In the wake of the passage of North Carolina’s marriage amendment on May 8, by an overwhelming 61%-39% margin, there have been a number of media reports on the state of marriage law in the fifty states, and how many states have taken action to prevent the issuances of marriage licenses to couples of the same sex. The numbers reported in these stories have sometimes been contradictory, and this may lead to some confusion. With this post, I will try to clarify where the states now stand on this issue.

First, let’s look at states that have amended their state constitutions in such a way as to prevent the legalization of same-sex “marriage” in those states. Including North Carolina, there are thirty (30) states in which the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman has been directly enshrined in the state’s constitution in explicit language. In these thirty states, neither the legislature nor the state courts have the power to legalize same-sex “marriage”–at least, not unless and until the people of those states vote to amend their constitutions again to repeal the current provisions.

Opponents of the marriage amendment in North Carolina made much of the fact that the amendment on the ballot included not only language defining the word “marriage,” but also additional language intended to make certain that the state would not create some sort of quasi-marital status under another name (such as “civil unions” or “domestic partnerships”) to give some or all of the traditional legal “benefits” of “marriage” to same-sex couples.

This provision was described by opponents as though it was a radical and extreme provision unique to the North Carolina amendment. The truth is exactly the opposite–in fact, a clear majority of the states which have adopted amendments to define marriage (twenty of the thirty) have used what is sometimes called a “strong” or “two-sentence” amendment to prevent civil unions and domestic partnerships, as well as same-sex “marriage.” The North Carolina amendment represented the norm, not the exception.

The other ten states have simpler amendments sometimes described as “single-sentence,” or “definition-only” amendments, which address only the definition of civil marriage itself. (The pro-homosexual lobby “Human Rights Campaign,” which usually tracks state laws very closely, has inaccurately omitted Kansas from the list of states with “strong” marriage amendments.)

Continue reading »

Comments: - |

Recently Franklin Graham took a bold and prophetic stance against President Obama’s affirmation of same-sex “marriage.”  His full statement can be read here.

Franklin Graham is the founder of Samaritan’s Purse, a ministry that provides life-saving food and medical care to the poorest of the poor, even in such generally closed countries as North Korea.  And Samaritan’s Purse does their good unabashedly as a witness to the love of Christ and the power of His Gospel.

Rev. Graham is also unashamed to stand for biblical principles in the public square.  In his statement on marriage, he noted that “The institution of marriage should not be defined by presidents or polls, governors or the media. The definition was set long ago and changing legislation or policy will never change God’s definition. This is a sad day forAmerica. May God help us.”

For this, Peter Wehner of the Ethics and Public Policy Center has taken him to task for “selective outrage.”  He also attacks Rev. Graham for being “censorious” and “lack(ing) a spirit of grace and reconciliation,” and for not with equal vigor attacking such vices as self-righteousness and woes as poverty.

Were one to comb through Rev. Graham’s many messages, spoken and written, I’m sure there could be found myriad condemnations of such things.  In this instance, he spoke out about a matter of enormous consequence to our society and did so immediately after his own home state voted to affirm traditional marriage and the President of theUnited Statesdenigrated it.

Let me see: Relevance, importance, timeliness, biblical instruction, patriotism, a burden for his country – what was Rev. Graham missing?

Mr. Wehner – a faithful man and generally a perceptive commentator – also argues that “the definition of marriage has changed even within the Bible.”  Nonsense: To suggest, as he does, that Old Testament examples of polygamy, concubinage, etc. mean that the Scriptural definition of marriage itself has changed is neither logical nor consistent with the Bible itself.

From Genesis 2 on, the Bible makes clear that God ordained marriage to exist between one man and one woman, for life.  Jesus affirmed this overtly in such passages as Matthew 19:1-10; one might tend to think of Him as a rather good expositor of the Torah.

In this same passage, Jesus told His Pharisaic interlocutors that Moses granted “certificates of divorce” because of “your hardness of heart …but from the beginning it has not been this way.”  In other words, God makes allowances for human fallenness (e.g., polygamy in the era of the Hebrew prophets), but this does not mean He approves of such or has not made His moral will sufficiently known that it can be followed without ambiguity.

Additionally, it was President Obama, not Rev. Graham, who politicized the Bible by using the Golden Rule (“do unto others as you would have them do to you”) as a pretext for his endorsement of homosexual “marriage.”

