There is a very big problem with Supreme Court violating the US Constitution to provide Special Status to religious health care organizations and the health insurance they provide to employees.

Merging Catholic and Non-Sectarian Hospitals: NYS Models for Addressing the Ethical Challenges (click here)

Lois Uttley, M.P.P., Sheila Reynertson, M.A., Ronnie Pawelko, J.D., Sylvia A. Law, J.D., Patricia Hasbrouck, M.B.A., and Kathryn Gottschalk, J.D.

In New York, as elsewhere in the nation, community hospitals are exploring the potential for mergers, affiliations and other forms of business partnerships. The goal is to improve their bottom lines and position themselves to best advantage in a changing health care marketplace. Negotiating such partnerships can be challenging, especially when one of the partners is a Catholic-affiliated hospital or health system that restricts the provision of medical care deemed to violate Catholic teaching....

Miscarriage of Medicine: The Growth of Catholic Hospitals and the Threat to Reproductive Health Care (click here)

Religious restrictions govern care at Catholic-sponsored facilities. At these hospitals, health professionals are prohibited from providing vital health services or honoring patients’ health care decisions when they conflict with Catholic teaching. Often at these facilities health professionals may not even provide their patients with counseling and referrals for services prohibited on religious grounds. As a result, when it comes to reproductive health care, hospitals operating under these religious rules can provide care that falls short of expected standards of care. Historically secular hospitals or hospitals founded by other religious faiths are often required to adopt some or all of the Catholic restrictions when they affiliate with or are acquired by Catholic hospitals....

The law of the land is the law of the land. Religion is a personal liberty, however, it ends when it endangers the lives of others and impinges on the liberty of other Americans. The US Constitution does not guarantee religious organizations exemption from laws. It provides for the freedom to practice religion. 

When religious organizations occupy critical hospital space for patients that is where ethnical standards have to come to bear as well as any prosecution when people are put in a threat to their life due to the oppressive religious standards that offend the best outcomes of medical/surgical practice.

When a Hindu dies in an American hospital there are cultural issues facing the pastoral care minister and he administers the "Waters of the Ganges" to benefit the soul. When a cultural practice of Jehovah Witnesses endanger the life of a child, the ethics of medicine is upheld by the courts because it is life saving. It is not the place of the Catholic Church to impose their cultural standards on those that do not practice them willingly.

So, as the Catholic Church finds itself in the place of power over life in American hospitals it needs to realize they cannot minister their doctrinal demands to everyone that does not consent to that oppressive culture.

It is no different in health care. The Obama Administration is wrong on all counts to favor religious doctrine over any law passed in the USA as part of our US Constitutional law. A religious organization's demands are on the individual and not the entire country. They obviously want to opt for that power, but, it should never happen. 

Those educated in the leadership of religion graduate with theological doctorates. They are not graduated with legal degrees to change the face of the US Constitution. I am sure there are lawyers within the practice of religion, but, the obvious divide of the practices of each are obvious. Lawyers that work within a religious organization is a specialty, not a general practitioner of the law.

When an individual seeks to satisfy their spiritual direction do they go to a lawyer? Of course, not. The division of the doctrinal authority is obvious. So, just because it is politically fashionable to bow to a religious demand on the laws of this country, doesn't mean it is constitutional. Just because the Robert's Court is an activist set of Justices doesn't mean they are correct. It only means they have power.

The USA demands a CLEAR division of church and state. Because a pure soul is demanded by an religious organization that does not mean it can bend the rules to their 'designer' doctrine regardless of their monetary size or number of members. If the Supreme Court caters to every religious organization in the country it will eliminate the USA's laws by allowing doctrine to supersede the authority of the US Constitution. This is ridiculous.

In practicing the Jewish faith there are a number of restrictions within the weekly time frame of their Sabbath/Shabat. If a Jewish person is a doctor and on call or a UPS driver, they have to carry out their jobs in order to survive in the USA. That means those individuals will be violating their religious demands to maintain their status in the society in a very necessary action that insures them employment or an income. 

Their religious demands are understood to be respected in the face of the demand on their lives. That is no different for any religious organization. If the laws of the land conflict with their doctrine, the understanding they had no choice is 'a matter of fact.' When my Father was required to work a double shift for his employer and missed Sunday mass, it was understood he did not have control over that and it was not viewed as a sinful act to remain at work to provide an income that supports his wife and children. 

This trend in catering to religious doctrine and/or dogma is not constitutional regardless of the Robert's Court entertaining it.

