Sevilles right Doug ....southern spain I think.
Penitents everywhere in christianity Kevin ....
here’s more penitents in the Spanish city of Valladolid.
Penitents join the Santisimo Cristo de la Luz procession ........I think they are just groups of guys in dressups. Not unlike the melbourne ‘spice guys’ at St Pats
So why are they still doing penance ........seems more like a womens touch to me ....where they want you to suffer after the fact!
I suppose these guys wear sack cloth and nasty stuff underneath as the Opus Dei followers do at the joint the Pope stayed at in Sydney.
Strangley that Opus Dei joint has one set of penance for the women .....and another set for the blokes. There’s a thread in that in itself if you want to discuss penance. Guys are allowed to smoke and drink if it is in the interest of getting converts.
Classic nutters are they!
So which of you guys put up Mordechai Vanunu while he was in town? A modern hero in my opinion and I see the Syd Anglicans were supportive of the guy while he was safe and sound here in aus.
Just finished an Insight story in the Age called ‘A Defiant Spirit’
If ever he gets free of israel again, I’d put him up in my guest house [edit - luke].
This is a genuine offer as I reckon someone in the Syd Anglicans must have contact with Mordechai ;) .....someone has to be seen to help these people and not just use them as the media appear to have done in this case .
From memory, I think he had connections with St John’s Darlinghurst or one of the other nearby churches - but we are talking two decades back. He has certainly paid ( and continues to pay ) a hefty price for his beliefs. It is a most curious case indeed.
Any Israeli who bought the 16 February edition of the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth would have believed that a truly wicked man was about to be released from Ashkelon prison. Each time a suicide bomber blew himself up, the prisoner would celebrate. Worse still, said the paper, the inmate - once a keeper of Israel’s nuclear secrets - wants to endanger his country further after his release. “He told me,” a former prisoner was quoted as saying, “that he has additional material and that he will reveal secrets…”
Should it be a surprise, then, that the very same prisoner, supposedly celebrating the slaughter of innocents while preparing to betray his country yet again, holds a clutch of awards from European peace groups….
All he did was expose the fact Israel has nuclear weapons ........and that makes him a truly wicked man.
Where the hell did they get the idea that he “celebrates the slaughter of innocents”
Where is Vanunus own comment on this????..........isreali arseholes who have incarcerated the guy are speaking with authority from high places and every little creep listening seems to agree with them just because they have the microphone!!! ......typically how we got to where we are ....idiots listening to creeps.
I can give you many examples and wonder why people were given any brains at all .....sheep is all they are!
Why not wake up and think for yourself.
The usa invaded Iraq because they were suppose to have WMDs .......well Israel has the same apparently….but that’s OK for them to have them in secret and not be members of the NON-Proliferation agreements “Israel should have the right to do what they like when they like because after all they are the chosen people.”
Anybody have any idea how absurd that is!
I’ll help the guy if could…..I understand when you try to show your own community what the authorities are doing and they all end up treating you like crap…..as if you yourself are the problem
Just typical behaviour of manipulative creeps…....and running the guy down with more stories is expected. Should it be a surprise, then, that the very same prisoner, supposedly celebrating the slaughter of innocents while preparing to betray his country yet again, holds a clutch of awards from European peace groups….
makes me sick ......I’ve had the same shit done to me…..and nothing you can do!
I thought this forum was about all this propaganda crap…...
This is a most frightening article. The implications are staggering. Click on the link to read some stimulating comments :
‘Diversity’ is turning Britain into East Germany - a nation of sneaks
Posted By: Ed West at Apr 14, 2009
One of the most disturbing aspects of the culture war against Christianity is that the authorities are turning us into a nation of sneaks and Judases.
Every month there is some new story about a Baptist nurse or Evangelical preacher who gets in trouble for mentioning the G-word, and each time it’s because some weasel has informed on them.
The latest case involves David Booker, a 44-year-old who works for the English Churches Housing Group, a homeless charity run by Anglicans and Baptists. On March 26 Booker was working the evening shift, and fell into a conversation with a colleague, Fiona Vardy, about religion - as you do, it is a religious charity, after all. Asked his views on homosexuality, Mr Booker said he agreed with the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and same-sex marriages. He explained he had gay friends and that he was not homophobic.
