Requiem for the United States Constitution

On June 28, 2012, on the vigil of St. Peter and Paul, the Supreme Court of the United States, led by Catholic Chief Justice John Roberts, upheld the Affordable Care Act, more popularly known as Obamacare or the Healthcare Bill.  The Constitution of the United States, which has been on life support for many years, is now officially dead.  The government has obtained complete control over the lives of all of its citizens.  The Court, in a 5-4 decision (with Chief Justice Roberts being the deciding vote) ruled that the healthcare bill was constitutional and that the government has a right to force all citizens to either purchase health insurance or pay a fine, which fine has now been defined as a tax.  We are now being taxed basically because we breathe air.  We must buy health insurance because we are alive.  The government will have our complete health records, thus depriving us of any privacy, and the government will decide when and what kind of healthcare we will receive.  The government literally now has the power of life and death over each and every citizen.
 

The weakest and most vulnerable among us are the most at risk.  Abortion will become even more widespread than it is now, as it will be supported by taxpayer dollars, the Stupak Amendment meaning nothing.  The government can decide what, if any, healthcare the elderly will receive, whether they are "worthy" of healthcare, or if they're took sick or too old.  From opposingviews.com:

Supreme Court's Decision to Uphold Health Care Law is a Blow to Pro-Lifers Submitted by Baptist Press on Jun 29, 2012

The U.S. Supreme Court has narrowly upheld the 2010 health-care law, dealing a disheartening setback to pro-life and religious liberty advocates who fervently oppose the controversial measure.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- in combination with subsequent federal rules -- not only has elicited widespread opposition because of the "individual mandate" but because of other provisions, such as its federal subsidies for abortion, an abortion/contraceptive mandate that critics say violates religious liberty and a requirement that insurance plans in state exchanges not disclose their abortion coverage until people are enrolled.

The abortion-contraceptive mandate, which requires all plans to cover contraceptives and sterilizations as preventive services without cost to employees, has been in the spotlight of criticism since a federal rule to that effect was announced in January. The mandate includes coverage of contraceptives that can cause abortions of tiny embryos. The rule regarding that mandate has a religious exemption critics find woefully inadequate and has elicited ardent opposition from church groups and religious freedom advocates. 

The Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and GuideStone Financial Resources have protested those provisions and others. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has led a charge against the abortion/contraceptive mandate and the failure to protect freedom of conscience and have been joined by pro-life and religious liberty organizations. Multiple lawsuits challenging the mandate have been filed in federal court.

Southern Baptist leaders expressed deep disappointment with the opinion.
"It is astonishing that the majority of the justices did not see the bill for what it really is: a blatant violation of the personal freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution and perhaps a mortal blow to the concept of federalism," ERLC President Richard Land said in a written statement.

In addition to continuing to protest the "abortion/contraceptive mandate" and its insufficient religious exemption, Land said, "Greater government involvement in medical care also means that the sick, elderly and terminally ill will suffer." He suggested many patients will have to wait longer to receive treatment as the government determines how to allocate resources.

"With its far-reaching effects," Land said, the health care law "will destroy much of what Americans hold dear." 

O.S. Hawkins, president of GuideStone Financial Resources, said in a written release, "As I told messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans last week, we will never allow this Administration, or any other, to tell us that we have to provide abortive drugs like morning-after pills. ... We will maintain our advocacy on behalf of ministers we are privileged to serve."

The Supreme Court's decision quickly turned attention to the other two branches of government, especially the White House.

The Republican leadership of the House of Representatives announced it would hold a vote July 11 to repeal the health care law. The House is likely to approve the proposal, but the Democrat-led Senate undoubtedly will reject it.  [Congress is playing a cruel game with the American public. They have no intention of overturning the health care law.]

Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee for president in November's election, said in a written statement, "What the Court did not do on its last day in session, I will do on my first day if elected President of the United States. And that is I will act to repeal Obamacare.  [How can we forget that Romney's healthcare bill in Massachusetts was the blueprint for Obamacare]

"Let's make clear that we understand what the Court did and did not do," he said. "What the Court did today was say that Obamacare does not violate the Constitution. What they did not do was say that Obamacare is good law or that it's good policy."

President Obama said, "Whatever the politics, today's decision was a victory for people all over this country whose lives will be more secure because of this law and the Supreme Court's decision to uphold it."

Barack Obama being sworn in by Chief Justice Roberts
without a Bible and in front of picture of famous freemason
Bejamin Latrobe

The high court "upheld the principle that people who can afford health insurance should take the responsibility to buy health insurance," he said. Obama added he is "as confident as ever that when we look back five years from now or 10 years from now or 20 years from now, we'll be better off because we had the courage to pass this law and keep moving forward." 