The implications of such an application are mind-boggling.  Do we let our children indulge in diets of Coke and ice cream because they enjoy it and it makes them, and not us, obese?  If the standard for moral judgment in public policy is self-satisfied permission of all that does not cause me direct and serious physical harm, our society is not crumbling – it is in free-fall.

Homosexual “marriage” is destructive of a social institution grounded in biblical revelation and validated by natural law.  It places the entire social fabric at risk: Children can only naturally be pro-created by a male and a female, and the marriage of those partners provides the healthiest environment in which a child can be raised.  These premises compose the indisputable foundation of civilization.

Franklin Graham is to be applauded for his declaration that when homosexuality is sanctioned by a nation’s leaders and enshrined in a nation’s laws, the heart of our Creator is grieved.  With him, I pray that God may indeed help us.

Comments: - |

Comments: - |

Andrew Martin and Andrew Lehren have written a major story on college loan debt for the New York Times (5/12/2012).  As the authors note: “…. growing student hangs over the economy like a dark cloud for a generation of college graduates and indebted dropouts.”  One interesting aspect of the article is its discussion of the less than honest campaigns that non-profit colleges use to entice students to attend them.  Another devastating insight: “Many students and parents don’t have a firm understanding of the cost of attending college, or the amount of debt they will incur.  And most colleges aren’t much help.”  Oh, and one mother who co-signed loans for her daughter is taking out life insurance on her child.  That’s when you know it’s getting serious.

Martin has a follow-up article that is first-rate.  In it he speaks with E. Gordon Gee, president of Ohio State, who “says that public colleges and universities need to devise a new business model to pay for the costs of education, beyond sticking  students with higher tuition and greater debt” (in quotes – NYT summary of Gee’s thinking).

Comments: - |

This past weekend Professor Glenn Reynolds, University of Tennessee Law School, published another newspaper article on the college debt bubble.  Reynolds is one of the best writers on the college debt “bubble” – as he calls it.  He believes that the market for exorbitantly priced higher education is getting soft as market forces and public awareness take hold.

He also takes note of 21^st Century alternatives to the old brick and mortar education model.  He mentions a number of high-tech ventures that are taking off: Harvard/MIT edX, Minerva University, “Stanford professor/Google bigwig Sebastian Thrun”’s Udacity.

New thinking abounds: Glenn references Andrew Coulson (Cato Institute) who proposes that it is becoming more practical for students to educate themselves via online methods.  See George Leef’s brief discussion of Coulson’s idea here.

Comments: 1 |

This Mother’s Day week, FRC hosted a special news program to celebrate the work that over two thousands of Pregnancy Resource Centers (PRCs) do every day around the country.  Both those who serve and those served join us to highlight this positive, life-affirming work that benefit mothers, fathers, and children in need.

Now you can watch on-demand this special Mother’s Day webcast highlighting the recently published ”A Passion to Serve: How Pregnancy Resource Centers Empower Women, Help Families and Strengthen Communities” and the good work of PRCs around the country.

You will also learn what you can do to help PRCs fend off a wave of legislation that is only designed to hinder their mission.

Program guests include:

• Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council
• Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio)
• Peggy Hartshorn, President, Heartbeat International
• Garrett & Ahna Roney, Former PRC Clients
• Tom Glessner, President, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA)
• Karen Snuffer, Executive Director,CareNet PregnancyResource Centers
• Bishop Harry Jackson, President, High Impact Leadership Coalition
• Matt Bowman, Legal Counsel, AllianceDefense Fund
• Jeanne Monahan, Director, Center for Human Dignity, Family Research Council

Please watch and share today!

Comments: 3 |

There has been a lot of media coverage focusing on same-sex “marriage” recently.  With voters in North Carolina turning out overwhelmingly for traditional marriage and President Barack Obama declaring his support for same-sex “marriage,” there is no doubt that this issue will be at the forefront for the near future.  It is crucial to inform your friends and family about same-sex “marriage” and its dangers to the family by watching this documentary.

“The Problem with Same-sex Marriage:  How It Will Affect You and Your Children” brings in marriage, family and homosexual experts to talk about what happens when marriage is redefined.  You can also order the documentary online.

Additionally, FRC has a variety of resources on the dangers of same-sex “marriage.”

