Del. Bob Marshall Speaks on Tracy Thorne-Begland Nomination
Published on May 16, 2012 by lowkell
On May 15, 2012, the Virginia House of Delegates debated the nomination of Chief Deputy Commonwealth Attorney (for Richmond) Tracy Thorne-Begland to the Richmond District Court, simply because he's gay. The vote (see http://bluevirginia.us/showComment.do?commentId=26396 ) was 33-31 in favor, with 10 abstaining and 26 not voting. All those voting "nay" were Republicans.
Interview with Bob Marshall (R-Virginia) who led a successful effort to defeat the nomination of an openly gay prosecutor to a district court judgeship.
The Archdiocese of Washington released a strong letter of rebuke to Georgetown’s president on Tuesday afternoon, calling Ms. Sebelius the architect of the birth control mandate — “the most direct challenge to religious liberty in recent history.”
The conflict is only the latest example of friction between Catholic universities and their local bishops, who are charged with ensuring that the universities uphold Catholic doctrine and exhibit an explicitly Catholic identity.
A conservative Catholic group in Virginia, the Cardinal Newman Society, has played an influential role as a whistle-blower, alerting bishops when they find a university stepping out of line. This spring, the group compiled a list of 12 Catholic universities with commencement speakers they found objectionable because of their support for abortion rights or gay rights.
“These conflicts are happening quite often,” said Stephen S. Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America, in Washington. “We’re very careful. I have to think when I make my invitations what’s going to fall within the guidelines. And to a certain extent, it makes it difficult for me to do my job with my university program.”
The Georgetown controversy has generated the most outrage since the University of Notre Dame gave an honorary degree and a commencement speaking slot to President Obama three years ago. Many bishops issued statements deploring the university’s decision because of the president’s support for abortion rights, but the speech went ahead as planned.
Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, was disinvited last month from speaking at Anna Maria College, a small Catholic college in Massachusetts, after Bishop Robert J. McManus of Worcester criticized stands she had taken in support of abortion rights. However, Boston College Law School, also a Catholic institution, invited Ms. Kennedy to give its commencement address later in May.
The boundaries were drawn when the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued guidelines in 2004 that said: “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”
The Cardinal Newman Society gathered 26,000 signatures on a petition urging Georgetown to disinvite Ms. Sebelius. The petition said: “Georgetown insults all Americans by this honor. The selection is especially insulting to faithful Catholics and their bishops, who are engaged in the fight for religious liberty and against abortion.”
The bishops have made religious liberty a rallying cry. They accuse the Obama administration of infringing on religious freedom by requiring Catholic universities and hospitals to provide health insurance plans for their employees that cover birth control. Ms. Sebelius was a central figure in formulating that policy.
In response to the controversy, Georgetown’s president, John J. DeGioia, said it was the decision of the students at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute to invite Ms. Sebelius in recognition of her long service as a public official.
He also cited “her role in crafting the landmark legislation that will make health care more accessible to 34 million Americans who are currently uninsured,” referring to the Obama administration’s health care overhaul.
And, he noted, Ms. Sebelius is “the spouse and mother of Georgetown graduates.”
A Georgetown representative said Wednesday that the university would not rescind the invitation.
Patrick J. Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, said he knew that his group’s protests were having an impact because his annual tally of Catholic universities with objectionable commencement speakers was down 50 percent, from a high of 24 in 2006.
He said, “We do now have colleges that will confidentially contact us and actually vet their speakers with us, because they want to make sure that there won’t be concerns.”
Supreme Court Health Care Ruling Could Mean Life Or Death For Some 'Uninsurables'
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, AP 05/17/12 05:53 PM ET
WASHINGTON — Cancer patient Kathy Watson voted Republican in 2008 and believes the government has no right telling Americans to get health insurance. Nonetheless, she says she'd be dead if it weren't for President Barack Obama's health care law.
Now the Florida small businesswoman is worried the Supreme Court will strike down her lifeline. Under the law, Watson and nearly 62,000 other "uninsurable" patients are getting coverage through a little-known program for people who have been turned away by insurance companies because of pre-existing medical conditions.
"Without it, I would have been dead on March 2," Watson said of the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, known as PCIP. That's when she was hospitalized for a life-threatening respiratory infection.
It's not clear how the Supreme Court will rule on Obama's law, but Watson's case illustrates the potential impact of tying everything in the far-reaching legislation to the fate of one provision, the unprecedented requirement that most Americans carry health insurance.
The law's opponents say if that insurance mandate is found to be unconstitutional, the rest of the law should also go, since courts should not be picking and choosing policy. The administration defends the insurance requirement but says if the court decides to overturn it, most of the rest of the law should stay.
State officials who administer the federal pre-existing condition plan in 27 states are trying to make fallback arrangements in case the law is invalidated and coverage suddenly terminates.
"Some of these individuals are critically ill and are being treated for very serious illnesses, whether it be cancer or HIV-AIDS, and we feel a responsibility to them to do what we can to see they don't lose access," said Amie Goldman, who oversees PCIP in Wisconsin.
Federal officials who administer the plan in the remaining 23 states and Washington, D.C., remain mum on what might happen there if the law is overturned.
The White House line is that Obama is confident the Supreme Court will uphold the Affordable Care Act, and his administration therefore is making no contingency plans for a reversal. None of that sounds reassuring to Watson, who owns a medical transport service in rural north-central Florida.
