If only the Little Sisters were a powerful lobby, like unions or corporate contributors.

We'd have fewer Religious Freedom test cases.

"To appease the faith-based-community organizers, Obama promised a future “accommodation” giving himself cover to claim in effect: If you like your religion, you can keep your religion.* As we all know now, what he really meant was that you can keep your pre-existing religion if he likes it. For example, several large companies and unions received waivers from the Affordable Care Act because the Obama administration believes in their cause, or something.

But not the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Not only did Team Obama refuse to grant them a waiver, the nuns are also not considered religious enough to receive a religious exemption because they have the audacity to serve non-Catholics. That’s right. A non-profit organization of chaste nuns who care for the indigent and elderly in nursing homes are not religious enough for an exemption to the contraception mandate because they don’t turn away patients based on religion.

This is a wee bit hypocritical coming from a president who criticized Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland for their segregation:

“If Catholics have their schools and buildings, and Protestants have theirs … that encourages division. It discourages cooperation.”

Since the Little Sisters encourage cooperation by caring for people of other faiths, the Obama administration is forcing them to sign a permission slip authorizing a third party to provide abortifacients, sterilization and contraception on their behalf, or else face exorbitant fines. In other words, they must deny their faith to comply with Obamacare."

Those perfidious Jesuits!

Another columnist tips her hand that Obamacare is really about cracking down on the Catholic Church.

Her confusion, charitably assuming that’s what it is, stems from her inability to see what the justices evidently grasped: The form the Little Sisters were being asked to sign did not merely state that they were not covering contraceptives but required other people to do so. Greenhouse continues in this vein:

 On the facts of this case, the refusal to sign the form is so far-fetched that this concocted controversy can only be understood in the context of high-stakes politics. The dozens of pending challenges to the contraception mandate are not popping up randomly or by accident. This is a deadly serious and sophisticated campaign, a claim by religion for primacy in the public square. The Rehnquist court for years appeared receptive, but ultimately blinked. The church plays a long game.

Greenhouse’s evaluative terms — “far-fetched,” “concocted” — again reflect her inability to see (or unwillingness to state accurately) the facts of the case. I’m certainly prepared to believe that all nine justices could get something wrong (and that a majority of justices could get this very case wrong in the end). But it’s also possible that Greenhouse is way out in left field here. The last sentence of the passage — “the church,” indeed — may reveal more about Greenhouse’s view of the world than she realizes.

We live in a strange world where people can't see that the threat to liberty is from the powerful, not the weak.

Bleeding Heart Libertarian writes:

Worse is the NYT’s claim that the threat to religious liberty with respect to the contraception mandate is from a small number of non-profit religious employers, rather than the federal government. The federal government is plainly coercing these religious non-profits and in general has infinitely more power over our day-to-day lives than Little Sisters of the Poor. To say that religious non-profits pose more of a threat to liberty than the federal government would be seriously confused. But to deny that the federal government poses a threat is unacceptable.

We see here some of the worst moral blind spots of the elite center-left attitude towards government, which the NYT exemplifies. They are so statist that they cannot see the federal government as a threat and so confused about the nature of liberty that they misapply the concept in the most rudimentary manner.

A Modest Proposal.

Whether it's satire or offensive depends on whose ox is gored.

//The federal government has an obligation to ensure that employers aren't infringing on the rights of their employees. That's why I support a law mandating that every employer has to contribute a set amount of money to the church, mosque or synagogue of each employee's choice.

Some employees are not religious or may not have a house of worship in need of financial help. No matter; in that case, the employer will simply contribute the money into a general religion fund that can be used to offset the cost of construction and upkeep of the churches, mosques and synagogues of the employees who do attend religious services. This is a happy compromise, since forcing everyone to contribute means the amount that will need to come out of each person's paycheck will be smaller.

Non-religious folks shouldn't have a problem with the arrangement, since who wouldn't be willing to forego some small amount of pay – pennies, really – to ensure his or her colleagues all have access to top-notch religious services?

Great idea!

Ruh-Roh!  Environmentalists are now unhappy with Obama's Contraception Mandate.

Simcha Fisher points out that an organic food company is suing to block the contraception mandate because of the deleterious effect that contraception has on the environment:  Michael Potter, the owner of Eden Foods, has been catching flack for being a closet "right-winger."