• Why Marriage Matters
• Protect Marriage as the Union of One Man and One Woman
• Keep the Definition of Marriage as the Union of One Man and One Woman
• The Defense of Marriage Act: What It Does and Why It Is Vital for Traditional Marriage in America
• Is the Defense of Marriage Act Constitutional? Yes
• Basic Facts About The Defense of Marriage Act
• DOMA Won’t Do It: Why the Constitution Must Be Amended to Save Marriage
• Debating Homosexuality: Understanding Two Views
• The Top Ten Harms of Same-sex Marriage
• The Top Ten Myths of Homosexuality
• Homosexuality in your Child’s School
• The Bible, the Church, and Homosexuality

Comments: 24 |

“The purposeful viewing of child pornography on the internet is now legal in New York,” wrote Judge Victoria A. Graffeo from the highest state court in New York.

The ruling came down to a splitting of hairs over whether “viewing” is “possessing.” Read more here.

But no hair-splitting legal gymnastics will make something so fantastically wrong, right. This ruling cannot stand.

Child pornography is the visual record of an innocent child being abused. There are very sick people in this world who find viewing it sexually stimulating. They provide a demand for it, and the greedy brutes who make up the pornography industry are happy to sacrifice children’s lives to provide the supply.

Every time technology evolves, the porn industry argues that the laws which constrain its excesses surely don’t apply here. Possessing hardcore pornographic videos can’t be illegal, they argued – why, video cassettes are nothing more than magnetic tape in black squares of plastic.

They lost that round, and they will lose here too.

Make no mistake: Viewing child pornography is no private or passive act. It is an integral part of the child-porn chain, every link of which must be made illegal.

There is no room for compromise. The law must reach the evil producers, the soulless distributors, and the heartless, perverted consumers — whether they buy it and save it, or simply watch it or view it.

Comments: 5 |

Click here to subscribe to The Social Conservative Review.

Dear Friends,

A few days before she died of adenocarcinoma (glandular cancer), my mother had me sit down and help her make phone calls. She could not see well enough to find the numbers, so she asked me to do it.

The calls were to a list of people in her church who were ill or in some kind of need.

This was characteristic of my Mom, whose selflessness was as profound as it was quiet. She would never think to boast to others about her commitment to sharing the good news about her Savior, her works of compassion, or her burden for the poor at home and abroad. She simply lived these things, behind the scenes.

To say that motherhood is a noble calling understates its importance. FRC celebrated mothers this year with a wonderful Webcast on the Pregnancy Resource Center movement. FRC President Tony Perkins’ moving interviews with policy leaders and with young women who have benefitted from their local PRC’s can be viewed at Pregnancy Resource Centers: Celebrating Mother’s Day Every Day.

Walking into a quiet room and finding my mother on her knees was not uncommon for me. But she would have been embarrassed if anyone else had seen her – letting anyone but the closest of friends know about her private devotion would, in her mind, have been unseemly self-display.

“I remember my mother’s prayers,” wrote Abraham Lincoln. “They have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”

This is a legacy I share with Mr. Lincoln. It is one my children will receive from my wife. Can a mother give any more valuable gift to her children?

Happy Mother’s Day,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice-President
Family Research Council

P.S. President Obama has announced what has been anticipated for some time: His support for counterfeit, same-sex “marriage.” Read FRC’s take on the President’s comments here.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “Homeschooling Mother’s Name Removed from Registry,” Home School Legal Defense Association
• “10 Things I Learned in Our First Year of Homeschooling,” Jennifer Fulwiler, National Catholic Register

Continue reading »

Comments: - |

No American had a voice in the decisions made in London this day in 1940. It was an entirely British matter. But President Roosevelt had said “this generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.” For millions of us, our destiny would be entwined with the decisions made across an ocean on May 10, 1940.

My own parents would likely never have met had the U.S. not been drawn into World War II. That’s true for tens of millions of us. And drawing America into that war was the Number One objective of the man who became Prime Minister this day in 1940. “No one ever studied the whims of his mistress more carefully than I studied Franklin Roosevelt,” Churchill would say. That’s an odd way of putting it for this man who was famously faithful to his beloved and brilliant wife, Clementine. She was taller than he was, too. That’s usually a sign of a secure ego.

