California Courts Press Attack on Christianity: Catholic Charities Latest Target

Liberal judges have again assaulted Christianity -- this time in a March 1 attack on the Roman Catholic Church by the California Supreme Court.

The Court “ruled” that Catholic Charities in California must provide “access to contraception” -- including drugs that induce spontaneous abortions -- in its employee benefits package.

“We are looking at a conscious, purposeful campaign which, if it's allowed to continue for another 10 or 15 years, will make it illegal in this country to be a Christian,” said Joseph Giganti, media director for the American Life League, a pro-life organization with 375,000 member families nationwide. “This decision, and similar decisions in 26 other states, is part of that campaign.”

The only dissenting judge, Justice Janice Rogers Brown, wrote, “The government is not accidentally or incidentally interfering with religious practice; it is doing so willfully by making a judgment about what is or is not a religion.”

Judge Brown, who has been on the California Supreme Court since 1996, has been nominated by President Bush to serve on the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This is the same court that has ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance must not contain the words “under God.” As we can see, there is a need for some new faces on that court. But Justice Brown's nomination has been blocked by an unconstitutional filibuster by liberals in the U.S. Senate (the ones who describe themselves as “pro-choice” while devoting their careers to taking all your choices away).

“You can't be a Catholic and use, or support the use of, contraception or abortion,” Giganti said. “This is not somebody's opinion. It's a non-negotiable teaching of the Catholic Church.”

Although the Court's ruling stopped short of requiring abortions, it does require payment for “chemical abortions,” Giganti said. This would include the use of RU-46, the “morning-after pill.”

“I'm sure this will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court,” he added, “but who knows what will happen there? That Court has become very erratic and unpredictable.”

More “Rule of Law”

This comes at a time when California's courts, from the state Supreme Court down to the local court in San Francisco, have shown themselves unwilling to uphold clear, unambiguously worded state laws defining marriage. California judges have allowed the mayor of San Francisco to defy the law by authorizing thousands of unlawful “gay marriages” in his city.

Furthermore, although state laws clearly prescribe criminal penalties against any public official who knowingly issues an invalid certificate -- such as a license for the “marriage” of a pair of homosexuals -- no court in California has come down on San Francisco's mayor. (Compare this to the prompt action of the attorney general of Ulster County in New York, who arrested and charged the mayor of New Paltz with a criminal offense for doing the same thing.)

But the California courts are too busy trying to deconstruct Christianity to spare any time for upholding the laws of their state. They certainly came down on Catholic Charities fast enough.

Giganti accused the state Supreme Court of trying “to force it's morality of secular humanism onto the Catholic.” He's got it right.

Catholic Charities, he pointed out, provides services to millions of Californians: “hospitals, schools, soup kitchens, AIDS ministries, and countless other outreaches.” This, in the Court's view, counts for nothing.

“It seems the state of California is intent on convincing the world that up is down, that wrong is right,” Giganti said. “It seeks to recognize rights where they don't exist, while usurping the constitutional right of Catholic Californians to the free exercise of religion.”

Commentary

Meanwhile, the ACLU in New York City is suing the Salvation Army to change its employment practices. And the avowed homosexual in New Jersey who lost a long, drawn-out courtroom quest to become a Boy Scout leader has become a media darling, carrying on his jihad against the Boy Scouts four years after the U. S. Supreme Court said “No.” On those rare occasions when liberals lose in court, they can still push on in the warped world of the mainstream media.

Are you getting it, America ? You're turning into a captive nation. Not quite the same as the Baltic States in the 1950s, captives of the Soviet Union -- but how much closer do you want to get? How much more of your religious liberty and cultural heritage are you willing to see abolished by out-of-control liberal judges?

Joseph Giganti has urged the bishops of California to resort to civil disobedience or else shut down Catholic Charities until the state comes to its senses.

The point is that the Catholic Church is not alone on the firing line. All Christian denominations are under attack. They are not only under siege from the outside -- by liberal judges, left pressure groups, “educators,” and what we laughingly call our entertainment industry -- but are also crumbling from within. There is not a denomination in America that doesn't have its share of worldly-wise hipsters who want to trade their church's spiritual birthright for a mess of politically correct pottage.

Today it's Catholic Charities, the Boy Scouts, and the Salvation Army. Tomorrow, it will be your church's turn. Maybe for your church the judges will come up with something really creative. It's not beyond their powers of imagination, or their arrogance, to require your Sunday schools to give equal time to the Greek myths. Don't your children have a “right” to learn about religious “diversity”?

To those who haven't yet started fighting back -- where is your zeal for the house of the Lord?

Pray about it. Today.