The following day Booker was summoned by his boss and suspended for “events that happened last night” and three days later formerly suspended, and threatened with “gross misconduct” for breaking the charity’s Culture and Diversity Code of Conduct. The rap sheet says states:
“On 26 March 09, whilst on shift with Fiona Vardy, you seriously breached ECHG’s (English churches House group) Code of conduct by promoting your religious views which contained discriminatory comments regarding a person’s sexual orientation.”
Isn’t it strange that the people who always bang on about “diversity” can’t stand the most important diversity of all – diversity of opinion.
What disturbs me most is not just how intolerant they are of people’s freedom of belief and opinion (obviously there have to be limits, but Mr Booker’s were well within a reasonable spectrum) but how we are being turned into a nation of informers. People should be ashamed of themselves for reporting private conversations – if you object to a colleague’s religious or political views, tell them or keep quiet, don’t go running off to your bosses.
Historians often debate whether had we lost in 1940, Britons would have acted like the Germans under the Nazis. Well, I know we would have no trouble behaving like the East Germans under the Communists, informing on our colleagues for holding views contrary to the state’s official opinion. We’re already a nation of sneaks ruled by a passive-aggressive diversity Stasi.
@Kevin,
Was it the informing and persecution that you find frightening, or the reaction to it?
It certainly is persecution, and there have been a few similar cases in Britain very recently school worker
There was another recent case of a nurse getting into hot water for offering to pray for a patient - I can’t find it immediately and my computer has slowed to a stop for unknown reasons. Probably more if you look hard enough. And there was another report on the case you cited where the man said he was having a normal amicable conversation.
Christianity is offensive. There’s no way of escaping it. It doesn’t really fit into the ‘diverse’ society man is trying to create. It says Jesus rules, and if you don’t accept that you will go to hell. I see there is a conversation about hell on SA as well as one here. Perhaps the community immunity to hell-talk has worn off after years of no-hellfire-and-brimstone. But I digress.
Regarding the informing, isn’t the workplace rule that if you have a problem with a co-worker, don’t confront them directly, but deal with it through your supervisor? I actually think this attitude is quite un-Matthew 18:15 (If your brother sins against you go and show him his fault, just between the two of you) but I’m no expert in this.
Regarding the reaction, trouble at work is not quite the same as jack-booted men coming at midnight to take you to a concentration camp. Perhaps they think it will escalate; these things start small. And I guess it was the culture and attitude they objected to.
Can you say what you found frightening about the Ed West article?
Cheers,
Ros.
It was the implications about where we’re heading. Forgetting the ‘religious’ implications of the story, it’s the general ‘vibe’ of all this political correctness enforced by the “thought police”. And now in today’s “Australian” we read this :
Thought police muscle up in Britain
DecreaseIncrease
Print
Hal G. P. Colebatch | April 21, 2009
Article from: The Australian
BRITAIN appears to be evolving into the first modern soft totalitarian state. As a sometime teacher of political science and international law, I do not use the term totalitarian loosely.
There are no concentration camps or gulags but there are thought police with unprecedented powers to dictate ways of thinking and sniff out heresy, and there can be harsh punishments for dissent.
Nikolai Bukharin claimed one of the Bolshevik Revolution’s principal tasks was “to alter people’s actual psychology”. Britain is not Bolshevik, but a campaign to alter people’s psychology and create a new Homo britannicus is under way without even a fig leaf of disguise.
The Government is pushing ahead with legislation that will criminalise politically incorrect jokes, with a maximum punishment of up to seven years’ prison. The House of Lords tried to insert a free-speech amendment, but Justice Secretary Jack Straw knocked it out. It was Straw who previously called for a redefinition of Englishness and suggested the “global baggage of empire” was linked to soccer violence by “racist and xenophobic white males”. He claimed the English “propensity for violence” was used to subjugate Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and that the English as a race were “potentially very aggressive”.
In the past 10 years I have collected reports of many instances of draconian punishments, including the arrest and criminal prosecution of children, for thought-crimes and offences against political correctness.