He just doesn't want to pay for contraception, and doesn't understand why he (or anyone) should have to.   He says in a follow-up interview with Salon :

I don’t care if the federal government is telling me to buy my employees Jack Daniel’s or birth control. What gives them the right to tell me that I have to do that? That’s my issue, that’s what I object to, and that’s the beginning and end of the story ... I’m not trying to get birth control out of Rite Aid or Wal-Mart, but don’t tell me I gotta pay for it.

His official statement clarifies:

We believe in a woman's right to decide, and have access to, all aspects of their health care and reproductive management. This lawsuit does not block, or intend to block, anyone's access to health care or reproductive management. This lawsuit is about protecting religious freedom and stopping the government from forcing citizens to violate their conscience. We object to the HHS mandate and its government overreach.

And he points out, in the Salon interview:

I'm not in your bedroom.  Obama's in your bedroom.

Interesting thought experiment.

YIM Catholic asks "What if the HHS mandate was for no-cost access to porn?"

Also, it does sound as if the policy underlying the HHS mandate is "babies are bad for the environment and other growing things."

More intolerance from the Obama administration.

From Wesley Smith:

As usual, Yuval is correct when he writes that the proposed revised birth control rule constitutes greater, not lesser, intrusion into the religious realm by the Obama Administration. I get into it as well over at Human Exceptionalism. In a nutshell, here is how the slight of hand works.

 

1. Treat all religious non profits–whether houses of worship or organizations like universities–alike. That would have been good if the current exemption for houses of worship had been expanded to all dissenting religious organizations. But that isn’t what the government is proposing.

2. Do away with the existing full exemption for houses of worship, reducing it to a mere accommodation for all religious non profits opposing contraception.

3. Require all employees of opposing religious organizations to receive birth control coverage through a separate policy, paid for by the insurer.

Thus, as I note at HE: If a religious organization has 50 employees, it must provide health insurance. The mere act of providing health insurance requires insurance companies to pay for contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients. In other words, nuns (and all female religious employees) will be covered for birth control whether they want it or not.

Little Sisters of the Poor will be forced to leave America, like they were forced to leave China, because of governmental policies that prevent them from caring for the elderly, poor and ill...

...but, hey, look! Free Stuff!

The Little Sisters of the Poor, first recognized as a Pontifical Institute by Pope Pius XI(sic) on July 9, 1854, is a religious congregation dedicated to the care of the elderly poor. According to their website, this mission means that the sisters “welcome them into our homes, form one family with them, accompany them from day to day and care for them with love and respect until God calls them home.”

In the United States alone, the Little Sisters operate 33 homes where the elderly poor are cared for. They also carry out their apostolate in some additional 30 countries around the world. The Sisters are mendicant — they beg for their funding and resources — and yet despite the financial difficulties inherent in such a charism, the order continues to carry out its important work. They make no distinction among those they care for. They are of every race and creed. They also employ support staff from across the spectrum of belief.

Which means that they have no chance at an exemption from the HHS mandate. They will be forced to provide health insurance that covers contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortifacient drugs, or face crippling fines. Neither option is viable for the Little Sisters, so those who will be penalized are their employees, and more importantly, the elderly so in need of their care.

This past Sunday, the Little Sisters of the Poor were invited to speak at Masses in our area. Their message? If something doesn’t change, they will be forced to leave the United States, as they have left other countries (such as China) where religious persecution has made it impossible for them to operate ethically.

When the sister speaking at the Mass I attended mentioned this, it both made me angry and broke my heart. When did we become a country mentioned in the same breath as nations known for oppression, human rights violations, and an environment hostile to freedom of conscience?We’ve all been fighting this battle against the coming darkness for quite some time, but something about this small, unassuming nun telling the parish that they would be forced to discontinue their care for the elderly poor, and even worse, to leave the country altogether, really drove it home. This is what it has come to. We are no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave. We have become something else.

Obama Administration Intends to Force Catholics to Engage in Speech that Violates their Conscience.

Wesley Smith writes:

Much has been made of Joe Biden’s false assertion that Catholic institutions aren’t forced to provide employees with free birth control. I noted here that VP Biden lied “through the use of grammar” by using the present tense. The Free Birth Control Rule applies to such institutions beginning in 2013, and hence while they don’t have to provide it today, they soon will.