I would love to have the Hyde Amendment challenged again as to it's constitutionality in oppressing the rights of women. The Robert's Court would no doubt uphold it, but, as far as I am concerned it is wrongly decided. Once a citizen pays their taxes they lose control of those monies. The budget of the USA is decided by the legislature and it is there the power lies to distribute monies. If women's health organizations need funding to maintain the health of women that is all the legislature needs to know. It does not need to know if a religious practice is in practice of the clinics. The government has a responsibility to the 'good practice' of any health clinic so it does not endanger lives, but, as to apply religious doctrine to any US law or distribution of monies is outrageous.

A woman walking into an abortion clinic isn't asked if she is violating her religious practices. She is asked if she has allergies. The separation of doctrine is obvious.

So, this entire religious catering is out of hand. It is dominating the laws of the USA that is unhelpful to people and serves to dilute the laws of this nation. There is no Personal Liberty impinged upon by any laws in the USA. We are a civil country that realizes diversity is a reality. It is completely wrong to move against that understanding and it removes the sovereign authority of the USA in it's governance.

Do Bishops Run Your Hospital? (click here)

The Catholic Church is making health care decisions for more and more Americans—whether they know it or not.

—By Stephanie Mencimer

One morning in November 2010, an ambulance brought a woman who was 15 weeks pregnant to the emergency room at Sierra Vista Regional Health Center, 70 miles outside Tucson, Arizona. She had been carrying twins and had miscarried one at home in the bathtub. The chances of the second fetus making it were "minuscule," Dr. Robert Holder, the OB-GYN on call that day, later recalled in an affidavit. He told the woman and her husband that trying to continue the pregnancy would put her at risk of severe bleeding and infection. In short, she needed an emergency abortion.

But there was a problem: Sierra Vista was in the midst of a trial merger with a Catholic hospital company, Carondelet Health Network, which required its doctors to abide by the church's ethical and religious directives. Hospital administrators told Holder that because the surviving fetus still had a heartbeat, he could not perform an abortion. Holder had to send the patient to a hospital in Tucson—a three-hour delay that he believed put her at risk for life-threatening complications.

The doctors at Sierra Vista aren't the only ones to struggle with submitting their medical decisions to a higher authority. A growing number of patients are finding their health care options governed by the church's guidelines as Catholic hospitals, long major players in the health care market, have been on a merger streak, acquiring everything from local hospital systems to medical practices, nursing homes, and health insurance plans....

Ken Langone should be fired. He has no ethics and has chosen to victimize Pope Francis.

The people of St. Patrick's can raise money on their own to pay for any repairs needed. Try a marathon BINGO. I am serious. The Catholic groups of many churches run fundraisers to build schools and new churches. So, those that seek to put pressure the only Pope in the world based in financial blackmail needs to face charges as well as resignation from their jobs and then go to a confessional and do their penance.

By Morgan Lee
Christian Post Reporter
January 1, 2013

...Home Depot founder (click here) and investor Ken Langone, who is currently leading the $180 million fundraising efforts to complete the renovations on St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, recently told CNBC that a potential million dollar donor has voiced apprehension about donating to the project after Pope Francis critiqued trickle-down economics in November as "naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power."

"In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world," Pope Francis wrote....

One might notice New York City has a progressive Mayor now. Why? Because New Yorker's pay attention to the fact an entire generation of Americans gathered at Zuccotti Park. While the Right Wing of the USA continue to deny every aspect of the impoverished in the country by victimizing the Poor and denying unemployment benefits many in the rest of country paid attention to what occurred under Bush/Cheney. They abandoned the American economy to opt for the growth in China and they left out the Millenniums in any opportunity for a future in the USA.

Plutocrats like Ken Langone should be rallying around Pope Francis to change the face of opportunity in the USA and around the world, but, instead this self-centered money grubber has yet to seek to address the man in the mirror.

Many parents of Millenniums are aware of the gross unfairness passed down to their children and they don't like it. They want their children to share in the 'birth right' they enjoyed as they took on their lives as adults. The fact there is a growing Poor in the USA should be of concern to every American. It is an inconvenience to the wealthy to actually face the fact they maintained their million - billions due to a bailout of Wall Street in 2008. So, Mr. Ken Langone can put away his nasty attitude that clearly illustrates his love of money over the love of his brethren.


Home Depot is only a shade better in their treatment of their employees.

Home Depot has about 5000 employees and revenues of $10 plus billion.