Foes of the law undoubtedly grieved the fact Kennedy, the normal swing vote between the high court's liberal and conservative wings, agreed to invalidate the entire law, but Roberts, considered a staunch originalist when it comes to interpreting the Constitution, sided with the nominees of Presidents Clinton and Obama.

In the court's opinion, Roberts explained why the majority decided Congress could not require the purchase of health insurance as part of its authority to regulate interstate commerce but accepted the Obama administration's legal argument that the "individual mandate" acts as a tax.

As an alternative to its Commerce Clause argument, the administration contended the requirement that a person who refuses to buy insurance must make a payment to the Internal Revenue Service serves as a tax, Roberts said.

That theory "makes going without insurance just another thing the Government taxes, like buying gasoline or earning income," Roberts wrote. "And if the mandate is in effect just a tax hike on certain taxpayers who do not have health insurance, it may be within Congress's constitutional power to tax."  [I don't know about you, but my mind just goes completely "tilt" at this statement. The government can tax us because we breathe?  For that is what this tax is all about.  Because we are alive, the government can tax us for not having healthcare.  This mean we can be taxed for absolutely anything and everything.  They can tell us what we can and cannot buy, exactly how we can spend our money.  And if we don't do exactly what we are told, we will be fined with a tax and the IRS will come after us if we don't pay.  We will then be subject to incarceration.]

That may not be the "most natural interpretation of the mandate," but it is a "fairly possible one" under the high court's precedent and the law should be granted the "full measure of deference owed to federal statutes." [In other words, the government is now in complete charge of our lives.]

In deferring to elected leaders, Roberts said for the majority, "It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices."  [But isn't it their job to uphold the Constitution, in which they have failed miserably?  In fact, they are guilty of murdering the Constitution and our rights as citizens of the United States of America.]

Joining Roberts in the majority were Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

If the justices had invalidated the "individual mandate," they would have addressed whether any of the law could survive minus a provision that appeared so integral to its existence.

And the first victims were the US Constitution
and personal freedom

The four dissenting justices charged the majority with saving a law Congress did not craft.  [This is extremely important because only Congress can make laws, not the executive branch, which is the presidency. as happened in this case.  Even the Supreme Court cannot make law, they can only interpret it.]

"The Court regards its strained statutory interpretation as judicial modesty," they said in dissent. "It is not. It amounts instead to a vast judicial overreaching. It creates a debilitated, inoperable version of health-care regulation that Congress did not enact and the public does not expect. It makes enactment of sensible health-care regulation more difficult. . . ."

People should recognize that Obamacare is not about healthcare.  It is about controlling our lives.  The government now has the ability to reach into every single area of our lives, including the most private and personal.  It is about the government making every decision for us, including the right to live.  The United States Constitution is dead and personal freedom is dead, and the US Supreme Court, led by Catholic Chief Justice John Roberts, put the final nail in the coffin.

Lesbians Sue Catholic Hospital

The Catholic Church and her beliefs are under constant attack in our world and, more particularly, in Western society.  From her stand against artificial birth control to unmarried priests, the world tends to stand in opposition to the Church founded by Jesus Christ and to which is given the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.  The Church is persecuted by those who oppose the teaching of God just as the founder of the Catholic Church, Jesus Christ, was.  One of the strongest and most vocal of all groups aligned against the Church is the homosexual community, which seems dedicated to destroying all traditional values and morals in our society.  They realize that the biggest obstacle standing in their way is the Catholic Church, which still teaches, and will always teach, that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.  From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."  They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

Gay Pride Parades are well known for
mocking and demeaning Catholicism

Despite her condemnation of homosexual acts, the Catholic Church does reach out in compassion to those persons with homosexual tendencies, as shown in the very next paragraph of the Catechism:

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

Homosexuals have been given a very great cross to bear, and they should be shown as much compassion and empathy as possible in helping them unite their suffering with that of our Lord.  But compassion does not mean condoning their lifestyle.  In fact, to condone their lifestyle is to help them open the door to hell and walk in.  You don't give a gun to someone determined to kill him or herself, and you don't condone the sin in a sinner's life just to make them feel better.  As Christians, we have a responsibility to teach the pure saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Pandering to people's carnal and sinful desires will only lead them to hell.  Therefore, despite very vocal elements even within the Church itself, the Catholic Church, which is the ark of salvation, will never condone homosexuality because to do so would condemn people to hell. 

Anti-Catholic Gay Organization

“Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence”

mocks Catholics at a Gay Pride parade

As mentioned above, the Catholic Church has become one of the chief enemies of homosexuals as they have become more brazen in their attempts to destroy anything and anyone who stands in their way of total acceptance by society,  The latest manifestation of this is a lawsuit filed by an "anonymous" lesbian who works for a Catholic hospital here in New York, and is now suing this hospital because this Catholic hospital refused to recognize her "marriage" to her lesbian partner and grant spousal benefits.

Here is an article from lifesitenews.com on this matter. 

