Between 500 and 1,000 protesters crowded the plaza in front of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. Friday afternoon to denounce the Obama Administration’s mandate requiring religious employers to cover contraception, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization in their employee health care plans. Speakers contended that the mandate equals “tyranny.”
The Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally marked the second anniversary of the passage of Obamacare, and organizers said it was one of 140 such rallies held in cities nationwide to mark the occasion.
The crowd was mainly comprised of large families and Catholic and other pro-life activists. “The President of the United States should not tell people of faith how they are to live,” said the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, the rally’s organizer. “We will decide religious identity and not the government.”
Mahoney said he initially thought the attendees would number less than 100.
It is one of several anti-Obamacare rallies planned over the next several days. “This HHS mandate cannot stand,” said Kristen Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life, a nationwide campus pro-life organization. “President Reagan once said that freedom is just one generation away from extinction.
“We are talking about the Department of Health and Human Services along with the blessing of our president stomping on our freedom of religion, our freedom of conscience and [they] say ‘We don’t care what you believe, and you are going to do what we believe is best,’” Hawkins continued. “This is where tyranny begins.”
Lila Rose, one of the nation’s most prominent young pro-life activists and president of Live Action, similarly vowed the mandate will be met with widespread civil disobedience and that it will not be complied with no matter the price.
“Enough is enough and we are 100 percent against this, and we will not comply with this mandate,” Rose said. Rose denounced the imposition of the contraception, abortifacient and sterilization coverage mandate for employers with religious objections in addition to its widely publicized impact on church-related institutions like colleges and charities.
“All of us will not comply with this mandate because we hold the right to life as fundamental from conception to natural death,” Rose said. “We stand not only for the right to life, but also for the right to practice our faith freely, not only as Catholics, but as anyone who believes that abortifacients, sterilization and contraceptive drugs are wrong and that we should not be forced to pay for that for other people.”
The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit law firm that defends religious expression represented at the rally, has filed lawsuits challenging the mandate on behalf of the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), Belmont Abbey College, Colorado Christian University and Ave Maria University.
“If they refuse to provide these drugs, they have to pay crippling fines,” Beckett Fund Senior Counsel Lori Windham said. “This mandate violates the consciences of millions of Americans.
“Every one of these organizations exists to serve the public and follow their faith,” Windham continued. “Each of these organizations is facing a crippling six-figure fine, and that’s the price of following your faith in America.”
Colorado Christian University alone faces a $500,000 fine for refusing to compromise its religious beliefs to conform with the administration’s values, she said.
Rose and the other female speakers took the left’s “War on Women” rhetoric head-on, defining the mandate as a “war on Catholic women, a war on every employer that’s a woman” and a war on every “pro-life woman.”
“The groups like Planned Parenthood that are in favor of this mandate are the same groups that are victimizing women by covering up sexual abuse and by covering up traffickers, and by killing millions of tiny little women in the womb,” Rose said. “So the HHS mandate IS a war on women.”
Organizers vow this is only these rallies mark just the first stage in a popular fight against the mandate.