Countryside Restoration Trust chairman and columnist Robin Page said at a rally against the Government’s anti-hunting laws in Gloucestershire in 2002: “If you are a black vegetarian Muslim asylum-seeking one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you.” Page was arrested, and after four months he received a letter saying no charges would be pressed, but that: “If further evidence comes to our attention whereby your involvement is implicated, we will seek to initiate proceedings.” It took him five years to clear his name.
Page was at least an adult. In September 2006, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, Codie Stott, asked a teacher if she could sit with another group to do a science project as all the girls with her spoke only Urdu. The teacher’s first response, according to Stott, was to scream at her: “It’s racist, you’re going to get done by the police!” Upset and terrified, the schoolgirl went outside to calm down. The teacher called the police and a few days later, presumably after officialdom had thought the matter over, she was arrested and taken to a police station, where she was fingerprinted and photographed. According to her mother, she was placed in a bare cell for 3 1/2 hours. She was questioned on suspicion of committing a racial public order offence and then released without charge. The school was said to be investigating what further action to take, not against the teacher, but against Stott. Headmaster Anthony Edkins reportedly said: “An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark. We aim to ensure a caring and tolerant attitude towards pupils of all ethnic backgrounds and will not stand for racism in any form.”
A 10-year-old child was arrested and brought before a judge, for having allegedly called an 11-year-old boya “Paki” and “bin Laden” during a playground argument at a primary school (the other boy had called him a skunk and a Teletubby). When it reached the court the case had cost taxpayers pound stg. 25,000. The accused was so distressed that he had stopped attending school. The judge, Jonathan Finestein, said: “Have we really got to the stage where we are prosecuting 10-year-old boys because of political correctness ? There are major crimes out there and the police don’t bother to prosecute. This is nonsense.”
Finestein was fiercely attacked by teaching union leaders, as in those witch-hunt trials where any who spoke in defence of an accused or pointed to defects in the prosecution were immediately targeted as witches and candidates for burning.
Hate-crime police investigated Basil Brush, a puppet fox on children’s television, who had made a joke about Gypsies. The BBC confessed that Brush had behaved inappropriately and assured police that the episode would be banned.
A bishop was warned by the police for not having done enough to “celebrate diversity”, the enforcing of which is now apparently a police function. A Christian home for retired clergy and religious workers lost a grant because it would not reveal to official snoopers how many of the residents were homosexual. That they had never been asked was taken as evidence of homophobia.
Muslim parents who objected to young children being given books advocating same-sex marriage and adoption at one school last year had their wishes respected and the offending material withdrawn. This year, Muslim and Christian parents at another school objecting to the same material have not only had their objections ignored but have been threatened with prosecution if they withdraw their children.
There have been innumerable cases in recent months of people in schools, hospitals and other institutions losing their jobs because of various religious scruples, often, as in the East Germany of yore, not shouted fanatically from the rooftops but betrayed in private conversations and reported to authorities. The crime of one nurse was to offer to pray for a patient, who did not complain but merely mentioned the matter to another nurse. A primary school receptionist, Jennie Cain, whose five-year-old daughter was told off for talking about Jesus in class, faces the sack for seeking support from her church. A private email from her to other members of the church asking for prayers fell into the hands of school authorities.
Permissiveness as well as draconianism can be deployed to destroy socially accepted norms and values. The Royal Navy, for instance, has installed a satanist chapel in a warship to accommodate the proclivities of a satanist crew member. “What would Nelson have said?” is a British newspaper cliche about navy scandals, but in this case seems a legitimate question. Satanist paraphernalia is also supplied to prison inmates who need it.
This campaign seems to come from unelected or quasi-governmental bodies controlling various institutions, which are more or less unanswerable to electors, more than it does directly from the Government, although the Government helps drive it and condones it in a fudged and deniable manner.
Any one of these incidents might be dismissed as an aberration, but taken together - and I have only mentioned a tiny sample; more are reported almost every day - they add up to a pretty clear picture.
Hal G. P. Colebatch’s Blair’s Britain was chosen as a book of the year by The Spectator in 1999.
Now that really is both disturbing AND frightening !
And if they’re going to “criminalise politically incorrect jokes” then I better start packing my bags for a term in Long Bay or Pentridge - along with Wil Anderson, Akmal, Dave Hughes and 1000’s of others !
