Religious Freedom

February 5, 2012

Dear President Obama

This letter is meant to convey my objection to the your administration’s decision to force all Catholic Organizations to comply with  the provision of oral contraceptives, oral abortifactants and sterilization services as a condition of providing health care insurance.  The Catholic Church has a long history of working with people of many faiths and stations of life.  Just as Jesus interacted with prostitutes and tax keepers, Catholics do not limit who they hire based on religion alone nor do they limit their services to believers alone.  They value all life, even the unborn.  Oral contraceptives, abortifactants and sterilization have an established historical precedent, they are not acceptable within the Catholic Church anywhere in the world.  To be forced to participate in abortion in any form is  the moral equivalent of forced participation in murder.  You don’t have to be Catholic to understand that people truly believe this. You do  have to be sensitive to different cultures to understand what a objectionable moral decision the government is forcing on religious groups, not just Catholics.  This is not, as Ms. Sebelius has stated,  a topic of medical safety.  Hitler’s death camps were probably quite safe for the guards, not so for the poor people that died there.  Paying for the health care of a newborn and the mother is an expensive decision.  The Catholic church gladly pays these bills as well as supports orphanages, battered women shelters, hospitals and inner city schools.  Catholics chose life and the sloppiness that life provides and that is where they choose to spend their money.

It is un- American to dictate what a church does with it’s money and theology.  There is no religious freedom in this decision.  I will not vote for you.

Sincerely yours,

Julie