It just doesn’t get simpler. President Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are ordering Christian organizations to toe the fed’s line about abortion, sterilization and birth control against their religion and the church is fighting back. I reckon it will be an epic battle. God’s Lawyer will be pitted against The Man Who Thinks He’s God. I don’t often do this, but I’m rooting for the lawyer. Kidding aside, if we don’t win this thing the State -the President–will have become a dictator over the Church, or, as one Catholic Bishop says, “…[A] kind of Pope…. That’s abhorrent!”

43 Catholic organizations have filed 12 separate lawsuits in different federal court circuits to fight ObamaCare. I notice that not one of the organizations is from the west coast, so I’m assuming they didn’t want to involve themselves or don’t want the 9th Circus Court of Appeals to weigh in. Even as liberal as some of the west coast Catholic institutions are, I believe the latter excuse for non participation makes the most sense.

Read the plain language of the opening narrative of the lawsuit filed by Notre Dame University:

This lawsuit is about one of America’s most cherished freedoms: the freedom to
practice one’s religion without government interference. It is not about whether people have a right to abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception. Those services are, and will continue to be, freely available in the United States, and nothing prevents the Government itself from making them more widely available. But the right to such services does not authorize the Government to force the University of Notre Dame (“Notre Dame”) to violate its own conscience by making it provide, pay for, and/or facilitate those services to others, contrary to its sincerely held religious beliefs. American history and tradition, embodied in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, protects religious entities from such overbearing and oppressive governmental action.

I don’t know much, but I do know this: when you piss off the mostly liberal Catholic Church, as Elizabeth Warren might put it, “you’re in heap big trouble.”

As one Catholic Bishop declared:

Catholics Arrested in DC

“There’s no reason for the government to have to take us down this road. Doesn’t that make the President or the Secretary of Health and Human Services a kind of Pope? Or an adjudicatory authority? This is why we’re claiming a constitutional claim. That would certainly entangle the government in the affairs of religion and in a way that’s never happened before. That’s abhorrent!” 

Furthermore, as the Notre Dame lawsuit states,

The religious employer exemption substantially burdens Notre Dame’s religious exercise. The exemption forces Notre Dame to choose between its religious beliefs (that abortifacients, sterilization, and contraception are strictly forbidden), its mission (educating, servicing, and employing individuals of all faith traditions to enrich and  enlighten), and obeying the law.

The Notre Dame lawsuit destroys the notion of an accommodation. The accommodation isn’t even in place, rules have not been drafted and the White House is urging the church to “trust us.” They’re not buying it. Furthermore, the school goes into detail about its fiscal year and how the implementation of ObamaCare will put them in a bind because of uncertainty about rule making.

In the words of one Catholic leader from Michigan: 

“If we’re not successful it will hurt many people. It will hurt our country because it will weaken the constitutional protections we have. It will hurt all of who are engaged in the great social and educational concerns that we have in this country. It’s going to hurt the man people we help. This is a lose lose situation unless our rights are vindicated.” 

Let’s hope freedom is vindicated.