Manage Delivery
Mandate infringes on freedom
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a mandate in February requiring that nearly all private health care plans cover sterilization, abortifacients and contraception. This applies to the vast majority of faith-based organizations, including private hospitals, schools and many groups offering charitable assistance to those in need.
Some in the media have said this mandate is about contraception. It is not. It is about government infringement on the freedom of religion and the free exercise of religion.
Aside from this direct assault on the faith of practicing Catholics, the fact that a Cabinet secretary can do this without an act of Congress is an assault on the country’s very foundation.
Many of our ancestors came to this country to escape religious persecution. Today, as their descendants, we will stand up and protect our constitutional right to free exercise of religion.
Every American should feel threatened by the HHS mandate. If we lose the first and most basic right given to us in the Constitution, what else could be taken away from us or forced upon us?
DAVID GITTRICH
Wichita
Forcing religion
Employees of Catholic schools and hospitals cannot be forced to practice the religion preached (and occasionally practiced) by bishops. The bishops are now protesting that this interferes with the bishops’ freedom of religion.
JOHNNY SAWATZKI
Wichita
GOP sabotage
Republicans have made clear that defeating President Obama in the 2012 election is their No. 1 priority. As a result, they have sabotaged the economy, and Obama’s attempts to help the middle class, at every turn.
They invented the crisis over the debt ceiling and demanded draconian spending cuts, which only further reduced demand in a weak economy. Republicans opposed the American Jobs Act, which would have helped prevent firefighters, police officers and teachers from losing their jobs and put hundreds of thousands of Americans back to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. Many of them opposed the government rescue of General Motors, attempts to end tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas, and multiple other bills vital to our economy.
They are sacrificing the hardworking American for their own political agenda.
Republicans need to stop sabotaging the recovery and start working with the president to put Americans back to work.
EDWARD FISHEL
Wichita
