Rick Santorum: Obama Is Forcing Catholics To Sin
President Obama is “directly assaulting” religious freedoms and is forcing Catholics to sin. Well, that’s the claim that Rick Santorum made on Wednesday.
Santorum did not specify what government programs were forcing Catholics to sin, but, during his presidential run earlier this year, the former GOP candidate frequently talked about how Obamacare mandates that all employers provide insurance plans that cover contraceptives.
Santorum said:
“We have a president who, for the first time in American history, is directly assaulting the First Amendment and freedom of religion… He is going to tell you what to do in the practice of your faith. He is forcing business people right now to do things that are against their conscience, that they will have to – if you’re a Catholic – you’ll have to go to confession … to confess that you are complying with a government program that is a sin in the Catholic Church.”
NBC notes that Santorum gave his speech while he was stumping for Mitt Romney in Ohio. Santorum, who used the Catholic faith and the freedom of religion as main talking points during his campaign, said that Romney would work to protect the religious freedoms that President Obama seems so intent on destroying.
But according to the Huffington Post, there are some holes in Santorum’s argument that Obamacare is forcing Catholics to sin. For one, a recent study showed that 98 percent of sexually active women at child-bearing age have used contraceptives. Mitt Romney also enforced a similar mandate in Massachusetts that required Catholic hospitals to dispense emergency contraceptives for rape victims.
What do you think? Do you agree with Rick Santorum? Is President Obama forcing Catholics to sin?
Tags : "obamacare", catholics forced to sin, catholics obamacare, obama catholics sin, Obama Health Care, Rick Santorum
Posted: August 17, 2012
Aug 19, 2012
No. It's not a sin to provide health coverage that includes a contraception benefit to an employee. Use of the benefit is optional, not obligatory, and employees who have moral objections to that benefit won't use it. So no moral responsibility falls on the employer. But, most importantly, it's not a sin to use contraception in the first place. Catholic women who have used contraception will be happy to discover, when they cross the pearly gates, that God's just fine with the pill.
Aug 21, 2012
It is a sin to use contraception, the employer is not using it.
Aug 21, 2012
Oh, Bullshit. God gives us free will. If we legislate free will away, THEN we are the sinners. Otherwise, it is the individual who makes the choice to do something against God's will that is sinning, not the person who simply lets them have free will as God intended.