But forcing religious institutions to violate their faith beliefs isn’t all of it. Little notice has been taken of HHS Secretary Sebelius’s stated intention to compel churches, not otherwise forced to pay for birth control, to inform employees where they can obtain subsidized access. From my NRO article, “Free Birth Control vs. Freedom of Religion:

In fact, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius declared that the Obama administration intends not only to force churches to do what the state directs, but even to speak as the state directs. From Sebelius’s official statement about the promulgation of the new rule:

We intend to require employers that do not offer coverage of contraceptive services to provide notice to employees, which will also state that contraceptive services are available at sites such as community health centers, public clinics, and hospitals with income-based support.

Thus, the Obama administration is attacking even freedom of worship by forcing exempt organizations to tell their employees where and how they can violate church teaching.

Not being a subscriber to the National Register, I don’t know whether HHS bureaucrats have started to promulgate a forced speech rule, but I think that threat shows the scant regard Obamacarians have for religious liberty.

What Obama and his leftist claque are doing is different in degree but not in kind to this outrageous behavior by Argintinian feminists and homosexuals in attack Catholics protecting their church.

Catholic business owners win victory against Obamacare.

A district court judge in Colorado has issued an injunction against enforcing Obamacare's conscience violating rules.

Islam is part of the fabric of our nation...

...according to President Obama.

The United States continues to stand with those who seek the chance to decide their own destiny, to live free from fear and violence, and to practice their faith freely. Here in the United States, Ramadan reminds us that Islam is part of the fabric of our Nation, and that—from public service to business, from healthcare and science to the arts—Muslim Americans help strengthen our country and enrich our lives.

If the idea is that Muslims are equal citizens in the United States, then it is fair to say that Muslims are part of the fabric of our nation. Presumably, insofar as Muslims are part of the fabric of our nation, then the faith they hold is part of that fabric.

But is Islam qua Islam a part of the fabric of the nation? Well, obviously not. Islam has played no part in the shaping of the institutions and culture of this attitude, and to the extent that Obama means to imply that it does, he's simply pandering.

A further thought, though, ism what happened to Obama's approach to role of religion in the public square? Has he ever identified Christianity as part of the "fabric of our nation"? His approach to Catholicism clearly distinguishes between the faith of Catholics - which gets no special recognition from him - and Catholics as part of the fungible mix of deracinated people without any particular commitment to anything in particular.

Bottom line, Obama is awfully solicitious of Muslims.

Obama turns out to be a uniter after all.

Bringing Mormons and Catholics together since 2011.
Romney declares:

Religious liberty — our first freedom of those enumerated in the Bill of Rights. And the president and his administration said they are going to usurp your religious freedom by demanding that you provide products to your employees, if you’re the Catholic Church, that violates your own conscience.

And so whether it’s a Catholic businessperson or the Catholic Church itself they’re being told what they have to do that violates their religious conscience. That attack on religious freedom I think is a dangerous and unfortunate precedent.

And I know we’re not all Catholic in this room. Many presumably are. But I feel that we’re all Catholic today. In our battle to preserve religious freedom and tolerance and freedom in this country, it is essential for us to push back against that.

Video here.

The war on Catholicism is still on.

"The Power to tax is the power to destroy."

Moreover, hanging over this controversy like a blinking yellow light in the constitutional sky is Chief Justice Marshall's timeless admonition in McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, 4 Wheat. 316, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819), that "the power to tax is the power to [*927] destroy." This warning is not only memorable, but it reminds us that might, especially in the hands of government, does not always make right.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Shewry, 423 F.3d 906, 926-927 (9th Cir. Cal. 2005)

The Catholic Fortnight for Freedom began Thursday.

The TCA has a 14 point action plan for participating, including sharing its video.

So, I will.

Contraceptives and Substandard Catholic Healthcare.

Craig Bernthal has a nice round-up of videos on the Obama HHS mandate.

His post attracted this comment:

Joshua SteinJune 20, 2012 9:06 AM
The Father totally misses the point. Is the Catholic Church allowed to offer sub-standard care to those they ensure based on their moral position? Contraception is part of standard care, for a number of reasons.