It’s time to follow Howard Beale’s example ( in “Network” ) - and walk over to our windows - put our heads out and yell together “WE’RE MAD AS HELL - AND WE’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE ! “
Was please to read saturdays Age story .......was actually surprised it made it to one of our papers. Haven’t seen anything on this elsewhere at all ......but am still looking ;) Obama’s stance worries Israelis
I didn’t know about the police involvement and legislation. That is truly disturbing.
I get your point that it’s a general vibe of political correctness, not specifically religious. However I have a hunch that, if religion or anti-religion is not actually at the heart of the matter, however veiled, it will inevitably turn that way. Just a hunch. Not something I think I can demonstrate to anyone’s satisfaction.
In Australia now we have the charter of rights stuff, and report on religious freedom likely to lead to religious vilification legislation, going on right now. I’ve seen seen on Sydney Anglicans that Bob Carr has recommended church leaders make a solid and coordinated protest. I remember on the old forum David Palmer talking about this too. I’d sign a petition!
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Teacher suspended for complaining about gay training day
Sunday, 26th April 2009. By: Judy West.
Christian campaigners in the UK are preparing for a new legal battle after a teacher was suspended for complaining about the gay theme of a staff training day.
The teacher, a 54-year-old from north London, was taking part in a compulsory training day, but took exception to the message of the speaker, Sue Sanders, who, he claimed was promoting gay rights, which he felt was incompatible with his religious beliefs.
During the event, Ms Sanders, who is the co-founder of the Schools Out campaigning group, suggested that those who did not accept that homosexuality was normal had ‘issues’ that had to be addressed.
After the event the teacher, Kwabena Peat, wrote to three staff members involved in organising the session, including a deputy head, complaining about Ms Sanders’ “aggressive” presentation.
The three staff then complained to the school’s principal, claiming, although they were senior to Mr Peat, they felt “harassed and intimidated” by the letter.
Following an investigation, Mr Peat was suspended and placed on paid leave pending outcome of disciplinary investigations hearings. He is now being supported by the Christian Legal Centre who have instructed the leading Human Right’s Barrister, Paul Diamond, to represent him.
Mr Peat, who has spent most of his teaching life working in inner-city London schools and is a father of three children said: “I’m not surprised by all this, but I am disappointed. I’m the one being harassed and intimidated - for expressing my religious views. As an experienced professional I am very supportive of ‘equality and diversity’ programmes and have always got on well with colleagues who are well aware of my Christian beliefs.”
Mr Peat has been suspended since January after the training day and has not been allowed to return to work.
Andrea Minichiello Williams, barrister and director of the Christian Legal Centre said: “Mr Peat is being discriminated against for expressing his Christian faith. A legitimate orthodox Christian view as expressed by Mr Peat, however disagreeable others may find it, should not be construed as harassment or discrimination.”
[quote/]
Kevin, I read another article about that particular Schools Out Campaign and what they are trying to address and I’m afraid I think yourself and Kwabena Peat are getting ahead of yourslves ;)
I have to put my two bob in as one of the main thrusts of the training session was to address bullying.
If the teacher can’t handle it then #### only knows who will do something about this problem.
And to be honest with you the christian grammer schools in this country still have the worst bullying and it’s time they addressed it here as well.
Narrow minds are what allow this to continue.
(I’m just grumpy because i drove 200kms to melb to see my granddaughter who was in hospital ......and she was discharged 30minutes before I arrived .......so I drove 200ks home again hehehehheheheeee
May open a thread about the pitfalls of parking at major public hospitals :(
I was actually happy they thought her well enough to go home ......but I won’t tell her that when i catch up with her!
13 years old and can take a good ragging hehehheeeee…...I’ll be reminding her who pays her mobile phone bill…..or not!)
Been looking everywhere for a speech I watched Geoffrey Robertson deliver the other night concerning education .....I can’t find it and wondered if anyone else had watched the speech?
It’s pretty relevant to this subject and I wish I could find a transcript.
Kevin, I read another article about that particular Schools Out Campaign and what they are trying to address and I’m afraid I think yourself and Kwabena Peat are getting ahead of yourslves ;)
I have to put my two bob in as one of the main thrusts of the training session was to address bullying.
