[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 20 (Tuesday, February 7, 2012)]
[House]
[Page H520]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    OBAMACARE STRIKES AT THE CORE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY OF THE U.S. 
                              CONSTITUTION

  (Mr. ROONEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ROONEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about an issue that's 
deeply important to me, not as a Republican or Democrat, but as a 
Catholic American.
  President Obama's Department of Health and Human Services announced 
it will require religious institutions like Catholic schools, Catholic 
hospitals, and Catholic charities to cover services that violate their 
core beliefs, like contraception, sterilization, and the morning-after 
pill. Catholic schools like Notre Dame will be forced to pay millions 
in penalties if they don't comply with the Federal Government mandate.
  Now, this is about much more than just contraception. This is about 
Catholic schools and Catholic hospitals having to sacrifice conscience 
to comply with ObamaCare.
  I believe that this is a clear violation of the Free Exercise Clause 
of the First Amendment of the Constitution. What's worse, I believe 
that this is a move by the Obama administration to establish secularism 
over religion. That would strike at the core of religious liberty of 
the Constitution and who we are as Americans. It's just one more reason 
why ObamaCare is bad law and needs to be repealed.

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