#StandUPForReligiousFreedom

There are nationwide rallies tomorrow, Friday 8 June 2012 at noon to Stand Up For Religious Freedom. Why June 8th? That's the day, in 1789, that James Madison introduced his draft of the Bill of Rights to Congress. Although the rally is ecumenical, it was inspired by the HHS mandate against the Catholic Church. Serendipitously, in the Spring 2012 Phi Kappa Phi Forum magazine, Suzanne Marchand and James Stoner wrote A Brief History of Accountability in Higher Education in which they volunteer the role the Catholic Church played in establishing universities in Europe:

Europe’s medieval universities arose as a result of several faculties coming together in a single city — typically, law, medicine, and theology — to prepare men for professions. Philosophy, thought to underlie the other fields, explored the nature of things via a fourth smaller faculty. Professors were clerics and schools formed under the auspices of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church just hasn't pioneered higher education, but health care, as well. Juan Williams views this as purely superfluous, and seems to advocate nationalizing private property from people engaged in thought crimes against the state:

Juan Williams believes this whole issue has been wildly distorted. He said, “The church isn’t being forced to do anything, they don’t have to run hospitals, they don’t have to get involved with health care. They want to.”

Williams' thinking illustrates what Red State properly identifies as the left's attempt to redefine the First Amendment from public right to freedom of religion to private right to freedom of worship:

Barack Obama has taken a position that undermines the first right in the United States, freedom of religion. Not worship, but RELIGION. Barack Obama’s education belies his rhetoric. His record and motives are clear. WE can devote our lives to God, just as long as we keep our faith in the closet.

Obama's war on the Catholic Church seems illogical from a traditional Democrat Party perspective, but seems perfectly in line for a card carrying member of the socialist New Party:

New Party leaders disdained mainstream Democrats, considering them tools of business, and promised instead to create a partnership between elected officials and local community organizations, with the goal of socializing the American economy to an unprecedented degree.