Carlo D’Este’s book, Warlord, is a biography of Winston Churchill at war. He was at war, too, it seems from the day he graduated from Sandhurst, England’s military academy.  He saw action on the Afghan frontier with the British army in India. He fought in the last great cavalry charge at Omdurman in the Sudan. Then, he was fighting against militant Muslims. He killed many of them. And some of them tried to kill him. “Nothing is as exhilarating as to be shot at without result,” he said of his experience there. Young Winston was just a lowly lieutenant in Lord Kitchener’s army fighting the Dervishes. Those fanatical warriors followed a Muslim holy man they called the Mahdi—the Expected One. When the Mahdi died and Lord Kitchener allowed his grave to be desecrated, young Winston protested loudly. He was courageous, not only against Britain’s enemies, but courageous on the home front, as well. When he was captured during the Boer War in South Africa in 1899, everyone on both sides testified to his fearlessness. Churchill as POW could not be restrained, however. He hated being confined in any way. D’Este relates the controversy over Churchill’s escape from the Boers. Did he abandon his fellow POWs? Or did he jump at the chance to escape while they held back? It’s not entirely clear.

What is clear is that he took advantage of a trip to the latrine to squeeze his then-slender frame through a hole in the wall. As they would say of him, Winston stepped out of the “loo” and into history.

And what a step! Once, at a large London dinner party, he annoyed his boss’s daughter by dominating table conversation. Violet Bonham Carter’s father was Prime Minister H.H. Asquith at the time.  “Mr. Churchill, don’t you know we are supposed to be humble?” Winston wasn’t having any of that. “I know we are all worms,” he said (he knew his Psalms), “but I do believe I am a glowworm.”

Glow he did. Several years ago, I told the interns at Family Research Council that Winston Churchill’s life may have been the best documented human life ever lived.  Trip Dyer, one of the brightest our Witherspoon Fellows, challenged me.

Trip said he thought the current Prince William’s life may be more documented.  I took his point. We do live in a Twitter Age.

And one thing you learn from D’Este’s Warlord book is that Churchill did not mind being contradicted. But you’d better be able to maintain your point with facts and arguments. I still maintain that Churchill’s life is the best documented human life ever lived because we know so much of what Churchill thought about everything because he wrote everything down. It’s hard to imagine that he had any thought that he did not write. And that’s not the case with Prince William.

My own wife is taller than I am. (That, I promise, is the end of Churchill comparisons.)  She could not believe I needed yet another Churchill book. After dropping me off at the Naval Academy recently, she called me on her cell phone.  A police officer at Annapolis’ City Dock had stopped her. “You know that thumping sound I told you about,” she said.  “The policeman showed me that your Warlord book was rattling around on the roof of our SUV.” Everything you’ve ever heard about the absent-minded history prof is true, I’m sorry to say.

But I have not forgotten this: President Obama tossed the bust of Winston Churchill out of the White House into the snow. He spurns the advice and counsel of the great British war leader. Too bad.

There’s a lot to learn from Churchill. A key lesson has to do with Jerusalem. Mr. Obama’s cringing spokespeople cannot decide whether Jerusalem is the capital of Israel or not. They have no trouble telling you that Berlin is the capital of Germany. But somehow, the Obama administration is confused about Israel’s capital city. Churchill had the answer to that one, too: “Let the Jews have Jerusalem. It is they who made it famous.”

Comments: - |

Last Friday the Labor Department released economic figures that were very disappointing.  A couple of month’s ago the U.S. economy appeared to have had some positive momentum.  Any such momentum is now gone.  Here is the Investor’s Business Daily’s assessment of some of the data:

Last month, 342,000 people disappeared from the labor force. Had that not happened, the unemployment rate would have been 8.3%, not 8.1%.

Worse, the labor force participation rate has been on a downward slide throughout Obama’s presidency, as millions of workers have given up their fruitless job searches (see chart). That also masks the size of the unemployment problem.

Had the participation rate stayed where it was in June 2009 — the month the recession officially ended — the unemployment rate would be more like 11% today.

And when you add in all those who can’t get full-time work because of the lousy job market, the jobless rate reaches Depression-era levels of 14.5% — unchanged, by the way, from the month before.

Imagine what it must be like in Spain where the unemployment rate is 24%.  Spain gives our socialists something to shoot for.

Comments: - |

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Peter Berkowitz of Stanford’s Hoover Institution has written a bracing reminder of the importance of The Federalist Papers and also how the reading of this essential document is being slighted in American higher education.  The following quotes are particular gems:

… according to the progressive conceit, understanding America’s founding and the framing of the Constitution are as useful to dealing with contemporary challenges of government as understanding the horse-and-buggy is to dealing with contemporary challenges of transportation. Instead, meeting today’s needs requires recognizing that ours is a living constitution that grows and develops with society’s evolving norms and exigencies.… thus many of our leading opinion formers and policy makers seem to come unhinged when they encounter constitutional arguments apparently foreign to them but well-rooted in constitutional text, structure and history.