First is that oral contraceptives are part of a standard regimen of treatment in women's health that includes treatment of polycystic ovaries, reducing risk of ovarian cancer, and the reduction of pain and discomfort during the menstrual cycle.

Second is that the position on "religious liberty" that the Father is taking is one often used to advance a failure to meet standard of care requirements by a number of religious organizations, including the Jehovah's Witnesses and various New Age groups who oppose vaccinations. It is important to acknowledge that as an entailment of the position.

What's my point? Well, as the bioethics guy I feel obligated to point out that he's strawmanning the issue. I was the beneficiary of a Catholic education and, as a young Jewish person, have deep misgivings about some of the things that the Church chooses to care about. But I really have no stomach for failing to recognize the issue.

If you believe that the Church is allowed to offer substandard care, then the argument needs to be a justification for that; the argument presented in the videos, while perhaps in part true, is a strawman so long as it neglects that acknowledgement.

My comment in reply:

Joshua,

Reading your comment, I note the following issues.

First, you assume that the Catholic position on contraception necessarily means "substandard" treatment. In fact, the tendency toward using contraception without giving due considerations to alternatives for conditions other than birth control may be substandard. While Catholicism for providing "substandard treatment,” people with a pro-contraception mentality tend to forget the injury done to women by contraceptives. Bio-ethicist Janet Smith points out:

"Now, let us review some of the bad health effects of contraception on women. One news report tells us:

'Johnson and Johnson spent at least $68.7 million to settle hundreds of lawsuits filed by women who suffer blood clots, heart attacks, or strokes after using the company’s Ortho-evra birth control patch, court records show. Johnson and Johnson, the world’s largest maker of health-care products, avoided trials through confidential settlements and hasn’t released the financial details to investors.31'

About thirty women using the patch died of heart attacks and strokes. They were young, many in their early twenties. These are not the usual causes of death for a woman in her twenties."

Second, Catholicism does not teach that contraceptives are “unclean” or “taboo” eo ipso. It teaches that contraception is a departure from natural law.

It tends to be modernists, who lack the intellect and patience for nuance, who create strawmen consisting of black and white, not the Catholic Church.

Third, consistent with the second point, consistent with if you look at basic church documents on contraception, you see that contraceptives are permitted for reasons other than contraception. Thus, Paul VI in Humanae Vitae wrote:

"Lawful Therapeutic Means

15. On the other hand, the Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever. (19)"

Fourth, your comparison of Catholicism’s position to the JW position on blood transfusion is accordingly a strawman or begs the question. Insofar as contraception is used to “treat” fertility, it is in no way comparable to using blood transfusions to treat a medical condition. Fertility is not a disease; it is not defective function of the human condition; it is in fact a sign of health. In contrast, blood transfusions are used to treat illness, trauma and disease.

"Wedge" this.

The Anchoress advises that Catholic Health Services rejects Obama's accommodation.

According to the Washington Post:

Sharpening an election-year confrontation over religious freedom and government health insurance rules, the nation’s Catholic hospitals on Friday rejected President Barack Obama’s compromise for providing birth control coverage to their women employees.

The Catholic Health Association was a key ally in Obama’s health care overhaul, defying opposition from church bishops to help the president win approval in Congress. But the group said Friday it does not believe church-affiliated employers should have to provide birth control as a free preventive service, as the law now requires.

The hospital group’s decision calls into question a compromise offered by the president himself only months ago, under which the cost of providing birth control would be covered by insurance companies and not religious employers. While churches and other places of worship are exempt from the birth control mandate, nonprofits affiliated with a religion, such as hospitals, are not.

The Anchoress explains that this is a big deal because the CHA originally played "Uncle Tom" to Obama's non-accommodation:

This is, as the Deac says, “big news.”. If it seems written in benign fashion by the WaPo, and dropped late on a Friday in summer, Rocco Palmo explains why:

Coming in a five-page letter sent today by the Catholic Health Association to a top HHS administrator, the move (including draft proposals for an acceptable revision of the controversial Federal rule) follows months of tension between the US hierarchy and the association representing some 2,000 Stateside church health facilities, whose president, Daughter of Charity Sister Carol Keehan, stoked the ire of much of the hierarchy after voicing her approval of the White House’s February “accommodation” on the plan, which the bishops deemed as being insufficient.

