Let’s call it The Sebelius Precedent.
If we’re now going to breach the Constitutional right to
religious liberty — can an assault on political liberty be far
behind?
Or, plainly put, is it time to tax and regulate liberalism?
The government, according to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
(the headmistress of Obamacare) is going to regulate the Catholic
Church.
In the
words of CNN, last January:
Catholics around the country got an earful on Sunday from the
pulpit over a new health insurance policy by the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services that forces employers to cover
contraception and abortion as part of preventative care regardless
of religious beliefs. The use of abortion and contraceptives
violates Catholic teachings.
Just the other day, after futile attempts to reach agreement
between the Catholic Church and the Obama Administration —
represented by Headmistress Sebelius — the Church took the
President to court. As reported at
Breitbart.com
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, has joined with
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington D.C., the
University of Notre Dame, and 40 other U.S. Catholic dioceses and
organizations in a lawsuit against the Obama administration. Twelve
different lawsuits, charging the administration with violation of
the Church’s First Amendment right to freedom of religion, are
being filed in federal courts around the nation.
Said the statement on a website set up by
the Archdiocese of Washington:
This lawsuit is about an unprecedented attack by the federal
government on one of America’s most cherished freedoms: the freedom
to practice one’s religion without government interference. It is
not about whether people have access to certain services; it is
about whether the government may force religious institutions and
individuals to facilitate and fund services which violate their
religious beliefs.
Mysteriously, the story of the Church suing the President got
scant coverage in the liberal media. As noted here.
One can only assume the lack of coverage by mainstream media is
because of plain, old-fashioned media bias.
But maybe there’s something else at work.
That something?
The realization even in the slow-moving left-wing brain that if
religious freedom — a guarantee of the First Amendment — is no
longer un-regulatable, neither are those other guarantees of the
First Amendment. They would be, specifically, freedom of speech and
freedom of the press.
Not to mention all those laws and regulations governing the
IRS.
And maybe, just maybe, there is the dawning that in opening up
this line of attack — The Sebelius Precedent — the inevitable
demand will rise to regulate some of the most cherished
cornerstones of liberalism itself.
If, as is noted, opposition to abortion and contraception is
central to the Catholic faith, what are two central tenets of the
faith of modern day liberalism?
That’s right: labor unions and abortion.
Let’s apply The Sebelius Precedent to both these cherished
beliefs of liberals.
• Labor unions: If the government can regulate
the Catholic Church, surely it can change what are in fact already
IRS rules governing labor unions.
Specifically?
Change the IRS status of labor unions from tax exempt advocacy
groups and recognize that unions — like corporations — are “for
profit” businesses in the business of securing profits — wages,
salaries and benefits — for union members. Union members are to
unions what shareholders are to corporations. President Obama has
proposed an increase in taxes on corporate dividends, as the
Wall Street Journal has
noted.
Rich public employee unions routinely win negotiations that cost
taxpayers tens of millions in payouts — dividends, if you will —
to enrich union members. In the world of the private sector,
wealthy unions are allowed to negotiate with corporations that are
routinely paying a corporation tax — and yet the unions themselves
are treated by law as tax free entities.
If, as is the liberal argument, it’s time to raise taxes in the
name of fairness — isn’t it time to recognize the parity of unions
and corporations, taxing unions at exactly the same rate as
corporations? If the Sebelius Precedent insists that the government
now has the power to regulate religious faith — isn’t it time, out
of fairness, to apply the Sebelius Precedent to an article of
liberal political faith? And begin taxing union benefits — the
dividends of union membership — at the same rate as corporate
dividends?
• Abortions: Is it time to tax abortions?
In Kansas, the state legislature is investigating doing just
that. Take a look at this
story in the Kansas City Star. On May 7 the Kansas
House passed a bill that does indeed overturn the article of faith
of liberalism that abortion providers are performing a nonprofit
service. The woman, as the liberal argument has long had it,
benefits immensely for having an abortion. The argument has now
been accepted — the woman benefits, thus the tax.
Kansas liberals, having now gotten themselves sideways on the
issue precisely because of The Sebelius Precedent — remember that
Secretary Sebelius is herself a former Governor of Kansas — are
suddenly furious.
One can only be amused at the outrage. Here’s one Peter
Brownlie, whom the Star identifies as the president and
chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri.
