DCrunch wrote:
President Barack Obama announced Friday that the administration will not require religious-affiliated institutions to cover birth control for their employees.

Instead, the White House is demanding that insurance companies be responsible for providing free contraception.

Women will still get guaranteed access to birth control without co-pays or premiums no matter where they work, a provision of Obama's health care law that he insisted must remain.

But religious universities and hospitals that see contraception as an unconscionable violation of their faith can refuse to cover it, and insurance companies will then have to step in to do so.

"Religious liberty will be protected," said Obama from the press briefing room of the White House. He said religious groups had "genuine concerns" about the original mandate and criticized those seeking to turn the issue into a "political football."

Lux Interior wrote:
[quote=Grace62]
Anyway, he says that it's not just a religious exemption from birth control coverage that the Bishops want. They want the part about mandatory coverage without copay removed from the health care bill in its entirety. In other words, NOBODY has to offer this.

kj wrote: I think the idea that Christians in the U.S. think they are persecuted is somewhat of a strawman invented by people who want to discount any argument made in favor of a christian point of view.

Go watch Rick Perry's "Strong" video.

One of the highest ranking cardinals in the Vatican has said that the United States is “well on the way” to the persecution of Christians.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, former Archbishop of St. Louis and now the head of the Vatican’s highest court, told Catholic News Agencythat he could envision a time when the Catholic Church in the U.S., “even by announcing her own teaching,” is accused of “engaging in illegal activity, for instance, in its teaching on human sexuality.” Asked if the cardinal could even see American Catholics being arrested for their faith he replied, “I can see it happening, yes.”

August West wrote:

Go watch Rick Perry's "Strong" video.

kj, you might want to reconsider your perspective about who invented this strawman.

Lux Interior wrote:
[quote=kj] I think the idea that Christians in the U.S. think they are persecuted is somewhat of a strawman invented by people who want to discount any argument made in favor of a christian point of view.

Ted King wrote:
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&q=u.s.+christian+persecution&oq=u.s.+christian+persecution&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=17149l18427l0l19838l5l5l0l0l0l0l141l410l4.1l5l0

Of course, there are links to sites that are about Christian persecution worldwide, but there are a lot of sites that talk about their concern for the persecution of Christians in the U.S.

One representative example:

https://catholicismpure.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/christian-persecution-in-the-u-s/

One of the highest ranking cardinals in the Vatican has said that the United States is “well on the way” to the persecution of Christians.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, former Archbishop of St. Louis and now the head of the Vatican’s highest court, told Catholic News Agencythat he could envision a time when the Catholic Church in the U.S., “even by announcing her own teaching,” is accused of “engaging in illegal activity, for instance, in its teaching on human sexuality.” Asked if the cardinal could even see American Catholics being arrested for their faith he replied, “I can see it happening, yes.”

I think the idea that Christians in the U.S. think they are persecuted is somewhat of a strawman invented by people who want to discount any argument made in favor of a christian point of view.

Washington Times wrote:
Tinseltown's war on Christianity;
Christophobia is the fashionable bigotry of our time

By Jeffrey T. Kuhner SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Anti-Christian bigotry is rearing its ugly head again. Comedy Central is developing a new animated series called "JC." Its premise is that Jesus Christ, alienated from his aloof and bored father, God, goes to New York City and has adventures in the Big Apple. Christ will be shown as a deracinated, cynical city slicker who partakes of the temptations and weirdness of modern urban life. He will hang out with prostitutes and drug dealers. He will be shown experimenting with marijuana and gay sex. He will slaughter gangbangers in street fights, preferably using a machete. Christ meets "Pulp Fiction" - but in a cartoon. This is what Hollywood considers to be "entertainment."

Yet, this is religious bigotry. Christians - and people of all faiths - should demand that it end. The show is a deliberate attempt to mock and smear the essence of Christianity: the divine nature of Christ. Its goal is to degrade Jesus into a modern-day sex-crazed, permissive and violent action figure. It is not just blasphemous, but morally repugnant and culturally perverse. It vilifies and completely distorts Christ - all for a few cheap laughs.