They are not the same as Target or Walmart as far as their merchandise. Considering their employees actually have specialty skills they are grossly underpaid.

So, Mr. Ken Langone has a lot of soul searching to conduct to be a better example of a humanitarian and a businessman with a conscience before he even begins to look to any religious leader as a scapegoat for his greed.

Contraceptive health benefits have cooties.

...In reality, (click here) Justice Sotomayor only stayed the court of appeals' denial of Little Sisters' request for an injunction; in other words, her ruling only temporarily stops the government from enforcing the regulation against Little Sisters and its co-plaintiffs. How the case will ultimately turn out is far from clear.

But as Georgetown Law School's Marty Lederman points out in a new post at Balkanization, the hitch is not in the law, but in Little Sisters' case itself....

This has to be the most ridiculous lawsuit against the federal government I have ever heard of. None of these religious lawsuits belong in the courts. The only reason they are there is because the Robert's Court allows religious activism by the courts.

The law is clear here, there is a separation of church and state. The organizations across the board have to offer female needs in their health care plans and that includes contraception. 

These lawsuits treat the benefit of receiving contraception as a health care benefit as if it is an infectious disease to their souls. That is ridiculous. 

Religion in practice in the USA is about setting limits and challenging self-control. It is about being a devoted follower of the faith and the condition of the soul when one passes in death. The USA demands all entities in the USA be equal, including that of religious organizations. These organizations cannot be allowed special status to exemption of any laws as it would create a sought after class that would be warped into a parallel governing within the country.

Churches are provided a non-profit status in their taxation assessments because the USA allows non-profits to exist within it's borders. That does not mean churches are exempt from other laws that every other person, organization or corporation is required to abide within. This is some of the most egregious requests of the courts ever engaged. These suits are turning the USA into a confusing stack of court decided statues that muddle the reality of life in the USA.

Just because an organization is required to offer it's employees contraception doesn't mean those in the organization have to practice contraception. Using contraception is an individual choice. Allowing churches to refuse that decision by their employees within their health care insurance is a dictate. Dictates are not law in the USA. 

In allowing any religious organization exemption from USA law because they believe, in their magical thinking, they are contaminated by a law that benefits women, then the USA has regressed into a time when women were oppressed by their very status as a child bearer. Now if a church wants to oppress their own members into pregnant servitude, then there is no better example than the Catholic Church. If the Catholic Church surveys their members globally they will find themselves outstanding in the number in poverty while having large families. Little Sisters of the Poor indeed.

The indulgence of the religious during the Bush/Cheney years served them well in politics, but, the exploitation of that political paradigm in the USA is hideous and causes hardship with a democracy where women seek careers and in instances are inhibited by their status as child bearer. Additionally, the USA bases it's economy in capitalism where by citizens work and carry their own responsibility. In order to survive in the USA any person requires employment or the benefit of unemployment, but, nowhere in the USA landscape is there Pregnancy and Child Rearing Pay.

The oppressive request of these religious organizations should never be honored by the courts of the USA. They are oppressive, victimizing and do not recognize the reality of living in the USA by their very members. The USA is a sovereign authority and the Catholic Church knows the oppression of other sovereign authority across this Earth. While the religious enjoy thinking about a spotless soul and attempting to achieve one that does not allow for a religious authority to dictate to the sovereignty of the USA. The USA allows for an understanding the individual is the most important aspect of it's democracy. The government does not dictate religious doctrine, it levies laws.

The USA has been an asset to every religious organization that has sought members into their faith. The right to practice religion in the USA is always a matter of individual freedom. That freedom/liberty will always exist in the USA. What is not part of that liberty is the right of an individual or any organization to dictate the outcomes of USA laws. No organization can impose designer laws of gods on the people of this nation. To that end these requests of our courts is hideous and setting up precedent that could offend the sovereignty of this nation. It is out of the question.

If the Catholic Church believes it can dictate the purpose of a woman's body in the USA, they are sadly mistaken. Individual liberty is at stake and in no way should any organization be allowed exemption from the law. The Robert's Court is making decisions to once again taint the political speech in this country. The Congress should be reviewing every decision of this court that continues to insult the Constitution of this country!

Any religious person will tell you the USA allows for the freedom of choice in all aspects of life. It is that challenge to a religious life any deity seeks a pure heart and mind. If a religious person is not allowed to assault that challenge there is no gain for their purity and the dictate has created a faux reality to redemption. The exemption from laws in the USA is an assault on the US Constitution as well as an assault on the soul.