In fact, Brownlie sounds like no one more than New York’s Cardinal
Dolan:
The anti-abortion forces continue to use the power of the state
to impose their views and impose their views even through the tax
system.
Catch that? Mr. Brownlie and his Planned Parenthood friends are
angry because the government — the Kansas legislature in this case
— is using “the power of the state to impose their views” on
abortion.
Which is, but of course, exactly the charge of Cardinal Dolan
and his fellow Catholic leaders about Secretary Sebelius and the
Obama Administration.
Quite clearly, turnabout is fair play.
And why stop with labor unions and abortion? What about the
media?
If liberal heroine Sandra Fluke can say…
Without insurance coverage, contraception can cost a woman over
$3,000 during law school. For a lot of students who, like me, are
on public interest scholarships, that’s practically an entire
summer’s salary. Forty percent of female students at Georgetown Law
report struggling financially as a result of this policy.
… then surely it’s fair to note that without government
intervention, the cost to a conservative man or woman of getting
fair and equal coverage of conservative viewpoints written or
broadcast by conservatives with an audience equal to that of the
New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC
and NPR is practically an entire lifetime of earnings if not
several times that amount. Doubtless somewhere around 100% percent
of middle and working class conservative Americans would be
struggling financially if they tried to achieve the audience of the
above mentioned news outlets.
So why can’t the government — the FCC — force liberal news
media outlets, both print and broadcast, to dedicate fifty percent
of their print space and airtime to conservatives? Yes, I know the
FCC doesn’t regulate print media — that too can be changed.
Better yet — make that fairer still — since conservatives have
only one cable news network (Fox News) and one national broadsheet
(Wall Street Journal) to their credit, why shouldn’t the
government simply split the remaining outlets 50-50?
Isn’t it time to redistribute liberal media? Fair, after all, is
fair.
Of America’s “national” broadcast and cable networks, plus
newspapers and magazines — ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC,
New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today,
Time and Newsweek — why shouldn’t they simply be
redistributed 50-50 between conservatives and liberals?
If the Pope is no longer infallible on Catholic Doctrine — why
is the Sulzberger family infallible in forcing their liberal views
on the newspaper they own — the New York Times?
Let’s go back to Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood receives federal tax dollars? Excellent. Then
50 percent of the decision-making power of Planned Parenthood
should be redistributed to those who are pro-life and are footing
the bill for Planned Parenthood. A government regulation here, a
government regulation there and — presto! The chairmanship of
Planned Parenthood would rotate annually between liberal and
conservative. By government mandate.
The current chair of Planned Parenthood is liberal
Cecilia Guthrie Boone. As long as conservatives are being
forced to pick up the tab for Ms. Boone’s organization, I already
have my pick for Ms. Boone’s successor:
Sarah Palin.
A highly accomplished woman who has served in business, run a
city, run a state and been a vice-presidential nominee, Governor
Palin is also the mother of five children and has often discussed
how she wrestled personally with the issue of abortion when
realizing she was carrying Trig, a Down syndrome baby. Who better
to bring a government-mandated balance to the taxpayer-funded
Planned Parenthood and lead the 50 percent of conservatives who
will be mandated to serve on the Planned Parenthood board than
Sarah Palin?
Then there’s that stalwart of legal liberalism — the American
Civil Liberties Union. Following The Sebelius Precedent, what’s to
keep a future conservative administration from deciding that the
ACLU is philosophically unbalanced? And removing the group’s right
to run itself according to its own cherished liberal views of
American life and law?
And so on and so on. Right through the long list of liberal’s
sacred beliefs.
Come to think of it — perhaps the easiest way to do this is
redefine liberalism and call it exactly what it has become: a
religion. Replete with its cherished sacraments of global warming,
abortion, labor unions and whatever else is in the liberal
equivalent of the Bible — regulate all of it.
And tax it.
This would be funny if in fact the consequences of what the
Obama Administration is actually doing with the Catholic Church
weren’t so far reaching.
But the attack on the Catholic Church isn’t funny. It is in fact
an attack on religious liberty.
And, while liberals may not yet realize it, it is precisely the
kind of attack that can be turned around on those who launched it.
Just as the Kansas legislature is doing by taxing the liberal
article of faith that is abortion.
Otherwise known as The Sebelius Precedent.