It is not the first time Comedy Central has depicted Jesus in a sick, twisted manner. The show "South Park" has repeatedly shown Christ in the vilest of ways: gawking at Internet pornography; slicing his own neck as blood profusely flows everywhere; acting as a ninja assassin who throws a dagger at the pope, splitting him in half; and defecating on former President George W. Bush and the American flag. For "South Park," it is open season on Christianity.

However, when it comes to Islam, Comedy Central is silent. It has never openly mocked the Prophet Muhammad or caricatured him for shock value. In fact, it practices self-censorship for fear of offending Muslims. For example, for the 200th episode of "South Park," the show's producers sought to make fun of Muhammad in a bear suit. The outcry from Muslim rights groups forced the show to delete the offensive scene.

There is a blatant double standard. Islam cannot be ridiculed or attacked, but Christianity can - often and egregiously. Hollywood's hypocrites understand that Muhammad is off-limits for one reason: the fear of a fatwa, an Islamic religious decree authorizing the murder of anyone defaming the image of the Muslim prophet. Hollywood liberals are cowards who pick on Jesus because they know Christians will do nothing. They often passively stand by and allow their Savior to be crucified culturally.

Our progressive elites keep saying - ad nauseam - that Islam is a "religion of peace." The fact that there are millions of Islamic extremists who embrace jihad and terror, using the Koran as the theological basis for a holy war against the West, is irrelevant to most secular liberals. Their dogma - multiculturalism - demands that they deny this fundamental reality. They prefer to adhere to an ideological fantasy.
The true religion of peace, however, is Christianity. There are no Catholic nuns hijacking planes and slamming them into buildings. There are no Protestant pastors strapping dynamite on their chests and blowing up innocent Muslim men, women and children. There are no Orthodox Christian bishops waxing eloquent about how the Bible justifies the slaughter of non-Christians. In short, Christianity does not seek to impose a world empire through the sword. Radical Islam does.

It is precisely, however, the Christian emphasis on nonviolence and peaceful religious co-existence that Hollywood has been exploiting. The producers at Comedy Central know one seminal fact: They can mock Jesus all they want - no Christian jihadist is going to blow them up. It is easy - and safe - to take pathetic potshots at Christ.

At its core, modern secular liberalism is based on a hatred of Christianity. For decades, militant liberals have sought to eradicate our Judeo-Christian heritage from the public square. Banning prayer in public schools, prohibiting the display of the Ten Commandments in courtrooms (the very foundations of Western ethics and law), sanctioning the mass murder of nearly 50 million unborn children through abortion, seeking to end the official celebrations of Christmas and Easter, pushing to make homosexual behavior morally acceptable and legalizing same-sex marriage - all of this constitutes a cultural war on Middle America and its traditional Christian faith.

Christophobia is the fashionable bigotry of our time. The bastion of this anti-Christianity is Hollywood. Take films such as "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons." Their premise: The Catholic Church is a primitive, sinister and superstitious institution centered on a massive conspiracy at the heart of Christianity - the cover-up of the fact that Jesus was not celibate but married and was the father of numerous children. There is not a shred of evidence for this outrageous smear. But in Hollywood, this passes for courageous "art."

Christians must vigorously defend their faith. If Comedy Central wants to make a series depicting Christ as a street hoodlum, that is its right. But it is also the right of Christians to be offended and to express their outrage. Freedom of speech cuts both ways. Christians should let it be known that they will boycott not just all of Comedy Central's programs, but more important, all of its advertisers. Corporations that advertise on Comedy Central are either directly or indirectly sponsoring anti-Christian bigotry.
This will no longer be tolerated. Christians will be silent no more.

Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute, a Washington think tank. He is the daily host of "The Kuhner Show" on WTNT 570-AM (www.talk570.com) from 5 to 7 p.m.