If the teacher can’t handle it then #### only knows who will do something about this problem.
And to be honest with you the christian grammer schools in this country still have the worst bullying and it’s time they addressed it here as well.
Narrow minds are what allow this to continue…..
Hi Michael,
We are probably living on different planets - but in a parallel universe ;)
The article I quoted from concluded with this :
Mr Peat has been suspended since January after the training day and has not been allowed to return to work.
Now THAT is the sort of BULLYING by the thought police that I’m objecting to. ( The other one is a separate topic ). I think you need to re-read it slowly to see what it is actually implying. Cheers.
Paid leave Kevin .... I wasn’t missing anything.
Sounds like this bloke Peat should loosen up if he intends being in a public system. .......or is he just another user of the system.
I was wrong about him being a user from what I read here
....I think he is sincere ...just a shame he is wrong in this case.
I would have thought Peat finding the idea ‘that’ confronting indicates he needs some workshops in the area to get over his own phobias ......not everyone has his beliefs.
Diners see ‘Virgin Mary’ in restaurant May 01, 2009 05:18pm
* Grill being cleaned
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* People believe it’s her
PEOPLE are visiting a restaurant in a small town on the California-Mexico border to gaze at an image they believe is the Virgin Mary.
Las Palmas restaurant manager Brenda Martinez said more than 100 people have come to Calexico to view the image, which was discovered as the grill was being cleaned, The Miami Herald reported.
A group of Mexican wrestlers are among the believers.
One, known as Mr Tempest, said: “This is amazing. It’s a true miracle.”
The grill has been taken out of service and placed in a shrine in the restaurant’s storage room.
Berlusconi says he is world’s most popular leader
Article from: Reuters May 02, 2009 03:34am
ITALIAN Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has compared himself to Jesus Christ and Napoleon, boasted today that he was the world’s most popular leader.
The conservative premier, in his third term in office, said opinion poll findings in his possession showed his popularity at just over 75 per cent, making him far more popular than US President Barack Obama - or any other head of government.
“The opinion polls I know say that he (Obama) is at 59 per cent. Only (Brazilian President Luiz Inacio) Lula tops 60 per cent - he is at 64 per cent. So mine is a record high,” he said in Naples where he attended a May Day concert.
On his way out of the concert hall, the 72-year-old Mr Berlusconi - who has proclaimed himself the Jesus Christ of Italian politics and once said he was second only to Napoleon, except taller - was heckled by protesters who shouted “go away!”.
Commentators agree Mr Berlusconi enjoys high popularity ratings despite the economic crisis - the International Monetary Fund expects Italy’s economy to contract by 4.4 per cent this year - although perhaps not as high as he claims.
A poll published last month by left-leaning La Repubblica daily said support for Mr Berlusconi stood at 56 per cent and had risen in April for the first time since October thanks to his hands-on response to a deadly earthquake.
Mr Berlusconi, who regularly complains of unfair treatment by the media despite directly or indirectly controlling 90 percent of Italy’s television, put his own popularity at 75.1 per cent.
“These are independent surveys, but they are not promptly published,” he said.
Put any articles here that make you go “eh” or “erm”, and might make you cough a bit, and feel free to comment.
Here’s one:
Jesus was a reformed racist, says Anglican Church of Canada
Posted By: Damian Thompson at Feb 27, 2009 at 00:41:46 [General]
Posted in: Religion
Tags: Anglican Church of Canada, Lenten reflections, typical Canadian political correctness
The Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) has published a Lenten reflection that portrays Jesus as a racist who saw the error of his ways after being challenged by the Canaanite woman in Matthew’s Gospel. The ACoC was long ago taken over by politically correct bores but, as Anglican Samizdat notes, this “reflection” turns Jesus into a sinner - in Christian terms, a pretty basic heresy. Here’s the reflection. Sick-bags at the ready:
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“… a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the houseof Israel.’ But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.’ ” - Matthew 14:22-27
This not a story for people who need to think that Jesus always had it together, because it looks like we’ve caught him being mean to a lady because of her ethnicity. At first, he ignores her cries. Then he refuses to help her and compares her people to dogs.
