(CNSNews.com) — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that her Catholic faith “compels” her to “be against discrimination of any kind” and thus for same-sex marriage.
A reporter asked Pelosi: “Many of the people that are opposed to gay marriage cite their religion as the reason why they’re opposed. You’re a Catholic that supports gay marriage. Do you believe that religion and the idea that you can support gay marriage can be separated? And how do you grapple with the idea that you support gay marriage as a Catholic?”
Pelosi responded: “My religion has, compels me — and I love it for it — to be against discrimination of any kind in our country, and I consider this a form of discrimination. I think it’s unconstitutional on top of that. ”
Expressions of solidarity with the anti-Catholics -- but also signs of pro-Catholic solidarity from leading Evangelical figures. Many Protestant and evangelical leaders are standing with the Roman Catholics bishops against the Obamacare mandate to compel religious hospitals, schools and charities to purchase insurance coverage for contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization.
Although modern conservative Protestants have been accepting or ambivalent about birth control, they recognize a clear infringement on religious liberty. Mandatory coverage for abortion-inducing drugs is doubly troubling for pro-life Protestants.
"I'm not a Catholic but I stand in 100% solidarity with my brothers and sisters to practice their belief against government pressure," tweeted Rick Warren, a California Southern Baptist who is perhaps America's most popular megachurch pastor and religious author. He bracingly added: "I'd go to jail rather than cave in to a government mandate that violates what God commands us to do."
Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and National Association of Evangelicals have all denounced the Obamacare provision. "The Obama administration has declared war on religion and freedom of conscience," warned Southern Baptist officials. "This will not stand." More
While President Obama will deliver another speech on the economy Wednesday in Northern Virginia to keep the focus on jobs, Catholic leaders across the country are warning another issue may blow up in his face come November.
Catholics are fired up over new rules implementing Obama's health care reform law forcing Catholic universities, hospitals, and charities to provide insurance for their employees covering contraception -- even though that violates church teachings.
"When you push people of faith and you tell them the government is going to knock down the wall of separation of church and state and overreach like the Obama administration, you've got a war on your hands," Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, told Fox News.
In an extraordinary move this past weekend, New York Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan and other archbishops throughout the nation had their priests read letters denouncing the Obama administration policy from the pulpit at Sunday Mass.
"Never before has the government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience," Dolan said in a web video that takes the battle online. "This shouldn't happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights. How about letting our elected leaders know that we want religious liberty and rights of consciences restored and the administration's mandate rescinded? We can't afford to strike out on this one."
Pressed on the matter at his daily briefing Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney repeated several times the administration believes it struck an "appropriate balance" in crafting the policy.
"The administration believes that this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious beliefs and increasing access to important preventive services," said Carney. "We will continue to work closely with religious groups during this transitional period to discuss their concerns."
Even some Catholic Democrats are not buying that claim, however, with liberal columnist E.J. Dionne ripping the policy in a Washington Post column. Dionne charged Monday that the president "utterly botched" the issue and "threw his progressive Catholic allies under the bus."
