Steve Leffler, reacting to the dismissal, said, “We are committed to meeting the medical needs of our patients, while respecting the religious and moral beliefs of our employees.”

In Congress, 84 GOP lawmakers sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary Becerra claiming that by dropping the lawsuit they had violated federal conscience protection. “Your handling of this case is a profound miscarriage of justice and a rejection of your commitment to enforce federal conscience laws for Americans of all religious beliefs and creeds — and especially for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who object to abortion,” the letter said.

The American Center for Law and Justice issued a statement: “This week, the Biden Administration has taken the unprecedented step of having the Department of Justice voluntarily dismiss its own case without obtaining anything in return….But the Biden Administration is so beholden to its extreme ‘abortion-is-awesome!’ wing that they can’t even bring themselves to recognize that conscience rights exist when it comes to abortion.”

Rachel, so traumatized by the incident, has ended her nursing career and moved to another part of the country.

Former OCR Director Severino said of the decision to drop the case: “Such a politically motivated backstab means it’s open season on pro-life doctors and nurses.” The Biden administration tried to force him out of his office even though his three-year term was not up. When he refused to resign, he was fired.

So Joe Biden is a good Catholic. Like Harold Hill he has spun that illusion, but under the surface he is a champion of abortion and will take every opportunity to expand the killing fields — even to the point of denying the conscience rights of objectors, and supporting Democratic policies, such as contained in their beloved “Equality Act” which would alter federal civil rights laws to be replaced by the requirement that even faith-based hospitals would have to provide abortions and that schools and other institutions would be forced to allow gender-mixed locker and shower facilities.

I could go on, but if you are a regular reader of this column, you know the list by now. Sufficient to say, Mr. Biden is no friend of the Church or of conscience protection. He is the Harold Hill of today’s political arena and needs our prayers before he drops too far into the abyss.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday at 10 a.m. Central, on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)

 

Religion Clause: Suit Challenges Vaccine Mandate Without Religious ...

Religion Clause: Suit Challenges Vaccine Mandate Without Religious ...: Suit was filed yesterday in a Maine federal district court on behalf of over 2000 health care workers (all filing anonymously) challenging M...

This week on Faith On Trial (8-26)

Guest: Roger Severino, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center where he directs EPPC’s HHS Accountability Project. He is a national authority on civil rights, conscience and religious freedom.

 

Brooklyn Church Members Vindicated in Witness Outside of Queens Abortion Facility

(August 26, 2021 – Brooklyn, NY) In a stunning reversal today, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the rights of pro-life advocates to peacefully protest outside of a Queens, New York, abortion facility. The New York Attorney General’s office, under three consecutive attorneys general, falsely charged a group of peaceful pro-life supporters with making threats and harassment as they offered information on life-affirming alternatives to abortion bound women. Attorneys from the Thomas More Society represented ten members of Brooklyn’s Church@TheRock, including the pastor, Rev. Kenneth Griepp, against the unfounded charges and defended their First Amendment rights to counsel women approaching the Choices Women’s Medical Center.

“This is a great win, to be sure,” declared Stephen Crampton, Thomas More Society Senior Counsel, “but the case should never have been brought in the first place. It was always about politics, not justice. The New York Attorney General has wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money pursuing bogus claims and persecuting law-abiding Christians. The real crime here is not the actions of the defendants, but the actions of the Attorney General in ever filing this case.” 

The August 26, 2021, unanimous opinion handed down by Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston, Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi, and Circuit Judge Rosemary S. Pooler, affirmed in all respects an earlier ruling by United States District Court Judge Carol Bagley Amon of the Eastern District of New York. Amon had denied the state’s motion for preliminary injunction brought against the life advocates. 

Initially, the Second Circuit panel took a year and a half to rule in the Attorney General’s favor, overturning the district court decision. In an extraordinary order issued on May 28, 2021, the panel granted petitions for rehearing and vacated its opinion in the case of People of New York v. Rev. Kenneth Griepp et. al. But the panel then asked for additional briefing, and finally issued another opinion today affirming the district court opinion in all respects. 

The case will now return to federal district court for a trial on the merits and consideration of some of the unanswered questions concerning the constitutionality of the New York City Access to Reproductive Health Care Facilities Act and the Attorney General’s right to even bring suit under that act. 

The case against the peaceful pro-life advocates was initially filed in June 2017 by former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who charged the group under the state’s Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances law, known by the acronym FACE. That FACE law is intended to prevent actual, intentional interference with access to a clinic by means of force, threats of force, or physical obstruction. Peaceful pro-life activity is specifically protected, just as it is in the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. 

When a sex scandal force Schneiderman out of office in May 2018, his replacement, Barbara Underwood continued the prosecution, which was assumed by her successor, current New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Thomas More Society attorneys argued that the case was without merit because it was actually an assault on the First Amendment rights of pro-life sidewalk counselors who had been coming to Choices Women’s Medical Center weekly since 2012, to peacefully speak with abortion bound women. Despite a lack of any evidence, the life advocates were falsely accused by Schneiderman of harassing and threatening women as they headed into the abortion facility. 