But she challenges his prejudice. And he listens to her challenge and grows in response to it. He ends up healing her daughter. What we may have here is an important moment of self-discovery in Jesus’ life, an enlargement of what it will mean to be who he was. Maybe we are seeing Jesus understand his universality for the first time.
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Or maybe not. Maybe someone has been on a “racism awareness course” and decided to redefine the divinity of Jesus in a way that flatters ethnic sensibilities. How very Anglican. How very Canadian.
hi,
jesus was teach us the Bible, the old testament, he reapeat the words for the woman and also for us.
he came because of the word of God, he did everythings for the words of God and actualy he had been sent on the basis of words of God. God the Father sent him for the Israiel and this was in his will from the first. but, Jesus made a bridge between human and his Father. is this mean that Christ denay the words?!! sure Not.
the woman belive in Christ as the almithy God, because she did not accept another way, she continue to asking and did not disapointed.
God knows every body, then will not be racist. he select someone for some reason. but did not say that this selection because of the superior ! Jesus told his diciples, he is going to cross not only for them, not for Israiel and not for any other people. he believe that he was the scrified lamb for human. is it racism?!!!
Where Did I Really Come From ? - kids’ book outrage
By Kelvin Healey May 04, 2009
A BOOK which teaches children about lesbian mums getting pregnant using sperm donors is being pitched at kids as young as two.
The controversial publication, Where Did I Really Come From?,also features a drawing of two gay men holding a baby in a chapter about surrogacy.
The publisher’s marketing spruiks the book, which includes in-depth descriptions of sexual intercourse, as suitable to be read to two-year-olds.
It is being advertised at some Sydney book stores and inside the cover as being part of the NSW Attorney General Office’s Learn to Include program.
A spokesman for the Attorney General was unable to confirm yesterday if the book had been funded by the State Government.
In a chapter on assisted conception, the book tells children: “Sometimes, a woman really wants to have a baby but she doesn’t want to have intercourse with a man.
“Some women want to bring up a baby by themselves, or with another woman, so the baby gets two mums.”
However, angry family advocates claim the book targets children too young.
“It devalues the traditional family unit and at the very least desensitises us,” Focus On The Family spokeswoman Deb Sorensen said yesterday.
The book was first penned in the early 1990s, but has been updated and relaunched by Learn to Include, which has published a range of books featuring child characters whose parents are gay.
Learn to Include’s website says the book’s “simple, non-judgmental explanations of sexual intercourse, assisted conception, pregnancy, birth, adoption and surrogacy are “suitable for 2-12 year olds”.
Author Narelle Wickham defended the book, describing it as a mainstream publication which just went further about ways of conceiving children.
“It is just trying to normalise to children that there are many ways to conceive a child,” she said.
Gong’an county government tells officials ‘smoke or be fined’
Article from: Agence France-Presse
From correspondents in Beijing May 04, 2009
OFFICIALS in a county in central China have been told to smoke nearly a quarter million packs of locally made cigarettes annually or risk being fined, state media reports.
The Gong’an county government in Hubei province has ordered its staff to puff their way through 230,000 packs of Hubei-produced cigarette brands a year, the Global Times said.
Departments that fail to meet their targets will be fined, according to the report.
“The regulation will boost the local economy via the cigarette tax,” said Chen Nianzu, a member of the Gong’an cigarette market supervision team, according to the paper.
The measure could also be a ploy to aid local cigarette brands such as Huanghelou, which are under severe pressure from competitors in neighbouring Hunan province, according to the paper.
China has 350 million smokers, of whom a million die of smoking-related diseases every year.
More than half of all male doctors in China smoke, but the government is now trying harder to get them to kick the habit in order to set an example for others, state media reported recently.
[null]Catholics File Suits on Contraceptive CoverageNew York Times[{}]At least 11 other Catholic and evangelical organizations had already filed lawsuits challenging the birth control mandate, but those cases are still pending. The White House declined to comment on Monday, instead providing President Obama's comments ...
[null]Catholic Groups File Suits on Contraceptive CoverageNew York Times[{}]At least 11 other Catholic and evangelical organizations had already filed lawsuits challenging the birth control mandate, but those cases are still pending. The White House declined to comment on Monday, instead providing President Obama's comments ...
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