Religion

Many liberals and their pundits mischaracterized the approach of the Republican Party. It doesn’t encourage fundamentalism, but its political philosophy is not hostile to it. They don’t impose absolutes: you can find Republicans who are fundamentalist and atheist; traditional and libertarian; pro-life and pro-choice (Collins, Snowe, Hutchison … where, oh, where are the pro-life Dems?); straight and gay (Log Cabin Republicans).

Democrats rail against "intolerance," but on the evidence, it is the Democrats who are the party of “group-think” and intellectual rigidity.

President Obama is urging black voters to encourage their church congregation to support his reelection (not surprising). Why would a Christian church implore its members to support a politician whose views are antithetical to the church? Let’s call the roll.
 
Same-sex marriage
Abortion
Forcing churches to comply with contraceptives
Removal of “In God We Trust” from our currency
Not giving Christianity the same protections as Islam in government policy and free speech

Does the Obama administration want to force the Catholic Church to abandon its missions in health, education and welfare in order to be true to its beliefs?

It could happen; it’s already beginning to happen. Due to the radical liberal homosexual agenda, Catholic charities have already had to close down adoption agencies in states where it is considered unfair discrimination to refuse to give children to homosexual couples. By forcing the Catholic Church, history’s largest social service organization, out of business, aren’t we throwing out the baby and keeping the bathwater?

The president’s ObamaCare compromise is that Catholic charities don't have to offer contraceptives to their employees through their mandatory healthcare insurance policies. Instead, their insurance companies must provide employees the contraceptives for free. This is not a compromise, but a sleight of hand.
 
Who does the administration think is going to pay for these contraceptives? If they think the insurance company, out of the goodness of its heart, will pay out of profits, they are gravely mistaken. Instead, when the insurance company quotes a Catholic charity a health insurance policy that excludes free contraceptives, they will knowingly price it at the same rate as that of an institution that must provide contraceptives to its employees. If they are prohibited from charging the Catholic charities the same rate as other institutions and must charge a lower rate, then the insurance companies will pass the costs on to all the non-Catholic-charity policyholders. That means the rest of America must subsidize contraceptives for the workers of Catholic charities.

There should be and will be a compromise between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church about health regulations and contraceptives. But I disagree with my colleague A.B. Stoddard, most pundits and almost the entire commentariat class about how horrible this is for the Obama campaign.

One of the major political realities of 2012 is the overwhelming support of women for Obama and Democrats and the overwhelming opposition of women to Republicans. I had to laugh at a recent diatribe against Obama by my colleague Dick Morris that mentioned that Gingrich has a problem with the gender gap. Republicans who cheered Dick for that column will not give such an ovation to the part of his column that Dick left out. All Republicans suffer from a gender gap! In fact it is a gender canyon, a gender chasm and a gender solar system in favor of Obama and Democrats and against Republicans and conservatives.

Isn't it convenient how this administration continues to manipulate our separation of church and state? In fact what they're doing is trampling on the First Amendment without any conscience. Our government was never designed to control the church, and the church should never have control over the government.

This administration is constantly testing the waters to see how much it can erode the rights of the people. There is no justification for forcing people to disregard their deeply held religious convictions in a "free" country. This, coupled with the president's pronouncement a couple of years ago that we were not a Judeo-Christian nation, and his tolerance of restrictions on Catholic priests who serve the military, calls into question his allegiance to our Constitution.

With unbelievable hubris, the ObamaCare bureaucrats in Washington exclude the Church’s non-liturgical mission from the religious exemption of Obamacare. (Not the elected Congress, but self-righteous bureaucrats made this decision!)

These bureaucrats claim the Church serves non-Catholics in its non-liturgical mission, and therefore this is not its core religious mission. Imagine, the bureaucrats understand the Church’s mission better than the clergy! Even many liberal Catholics understand that the mission of the Catholic Church extends beyond the sanctuary.

Could be that those who hate him see it clearly: Tim Tebow, bent humbly in prayer, is a threat to the very core of America as we have imagined ourselves to be since 1776. They see a threat right to the core of science mind, head domination over the heart that has brought us to world conquest these last 200 years. They see love rising to extinguish power as invariably in time it tends to.

It is interesting to watch people conduct themselves this time of year as they try to figure out whether they should say Merry Christmas or not based on the appearance and the belief of the person they're speaking with.

Whether you wish someone a Merry Christmas or not should have nothing to do with their belief or political philosophy, it is all about the holiday spirit.

In this pre-Christmas season, when many Jews in the U.S. feel left out of all the goings-on, how exciting it must have been to attend the Republican Jewish Coalition conference held last week in Washington, D.C. Candidates for the 2012 election against President Obama appeared and promised Israel their enduring love and affection. One after the other (except Ron Paul, who did not attend), they groveled and out-promised each other just how much they adored Israel, way more than their competitors.

Before 360 assembled self-styled poobahs and big check writers, wearing “Obama, Oy Vey” buttons, the candidates all but promised to give Israel Egypt, let alone more of Palestine. Jon Huntsman told the crowd that his best friend in China was Israel's ambassador there. Mitt Romney said his first trip abroad as president would be to, guess where, Israel. How those Mormons love to travel and to proselytize.