The Left, whether in our universities or our federal government, cannot abide a Constitution with a fixed meaning because this implies limitations on federal authority, which inherently would constrict the fundamental and ironic project of American liberalism: the radical autonomy of the individual enshrined in law, and the supervening capacity of the state to make it so.  In other words, moral libertinism can only be ensured by a virtually totalitarian government.  And since the Constitution has a defined meaning (why would it provide for its own amendment if its words and phrases could be re-interpreted per the desires of the political moment?), applying it as its signers intended is offensive, even primitive.

Read Berkowitz’s piece.  More importantly, read The Federalist Papers and the Constitution they so eloquently and clearly explain.  A good thing to be reminded why you’re a conservative, now and then.

Comments: - |

FRC held a Family Policy Lecture yesterday featuring Pastor Steven Khoury, who offered his firsthand account of Christian ministry in Bethlehem and Jerusalem.  You can listen to Pastor Khoury’s remarks below.

Comments: - |

According to Reggie Littlejohn of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers (WRWF), the woman who helped Chinese human rights dissident Chen Guangcheng escape from his house arrest, has been “detained” by the Chinese authorities.

“According to (He) Peirong, Chen spent months on his back, pretending to be near death, so that his guards would relax their vigilance.  Then on April 22, with exquisite timing, he scaled a wall and ran for his life, taking several wrong turns and falling into a river because of his blindness.  Peirong drove 20 hours to meet Chen and fooled the village guards into letting her in.  She disguised herself as a courier.  Then she drove Chen another eight hours – still wet from his fall in the river – to safety in Beijing.  Their plan was so masterfully executed that the authorities did not realize Chen was gone for four days.”

WRWF is a ministry devoted to ending forced abortion and sexual slavery in China.  The horror of the Chinese government’s commitment to abortion through the ninth month of pregnancy in order to enforce it’s “one child” policy has resulted in enormous suffering for women, not to mention the deaths of their unborn children.

As millions of Americans take time this week to participate in our National Day of Prayer, let us pray for the protection of He Peirong, Chen Guangcheng, and their families, and for guidance for such U.S. officials as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke (who accompanied Chen to the hospital where he is now being treated), as this situation continues to unfold.

Comments: - |

Yesterday, FRC President Tony Perkins spoke with Gov. Mike Huckabee on his new radio show about Dan Savage’s tirade against the Bible at a high school last week.

Listen to the audio of Tony’s clip here.

Comments: 1 |

Last week, Congressman Todd Akin (R-Mo.) offered a prayer to open a meeting of his House Armed Services Subcommittee. It was a personal prayer in which the Congressman asked for divine guidance and for a spirit of conciliation among Members during sometimes rancorous proceedings. He closed by saying he offered the prayer in the name of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Uh oh! That was enough to excite the rancor of the atheizers. These are those self-appointed defenders of the constitutional separation of church and state who race to the microphones and into court to protest any mention of God, or “parish the thought,” Jesus in a public context.

They will doubtless be wounded and think themselves unjustly treated to be called atheizers. But is that not the effect of what they advocate? Do they not complain of any public expression of Christian faith? They say they are all for religious liberty, and many of them vigorously claim to be Christians themselves.

They simply want to have freedom of expression and freedom of worship confined to the home and churches. Away from public view. Just like it was guaranteed in the old Soviet Constitution.

One of the atheizers’ leaders is Rev. Barry Lynn. He heads something called Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Americans, it seems, were mostly united before the atheizers began their agitation. Since then, there has been no end of Americans disunited.

Rev. Lynn is not letting Mr. Akin get away with referring to You Know Who as his personal Savior. “That’s too cute by half,” said Mr. Lynn.

Mr. Lynn is always provocative.  He got me thinking.  I wonder if President Washington was also “too cute by half.” It’s true that President Washington did not mention the name of Jesus in his Inaugural Address on this day in New York City in 1789.

Continue reading »

Comments: 1 |

Over the past few days, the secular media have reported extensively about a woman whose lesbianism compelled the Boy Scouts of America to ask her to resign as a Den Mother.  She has been featured in numerous media interviews, her overwhelmed-looking little boy with her, and been heralded as a hero for standing up to the BSA.