Today’s letter was signed by Keehan, CHA’s current board chair [Joseph R. Swedish], and his designated successor.

Recall that Sister Keehan’s initial approval of the “accommodation”, like Dionne’s, was released via the White House religion press portal almost simultaneously with the WH announcement; it gave enormous political cover to the president, and helped him to divide a church that had — quickly and uncharacteristically — united against the HHS Mandate. Now, she’s walking it back.

That’s why this is a big deal. CHA represents over 600 Catholic hospitals and hundreds of nursing and rehab facilities; that’s a lot of Catholic energy to be out of agreement with the US Bishops. Perhaps they considered the recent (largely media-ignored) lawsuits filed against the Obama administration in 12 jurisdictions by 43 Catholic entities (including Notre Dame University), and began to consider the HHS enterprise a loser. Hard to tell.

Things must be dire if a WaPo columnist is questioning the political genius of the Noble Prize Winning, Sea-lowering, Smartest Guy Ever.

It looks like Obama's "battle space preparation" strategy of dividing the Catholic base from the Catholic bishops is backfiring:

But this does not mean a subset of Catholicism can’t be electorally important. White, non-Hispanic Catholic voters could matter greatly in some tight state contests. And Obama has done his best to alienate them.

The main offense has been the Health and Human Services Department’s mandate for contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs under Obamacare — a regulation that turns Catholic hospitals, universities and charities into instruments of a federal policy they find offensive. Between early March and mid-April — soon after the mandate battle was joined — the Pew Research Center found that Obama’s support among all Catholics fell from 53 percent to 45 percent. Among white Catholics, it dropped from 45 percent to 37 percent. These numbers have remained depressed. Obama won 54 percent of Catholic voters in 2008. A recent Gallup survey found Obama’s Catholic support at 46 percent.

Correlation is not causation. But, in this case, it doesn’t seem mere coincidence. John White, a political science professor at the Catholic University of America, finds Obama’s decline among Catholics “in large part due to the recent debate over health care and contraception.” Many Catholics have issues with their own institutions. It does not mean they want those institutions targeted by government. They are happy to criticize their own bishops — but not to hear the views of their bishops insulted by politicians.

And HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is a continuing insult to the beliefs of traditional Catholics. Testifying at a recent House hearing, Sebelius admitted that she had consulted no constitutional precedents and asked for no legal advice from the Justice Department while making her decision on the contraceptive mandate. “Congressman,” she explained, “I’m not a lawyer and I don’t pretend to understand the nuances of the constitutional balancing tests.” The only thing worse than indifference to religious liberty is casual, ignorant indifference to religious liberty.

I’ve previously argued that the Obama administration, motivated by instinctual liberalism, stumbled into this conflict with Catholic leaders. It is possible, however, Obama is making the political calculation that appealing to younger, non-religious voters is worth the alienation of traditional Catholics. Yet even if this strategy makes sense nationally, it might not be wise in, say, Pennsylvania or Ohio, where the votes of white Catholics could matter greatly.

The Catholic bishops of Pennsylvania recently sponsored a day of prayer and fasting in response to what they called the “unprecedented and gross infringement” of religious liberty by the Obama administration. The Catholic Conference of Ohio endorsed a state legislative resolution urging Obama to rescind the HHS mandate.

Is it really part of Obama’s battleground-state strategy to disassemble Franklin Roosevelt’s Democratic coalition in the middle of a tight reelection campaign? Did he think traditional Catholics would depart quietly?

Catholic entities coordinate massive challenge to Obamacare HHS mandate.

Emily Stimpson at Catholic Vote writes:

So, as you may have heard, it was a busy morning in the U.S. District Courts.

Today, at 11 a.m. Eastern, 12 lawsuits were filed by 43 different plaintiffs—all Catholic dioceses, universities, health systems, and apostolates, and all with one goal in mind: blocking an unprecedented infringement on religious liberty by the federal government.

Two of those plaintiffs are institutions that help me pay the mortgage: Franciscan University and Our Sunday Visitor. Others include the Archdioceses of New York, Washington, and St. Louis, the Dioceses of Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne, Erie, Dallas, Ft. Worth, the Michigan Catholic Conference (which represents all seven dioceses in Michigan), The University of Notre Dame, Catholic University of America, and many more.