"It's scary," she said. "They need to look at this carefully because it is going to affect a lot of people with a lot of bad conditions who are not going to have any health care coverage."
Before PCIP, Watson had been uninsured since 2003, originally turned down because of elevated white blood cells. About three years ago, she was diagnosed with a chronic form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system. Unable to afford medications, she relied on the emergency room to treat flare-ups.
She tried applying to a major insurance company for a small business plan for her and her employees, and was quickly rejected. Then she heard about PCIP.
The temporary program is meant to serve as a patch until 2014, when the federal health care law will require insurers to accept all applicants, including cancer patients like Watson, regardless of medical history. The law's controversial mandate for individuals to carry health insurance is related to that guaranteed acceptance provision. By forcing healthy people to buy insurance, it would help keep premiums in check.
Initially, Watson could not afford the $800 monthly premium the government was asking for PCIP. High premiums are part of the reason the program has not attracted more people.
But officials retooled to make coverage more affordable. Watson applied again and was accepted. She met the basic requirements: uninsured at least six months, turned away because of pre-existing conditions, having U.S. citizenship or legal residence. Her premium is $363.
In March, Watson went to the emergency room with what she thought was pneumonia. She was admitted, and quarantined the next morning when tests showed she had an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection, highly dangerous. She spent five days in intensive care.
Without her PCIP coverage, Watson is convinced she would have been sent home from the emergency room after initial treatment to ease her shortness of breath.
"I'm not a candidate for any for type of indigent program, and without insurance they would not have put me in ICU," she said.
"I would have gone into cardiac arrest and probably died," she added. Emergency rooms must treat the uninsured, "but they are only required to get you stable. And then they release you and tell you to go to the health department."
A government report this year found that people in the pre-existing condition plan tended to be middle-aged patients with no access to employer coverage and with medical conditions that require continuous care. The top five diagnoses: cancer, heart disease, degenerative bone diseases, organ failure requiring a transplant and hemophilia.
If the federal law is struck down, some state officials are considering taking the patients into their own, separate, state high-risk insurance pools. Wisconsin, for example, has decided that PCIP enrollees would be automatically accepted into its pool. But not all states have them. In the 35 that do, premiums would generally be higher, and there might be waiting periods.
Republicans, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, have long favored insurance pools for high-risk patients. And Congress could take emergency action to keep PCIP going. But no assurances have been offered. Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, says Republicans are ready to work on "step-by-step, commonsense" approaches.
Watson says she still disagrees with Obama's requirement that individuals have health insurance, either through an employer, a government program or by purchasing their own plan. "I approve of some of it," she said of the law, "I don't approve of the mandatory ... insurance."
But she doesn't want to go back to depending on the emergency room.
"I have no problem paying my insurance and paying my copays," she said. "I just think I should have the right to purchase insurance."
“It’s a matter of conscience,” Michael Wilson, a tenured librarian who has worked at Shorter for 14 years, told Inside Higher Ed [id.]. The move effectively ended his tenure, though he is waiting to officially hear back from the university.
Amongst the clause rejecting homosexuality, adultery, premarital sex, drug use and drinking in public, the amended contract also requires all faculty to actively engage in a local church.
As a result Shorter board members decided to break from the convention. Georgia Baptist sued, claiming Shorter University did not have the right to run independently.
"Religious fundamentalism in any form (Muslim or Christian) is sheer lunacy in today's divided, fractured, and tormented world," wrote Sherri Weiler [ http://saveourshorter.com/2012/05/09/tenured-professor-rejects-contract/ ], a tenured professor and guest columnist for the Rome News-Tribune. "Where is today's American Taliban? At Shorter University."
To Wilson leaving Shorter is "wrenching," but something that he can't stand by. "I'm a pretty quiet person. But I perceive this as a great injustice."
The university has not yet responded to Wilson's contract, though it seems unlikely that the university will agree.
Beaverton Grace Bible Church Sues Oregon Family For Defamation After Bad Reviews, Critical Blog (VIDEO)
Posted: 05/15/2012 2:07 pm
Officials at Beaverton Grace Bible Church [ http://www.beavertongracebible.org/ ] weren't too thrilled to learn that a former member had written negative online reviews of the service and congregation, so they filed a lawsuit against an Oregon mother and her family.
But after churchgoers began adding their own positive remarks, Smith created a blog titled "Beaverton Grace Bible Church Survivors [ http://bgbcsurvivors.blogspot.com/ ]" to share her thoughts.
In her introduction, Smith states she received the lawsuit just days after the blog went live [ http://www.blogger.com/profile/03125322661578802590 ] in February. Since then, she has used the platform to chronicle her journey in dealing with the lawsuit and the church.
According to the complaint, Smith wrote the following statements about the church on the Internet:
Sept. 29, 2011:
"You will be fine at this church if you never question the elders or the pastor."
Jan. 5, 2012:
"What we had was indoctrination... That is how cult leaders work. Don't waste your precious lives and relationships by being held emotionally/spiritually captive at this so-called church."
Jan. 9, 2012:
"How can she forget that her own beloved pastor knew about a sex offender in the church who had access to the nursery and children on a weekly basis and did not have any safeguards in place."
"It would be extremely difficult to determine that wording or posting caused that tremendous $500,000 worth of damage... It just didn't," Williams said [id.].
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