About the Thomas More Society

The Thomas More Society is a national not-for-profit law firm dedicated to restoring respect in law for life, family, and religious liberty. Headquartered in Chicago, Omaha, Rancho Santa Fe, California, and Fairfield, NJ, the Thomas More Society fosters support for these causes by providing high quality pro bono legal services from local trial courts all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. For more information, visit thomasmoresociety.org.

Moral Absolutes and Biden

 

By Judie Brown, president American Life League

Sham-Catholic president of the United States Joe Biden is a total failure. In terms of the natural law he is a moral pygmy, but he was helped along the road by Catholic bishops. And whether by accident or on purpose, what they have permitted is more outrageous than what Biden himself has done.

Dating back to the early 1980s there have been bishops from the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware, who have turned a blind eye to Biden’s support of abortion, homosexual marriages, and other moral evils. In fact, I recall pro-life giant and my dearly departed friend Dee Becker of Wilmington telling me time and time again that she could not convince her bishop to lift a finger to even scold Biden for his pro-death record.

Furthermore, in 2019 when Fr. Robert Morey of South Carolina did deny Biden Communion, Francis Malooly, Biden’s bishop at the time, responded to Fr. Morey’s action by saying he would not “politicize” the Eucharist; he would not deny the sacrament to pro-abortion Biden.

Add to this the large number of Catholic prelates who have made it publicly known that when it comes to Biden there is nothing they will do to instruct him on the error of his ways, including denying him the holiest of Catholic sacraments—the body and blood of Christ.

Among them we find Cardinal Blase Cupich, the same prelate who recently instructed his priests in the Archdiocese of Chicago that they may not honor requests for religious exemptions to the COVID vaccine! He says there is no basis in Catholic moral teaching for such questions, but he has also publicly criticized USCCB president Archbishop Jose Gomez for condemning Biden on his pro-abortion position.

And of course Biden has been defended by Cardinal Wilton Gregory and others who prefer not to deny the Eucharist to Biden. So when you wonder why Biden is so confused about what the moral absolutes are and why they are important, you need look no further than many of the Catholic bishops of the United States.

Biden, then senator and ever the lawyer, said during the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings on now Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, that in his arrogant opinion applying natural law to the Constitution was unacceptable.

Secular newspapers such as the Washington Post concurred with Biden, reporting that “Judge Thomas has said that ‘the thesis of natural law is that human nature provides the key to how men ought to live their lives’—suggesting that natural law dictates morality to us, instead of leaving matters to individual choice.”

Prideful statements like this have been offered time and time again to defend the misguided actions of people like Biden who would not know a moral absolute if it hit him in the face. As we know, when individual choice is preferred, moral absolutes must be rejected.

But many intelligent individuals—like Professor Dianne Irving—are not steeped in political gobbledygook. Irving writes: “Natural law ethical theory aids us in understanding which human actions are morally right or wrong through the aid of human reason alone—without the use of Divine Revelation or the teachings of the Magisterium. It has been studied and refined over the centuries as a means of addressing what is the morally right thing for us to do when faced with genuine moral dilemmas. It is not some new, brash, untried or unscrutinized moral theory.”

In other words, natural law theory is knowable by human reason and yet can be and is rejected by the likes of Joe Biden. Why is that?

Well, as we know, moral absolutes do not change. Dr. Samuel Gregg, an expert in natural law theory, wrote an entire article on moral absolutes in which he pointed out the obvious: A moral absolute means “that there are intrinsically evil acts which admit of no exception whatsoever.”

And there’s the rub. For folks like Biden, Cupich, and others, the idea of adhering to moral principles that admit to no exception is just unthinkable.

And so the body of Christ will continue to be insulted. The babies will continue to die. The innocent will continue to be tossed aside, and all in the name of the “greater good.”

Hogwash!

That is why we must remember this:

Without the negative moral absolutes, however, we can have no sure knowledge of evil, when we have chosen it, and how it imperils our salvation. Considered in these terms, the moral absolutes are far from being a burden. Instead they are a tangible sign of God’s love for us. To forget that in the name of being merciful would be folly itself.

So let us pray for President Biden and all those who flirt with eternal suffering by ignoring the moral absolutes. God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” That truth, of course, is Christ Jesus.

Faith On Trial this Thursday August 26

Roger Severino

This Thursday on Faith On Trial: Roger Severino, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he directs EPPC’s HHS Accountability Project. He is a national authority on civil rights, conscience and religious freedom, the administrative state, and information privacy, particularly as applied to health–care law and policy. Before joining EPPC, he was the Director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (OCR), during the Trump Administration. where he protected conscience and religious freedom, and health information privacy laws.

We will discuss the case against the University of Vermont Medical Center where nurses were forced to assist with abortions against their will. Mr. Severino as the OCR director initiated the investigation which led to the lawsuit. However, the Biden Administration dismissed the suit.

10 a.m. central time Thursday on Iowa Catholic Radio, 1150 AM; 88.5 & 94.5 FM and streaming on IowaCatholicRadio.com.

Profile in Cowardice: How Catholic Leaders Botched the Abortion-Linked COVID Vaccines | The Stream

Profile in Cowardice: How Catholic Leaders Botched the Abortion-Linked COVID Vaccines | The Stream: The same Catholic bishops who begged the Trump team for a vaccine not based on abortion now force the tainted serums on their flocks.