And for those who want to use contraception as a wedge issue:

This is not about access to contraception. We’ve said it a hundred times. I’ll say it one time more. If a woman wants to use contraception, she can. It’s her choice. And it’s a choice she can exercise for about $9 at her local Target. We’re not saying we agree with that choice. We’re not saying it’s a good one. But we are saying we shouldn’t have to pay for it.

Moreover, the contraception issue has been the stalking horse for the other things that the HHS mandate requires, specifically abortion:

The lawsuits argue that a federal mandate issued by the Obama administration violates their fundamental religious liberty. The controversial mandate will require employers to offer health insurance plans that cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, even if doing so violates their consciences.

Apparently, Notre Dame has learned that sucking up to the Caesar is not a guarantee that when the time comes, you won't be thrown under the bus:

Notre Dame president Fr. John Jenkins, C.S.C., said the lawsuit was filed “neither lightly nor gladly, but with sober determination.”

“We do not seek to impose our religious beliefs on others,” he explained in an email to Notre Dame employees.

Rather, he explained, “we simply ask that the Government not impose its values on the University when those values conflict with our religious teachings.”

According to Fr. Jenkins, the lawsuit is about “the freedom of a religious organization to live its mission, and its significance goes well beyond any debate about contraceptives.”

He cautioned that when the government decides “which religious organizations are sufficiently religious to be awarded the freedom to follow the principles that define their mission,” the nation has started down a path that could lead to “the end of genuinely religious organizations in all but name.”

The Wedge Strategy - Is the "crackdown" on American women religious a countermeasure?

Te De Laudemas points to this surprisingly even-handed PBS report on the Vatican's attempt to reign in the loony-tune aspect of Catholic religious women's institutions.

The sane Catholic position is set forth by Donna Bethel as follows:

The second point is that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious is an entity established by the Vatican, approved by the Vatican, its statutes approved by the Vatican for the purpose of supporting the Women Religious in their life and work. And so it's the responsibility of the Vatican to see that the conference is actually doing its job. And that's what it's done in this assessment.

The feminist position was articulated by Jeannine Hill Fletcher:

The other thing that the document does is, it criticizes the Women Religious for the things that they seem to be thinking or discussing or exploring. It criticizes their theological investigations within their own private conference, within their discussions among themselves.

And I think that that's a real -- one of the real problems for me as a scholar of women and religion is the document seems to be trying to tell Women Religious to stop exploring the dynamics of the faith and simply take the tradition as it's been handed to them. And I think that that's one fundamental difference.

Except, of course, that it is not "their own private religious conference." It is a Catholic organization and there are actually some settled Catholic distinctives.

You have to wonder about the timing of all this. The Vatican move has taken years to put together - but in light of the effort by the secular state and media and intellectuals to put a wedge between the hierarchical church and the laity, it almost seems that this is a countermove to eliminate a "Fifth Column."

And it appears that the women religious have been playing the role of Fifth Columnists. As Te Deum Laudemas points out:

The LCWR has effectively worked against the bishops in these "culture of life" issues, and on sexual morality. I say, "effectively" because they, and those with whom they collaborate, have worked the media and the White House like a well tuned orchestra. In fact, it was so effective, that the Obama administration admitted it didn't go to the US Catholic bishops to work through the Catholic issues on the HHS mandate; rather, it consulted "other groups" of Catholics.

Note: "LCWR" is the "Leadership Conference of Women's Religious."

During the recent HHS mandate controversy, the White House and leftist media appealed to groups other than the Bishops as being the "real" representatives of the Catholic Church.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and faithful Catholics, together with thousands of other religious leaders and their congregations, restated their opposition to the mandate and to the promised “accommodation.” But the President dismissed their concerns, knowing that his anti-life, anti-marriage, and anti-family policies had already permanently alienated these groups. That they should now be further disaffected by this assault on conscience and religious liberty is of little consequence to him. He instead elicited support from those “progressive” Catholics he knew would accept and promote the illusion that his “accommodation” corrects the abuses in the mandate.

