Hell no, and nuts to that

Last week, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced a new regulation that requires all employers to offer free “preventive reproductive services” as part of health insurance for their employees.

The scare quotes decorate a phrase that’s a boring bland bureaucratic smokescreen hiding abortifacient birth control and sterilization.

The immediate blowback to the HHS announcement focused tightly on employers affiliated with religious groups, such as Catholic schools and Christian soup kitchens.

The conscience exemption to the HHS mandate is smaller than the eye of a needle. A Catholic parish might qualify, but not its school.

The so-called compromise on Friday does nothing to remove the moral objection or repair the government overreach.

I want to respond to the HHS mandate from two viewpoints: as an active religious believer, and as an American citizen.

Religious believer

I own a small business (Orange County Breeze Newspaper LLC) that is not affiliated in any fashion with an organized religion. My business does not qualify for the HHS exemption. It cannot squeeze through the needle’s eye.

My religious beliefs do not allow me to offer employee health insurance that pays for abortifacients and sterilization.

If I refuse to offer employee health insurance (because I will not allow my business to pay for abortifacients and sterilization), I will likely lose the business to large punitive fines.

If I pay for insurance that includes abortifacients and sterilization, I lose my immortal soul.

As a religious believer, my response to the HHS mandate must be: HELL NO!

American citizen

As an American citizen, my birthright includes the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. It reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

(Emphasis added.)

The HHS mandate blots out the first clause of the First Amendment — and smooths the way for blotting out the rest.

Obama, Pelosi, Reid and Sebelius might as well have tramped over to the National Archives with a bottle of Wite-Out.

If the citizens of the United States allow the HHS mandate to stand, they cease to be a free people with a “government of the people, for the people and by the people.”

That government shall have perished from the earth.

Instead, the former citizens become subjects of a national government and subject to the whims of those in power in that national government.

As an American citizen, my response to the HHS mandate must be: NUTS!

This year’s election is an inflection point.

Return Obama to office, and accept Washington, D.C., as your master.

Send someone new to the Oval Office, and stay vigilant that sweet promises of reform are kept.