Lesbians sue to force Catholic hospital to provide same-sex benefits, undermine DOMA

by Calvin Freiburger
  

Thu Jun 21 12:28 PM EST

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, June 21, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) - A New York lesbian couple has sued to force a Catholic hospital to provide them with insurance benefits by challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

The same-sex couple has filed a lawsuit against Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield and St. Joseph’s Medical Center because one of St. Joseph’s divisions, St. Vincent’s Westchester, denied them spousal benefits. 

The plaintiffs, who have chosen to remain anonymous, are seeking past and future benefits and a declaration that they are entitled to receive them.  [Why are they doing this anonymously? If they believe in what they are doing, why not be upfront and center?]

Though New York recognizes same-sex marriage, self-insured employers such as St. Joseph’s may still refuse to recognize them because they are governed by federal regulations, rather than state regulations.

The lawsuit alleges that the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman for the purposes of federal regulations, is discriminatory and unconstitutional, and therefore cannot justify the hospital’s policy. “It’s just not socially fair,” the employee told the New York Times.

Catholic League President Bill Donohue strongly condemned the lawsuit on Wednesday in a statement e-mailed to LifeSiteNews.com, calling it an infringement on the hospital’s rights made possible by “sleuth, deception, and a wholesale disregard for the democratic process” and suggesting homosexual activists were the ones trampling on diversity.

“It is not the Catholic Church that is seeking to impose its agenda on others” Donohue said. “It is homosexual activists who voluntarily join a Catholic institution and then seek to upend its strictures.” He noted the employee “surely knew all along…the teachings of Catholicism” on the issues of marriage and homosexuality before coming to the hospital. 

DOMA has long been a high-priority target for advocates of redefining marriage. The federal Department of Justice has come under fire for refusing to defend the law in court throughout President Barack Obama’s time in office. 

In July 2011, the administration called for the law to be overturned, arguing that the bill signed by President Bill Clinton was “motivated in large part by animus toward gay and lesbian individuals.”

Last month, the First Circuit Court of Appeals struck down DOMA’s federal marriage definition, ruling that benefits could not be denied to gay couples in states that recognize same-sex marriage. However, the court upheld the section of the law protecting states’ right to define marriage for themselves.

The opinion, written by a judge appointed by President George H.W. Bush, specifically denied the bill was motivated by prejudice.

Critics told LifeSiteNews at the time that the rest of his ruling was severely flawed. Liberty Counsel senior counsel Harry Mihet noted the inconsistency of ruling that “states remain free to decide the meaning of marriage for themselves and to ban homosexual ‘marriage,’ as 31 states have already done, but somehow the federal government does not have that same freedom to decide for itself…what marriage means.” 

Alliance Defense Fund legal counsel Dale Schowengerdt observed that the federal government’s authority to exclude polygamy from marriage’s definition has historically been recognized, while Family Research Council President Tony Perkins argued that DOMA should be subjected to the “rational basis test,” a commonly-accepted legal standard that would recognize government’s rational interest in fostering unions that provide children with a mother and a father. 

The assault on DOMA raises serious concerns for religious liberty, as well. A ruling against DOMA and St. Joseph would mean that not even religious employers who bear full financial responsibility for their own services have the right to conform those services to their religious convictions.  [This is definitely coming, and in the not too distant future.  We must be willing to pay the price of incarceration or worse for standing up for what we believe and know is right.]

In October 2011, Bishop William Lori testified before a the House Judiciary subcommittee that the rhetoric used by the Justice Department against DOMA also pose a deeper threat to religious freedom. 

“If the label of ‘bigot’ sticks to our Church and many other churches – especially in court, under the Constitution – because of their teaching on marriage,” he argued, “the result will be church-state conflicts for many years to come.”

Our Lady shows a vision of hell
to the children of Fatima

When our Lady appeared at Fatima to the three shepherd children, one of the things she said to them was "Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them."  The easiest thing would be to just capitulate and go along with the rest of society.  But our Lord told us to whom much has been given, much is expected.  Certainly there can be no greater gift in all of the universe than that of the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.  If we, who have been given this gift without measure, are not willing to pray and sacrifice, and stand strong against the evils of this world despite all opposition, we will bear at least some responsibility for those who are lost.  We must not hate them, and although we condemn their actions because they are sinful, as the Catholic Catechism says,"They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity."  Just as our Lord said of those who killed him, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," so we should pray for those who persecute us.  We must do whatever we can to pull as many souls from hell as possible.  Hate is never the answer, even when they hate us.

This situation is going to become more and more difficult and it will not be long before those who oppose homosexuality will be in violation of the law of the land.  It is a certainty that the Defense of Marriage Act - DOMA - will be overturned and same sex marriage will be legalized across the country.  We must be willing to pay whatever price it will take to stand strong in our faith.  We must never react with hate but always with love.  These souls need our prayers and our sacrifices, not our hate.