The Gristmill - talk about everything

There are many biblical references to fasting. Below are a few.

2Sam 12:16-22

For most clear-headed people, the religious liberty issue behind the Obama HHS contraceptive mandate is a no-brainer. The violation of religious liberty is obvious without it being pointed out to them, and that religious liberty ought to be protected is just as obvious. It wasn't a shock to me that Obama would attempt to pull off something like the contraceptive mandate. I've complete confidence that, given another four years, he'll find a way to expand it to an abortion mandate.

Here are a few of the reports on various Stand Up for Religious Freedom rallies around the country, Friday, March 23. Please add more in the comments, and include what city it's covering.

Charlotte Observer - Charlotte, North Carolina

Kakeland (Wichita, Kansas?) - Wichita, Kansas (?)

The National Catholic Register has an editorial discussing reasons for hope in the debate over the HHS contraceptive mandate. It's a good article, that basically shows that recent opinion polls are demonstrating that the Catholic Bishops (indeed, we Catholics as a whole) may not be out there alone in this battle.

As part of her attempts to justify the requirement that health insurance plans be forced to cover sterilization and other contraceptive products and services, Kathleen Sebelius gave the following argument:

The reduction in the number of pregnancies compensates for the cost of contraception.

Parents should be able to kill their babies post-birth if they decide they don't want them. At least, that's what two Ethicists, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, argued in a paper entitled "After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?," published in the Journal of Medical Ethics. First, let's talk about the article; then I'll tell you what they got right.

Remember my post about how people spin things? In particular, I pointed out how the liberal Democrat approach to spin is to bring in obfuscation and interpretation, especially using hot-button words like "rights," while the conservative Republican approach is generally to boil things down to their fundamental realities.

At least that's the only conclusion one can draw from his article Contraception Should not be Treated as Issue of Religious Liberty, published in the Kansas State Collegian.

Yesterday on Kresta in the Afternoon, Al was almost at a loss to express the degree of idiocy in a commentary by Lawrence O'Donnell, regarding answers to an exit poll question in the Ohio primary.

The question had to do with the degree to which a candidate's (for public office) professed religion--particularly, the question of whether it matched that of the polled voter--mattered in the voter's decision. The possible answers, along with the percent breakdown is as follows:

29% - A great deal
33% - Somewhat
19% - Not much
18% - Not at all

Sometimes it's funny to see the various ways people will try to spin something in order to make an argument in favor of or against it. My kids often try the trick of taking their end goal as a given and then pointing out alternate ways to get that if I'm not giving into the most obvious path. For example, if they want a bigger lunch than the standard one provided at school—if they want some extra snacks, or something—they'll come ask me for more lunch money. When I don't give it to them, they'll come back with something like "So, you're forcing me to steal food from home?"