He was right in thinking that his sleight of hand would give them an excuse to turn a blind eye to the truth of the matter. The CHA-USA and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) proclaimed their support for the “accommodation.” The latter group expressed its appreciation to the President for restructuring the mandate “in a way that respects the conscience rights of religious institutions.” The University of Notre Dame and the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities also voiced their support for the “accommodation.” President Obama had succeeded in dividing Catholic opposition and in muting the voice of the bishops through the pronouncements of these dissident groups.

The Left is lying when it claims that the Individual Mandate was an idea thought up by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

According to Stuart Butler, the guy at the Heritage Foundation who was responsible for its health policy work for the last 30 years:

Is the individual mandate at the heart of "ObamaCare" a conservative idea? Is it constitutional? And was it invented at The Heritage Foundation? In a word, no.

The U.S. Supreme Court will put the middle issue to rest. The answers to the first and last can come from me. After all, I headed Heritage's health work for 30 years. And make no mistake: Heritage and I actively oppose the individual mandate, including in an amicus brief filed in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, the myth persists. ObamaCare "adopts the 'individual mandate' concept from the conservative Heritage Foundation," Jonathan Alter wrote recently in The Washington Post. MSNBC's Chris Matthews makes the same claim, asserting that Republican support of a mandate "has its roots in a proposal by the conservative Heritage Foundation." Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and others have made similar claims.

The confusion arises from the fact that 20 years ago, I held the view that as a technical matter, some form of requirement to purchase insurance was needed in a near-universal insurance market to avoid massive instability through "adverse selection" (insurers avoiding bad risks and healthy people declining coverage). At that time, President Clinton was proposing a universal health care plan, and Heritage and I devised a viable alternative.

My view was shared at the time by many conservative experts, including American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholars, as well as most non-conservative analysts. Even libertarian-conservative icon Milton Friedman, in a 1991 Wall Street Journal article, advocated replacing Medicare and Medicaid "with a requirement that every U.S. family unit have a major medical insurance policy."

My idea was hardly new. Heritage did not invent the individual mandate.

But the version of the health insurance mandate Heritage and I supported in the 1990s had three critical features. First, it was not primarily intended to push people to obtain protection for their own good, but to protect others. Like auto damage liability insurance required in most states, our requirement focused on "catastrophic" costs — so hospitals and taxpayers would not have to foot the bill for the expensive illness or accident of someone who did not buy insurance.

Second, we sought to induce people to buy coverage primarily through the carrot of a generous health credit or voucher, financed in part by a fundamental reform of the tax treatment of health coverage, rather than by a stick.

And third, in the legislation we helped craft that ultimately became a preferred alternative to ClintonCare, the "mandate" was actually the loss of certain tax breaks for those not choosing to buy coverage, not a legal requirement.

So why the change in this position in the past 20 years?

First, health research and advances in economic analysis have convinced people like me that an insurance mandate isn't needed to achieve stable, near-universal coverage. For example, the new field of behavioral economics taught me that default auto-enrollment in employer or nonemployer insurance plans can lead many people to buy coverage without a requirement.

Also, advances in "risk adjustment" tools are improving the stability of voluntary insurance. And Heritage-funded research on federal employees' coverage — which has no mandate — caused me to conclude we had made a mistake in the 1990s. That's why we believe that President Obama and others are dead wrong about the need for a mandate.

Additionally, the meaning of the individual mandate we are said to have "invented" has changed over time. Today it means the government makes people buy comprehensive benefits for their own good, rather than our original emphasis on protecting society from the heavy medical costs of free riders.

Moreover, I agree with my legal colleagues at Heritage that today's version of a mandate exceeds the constitutional powers granted to the federal government. Forcing those Americans not in the insurance market to purchase comprehensive insurance for themselves goes beyond even the most expansive precedents of the courts.

And there's another thing. Changing one's mind about the best policy to pursue — but not one's principles — is part of being a researcher at a major think tank such as Heritage or the Brookings Institution. Serious professional analysts actually take part in a continuous bipartisan and collegial discussion about major policy questions. We read each other's research. We look at the facts. We talk through ideas with those who agree or disagree with us. And we change our policy views over time based on new facts, new research or good counterarguments.

Thanks to this good process, I've altered my views on many things. The individual mandate in health care is one of them.

Of course, the real tip-off that the Heritage Foundation wasn't responsible is that Nancy Pelosi and Barrack Obama were saying that it was.