Here are some facts:

Continue reading »

Comments: 5 |

Young people are ambivalent.  This is the essential finding of a new study by Georgetown University’s Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.  The Center, led by FRC’s friend Dr. Tom Farr, joined with Public Religion Research Institute to obtain “an in-depth portrait of younger Millennials on faith, values, and the 2012 election.”

The portrait that emerges in the survey, “A Generation in Transition: Religion, Values, and Politics among College-Age Millennials (ages 18-24),” is textured by hues of uncertainty.  Among its most notable findings:

• “Younger Millennials report significant levels of movement from the religious affiliation of their childhood, mostly toward identifying as religiously unaffiliated. While only 11 percent of Millennials were religiously unaffiliated in childhood, one-quarter (25 percent) currently identify as unaffiliated, a 14-point increase. Catholics and white mainline Protestants saw the largest net losses due to Millennials’ movement away from their childhood religious affiliation.”
• “Despite holding some moral reservations about abortion, a majority of college-age Millennials support legal abortion, as well as community access to abortion services.” Fifty-four percent of those surveyed believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.  Yet a “slim majority (51 percent) of Millennials believe that having an abortion is morally wrong, compared to (37 percent) who say it is morally acceptable.”
• “Millennials’ feelings toward present-day Christianity are fairly ambivalent. Approximately three-quarters (76 percent) of younger Millennials say that modern-day Christianity ‘has good values and principles,’ and 63 percent agree that contemporary Christianity `consistently shows love for other people.’ On the other hand, nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of Millennials say that “anti-gay” describes present-day Christianity somewhat or very well. And more than 6-in-10 (62 percent) Millennials also believe that present-day Christianity is ‘judgmental’.”
• “Although younger Millennials are divided on the morality of gay and lesbian sexual relationships, a solid majority support allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally.”  Almost 60 percent of Millennials “favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry.”

The ideological division among Millennials should come as no surprise.  Many of them were raised without fathers and in non-religious homes.  They were educated in public schools that taught tolerance as the supreme and integrating virtue, although concurrently they were taught not to extend such to those who believe in revealed and unbending truth.  In such classrooms, right and wrong exist only as cultural-linguistic artifacts of an unenlightened era.

Continue reading »

Comments: 2 |

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius received a number of questions on the contraception mandate this morning during the U.S. House of Representatives Education and Workforce Committee hearing “Reviewing the President’s Fiscal Year 2013 Budget Proposal for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.”   In addition to Secretary Sebelius’s answers to Rep. Trey Gowdy (R,SC) which Jeanne blogged about earlier today, Rep. Martha Roby (R, AL) also questioned Secretary Sebelius about the contraception mandate.

Taking a slightly different tack from Gowdy, Rep. Roby asked Secretary Sebelius why religious organizations, such as the Roman Catholic television/radio station Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) based in her Alabama district was not exempt from HHS’s mandate. Secretary Sebelius blamed the Institutes of Medicine (IOM) for recommending contraception, abortifacients and sterilization, even though her department requested IOM to make recommendations, and she blamed the narrow exemption on states. She didn’t say that most religious employers in states with narrow exemptions to their state contraception mandate can change their plans in ways to get around the mandate. Indeed, the federal mandate is more comprehensive and applies to plans even if they self-insure. The exchange between Sec. Sebelius and Rep. Roby can be viewed here.

Comments: - |

This morning in a hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives Education and Workforce Committee, HHS Secretary Sebelius was questioned by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) on the topic of religious liberty. Specifically, Rep. Gowdy questioned Secretary Sebelius’ statement in her testimony indicating the careful consideration she undertook to “balance” religious liberty protections with preventive services in making the decision about the contraceptive mandate (which includes drugs that can cause abortions).

Rep. Gowdy asked the Secretary about the specifics of her “balance”. In doing so he explained three tests for legal balance, depending on the content and issues being weighed. He explained that because religious liberty is a fundamental right any decision that might violate it would require the strictest scrutiny.

Under oath, the nation’s HHS head stated that in making this decision and taking into consideration religious liberty issues, she relied on the expertise of HHS General Counsel. When questioned further about the counsel she received, the Secretary reported that guidance was provided entirely in discussion, and no legal memo was written on the topic. When asked further about her knowledge of the most significant cases related to relgious liberty that have been decided by the Supreme Court, the Secretary responded that she was unaware/unfamiliar with these cases. It is a telling moment.

The full video is a must-see and just over five minutes:

Comments: - |