Tuesday morning, Vice President Mike Pence didn’t just speak about prayer — he was the proof that prayers are answered! After eight years of punishment under the Obama administration, America’s Catholics are just one of the faith groups relieved to have a friend in the White House. President Trump’s second-in-command didn’t waste any time renewing ties at the 13th annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in DC. For the last several years, the group of 1,000 has met under the long shadow of the Obama administration, which seemed to invent new ways almost every day to punish the church for its biblical convictions.

Now, the former Catholic-turned-evangelical insists, the page has officially turned on those dark days. “This administration hears you. This administration stands with you,” he told the crowd. But unlike so many leaders, these two have proven it. President Trump and Vice President Pence haven’t just talked about protecting life, they’ve done it. They haven’t just pledged to defend religious liberty, they’ve issued an executive order insisting on it. And when the time comes to finally defund Planned Parenthood, Donald Trump will be the one proudly signing on the dotted line. “President Donald Trump stands with the men and women who stand for the sanctity of human life in America, and he always will,” Pence vowed. “Since day one of this administration, President Donald Trump has been keeping his promise to stand for life,” he went on. “And life is winning in America again. In one of his very first acts in Congress, President Trump reinstated the Mexico City policy to prevent taxpayer funding from organizations that perform or promote abortion abroad.”

When it comes to health care and the half-billion-dollar taxpayer scandal of Planned Parenthood, the former congressman explains that Donald Trump hasn’t just gone after Cecile Richards’s group, but empowered states to do the same. “And I’m humbled to say that at the president’s direction, I had the privilege of casting the tie-breaking vote in the United States Senate…”

On the topic of international religious liberty, Pence said that Trump is “a president who knows that terrorism is an existential threat to people of faith in countries around the globe.” Pence spoke about Trump’s visit with the Pope and how in Saudi Arabia, Trump had condemned “the murder of innocent Muslims, the oppression of women, the persecution of Jews, and … the slaughter of Christians across the wider Arab world.” Pence expressed that “the practitioners of terror harbor a special hatred for the followers of Christ, and none more so than the barbarians known as ISIS… I believe that ISIS is guilty of nothing short of genocide.” He also said that “Christianity faces unprecedented threats in the land where it was given birth.” But fortunately for the troubles of this day, there are two men in the White House determined to do everything in their power to help. And not just for the world’s sake — but for ours.

Originally published here.

At SCOTUS, Tension Over Pension

The IRS has a lot of jobs — but defining a church isn’t one of them. Eight justices on the U.S. Supreme Court made that quite clear in a case that has a lot more to do with religious freedom than most people would guess. In several cases consolidated into Advocate Health Care Network v. Stapleton (which Neil Gorsuch abstained from, since he wasn’t present for oral arguments), the justices agreed that the statute at issue required churches to be excused from the government burdens of a 1974 pension law.

The debate boiled down to two Catholic and one Lutheran hospital systems, which employees argued shouldn’t be able to claim a religious exemption under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). A handful of staffers took issue with the hospitals’ faith ties, saying that it shouldn’t let them off the hook from certain funding requirements. In their minds, the government (and specifically, the IRS) should be the one deciding who is and isn’t religious enough to qualify. The bench unanimously disagreed, insisting that “a plan maintained by a principal-purpose organization therefore qualifies as a ‘church plan,’ regardless of who established it.”

Interestingly enough, Justice Elena Kagan wrote the opinion for the Court, which rejected the idea that the government should be in the business of picking and choosing which hospitals are truly associated with a church. Justin Butterfield, senior counsel with First Liberty Institute, cheered the ruling. “The history of the United States of America is one requiring the government to respect the religious freedom and autonomy of its houses of worship and religious organizations. The Supreme Court’s decision today respects that great history and tradition, allowing churches, synagogues, mosques, and religious ministries to pursue their religious mission without the weight of government bureaucracy and regulation hindering their efforts and intruding upon their mission.”

As FRC’s own Travis Weber points out, “While this case involves a relatively innocuous issue of statutory interpretation, the result is a good one because it stands for the principle of guarding against government infringement on the autonomy of religious organizations.”

This is just the latest in a long line of decisions that shows the Court’s respect for the true wall between church and state. After all, the Founders’ concern was never that the church would influence the state, but that the government would infringe on the church! Rulings like this one, Hosanna Tabor, Little Sisters of the Poor, and others show that the Court recognizes that the long arm of the government should never reach inside the church, especially when it comes to matters like hiring decisions, employee benefits, or conscience rights!

Originally published here.

Pro-Lifers Close-Minded on Clinics

Americans need to understand that when organizations like Planned Parenthood insist that women have a “right” to abortion, they don’t mean a safe one. In clinics across the country, vulnerable women are shuttled in and out of clinics that look more like combat zones than surgical centers. Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of 261 pages of horrors at his Philadelphia clinic, put a real face on the “choice” movement. For his patients — and so many others — “choice” means being subjected to rusty equipment, bloodstained blankets, and untrained staff.

And unfortunately, Gosnell is just one example of a nationwide nightmare. In Pennsylvania, Gosnell’s bloody legacy lives on in a shocking case of clinic neglect. While the infamous “doctor” may be behind bars, area clinics are showing how little they learned from the tragedy, which resulted in the deaths of two women (and countless innocent children). Inspectors filed a blistering report this month against the Hillcrest Women’s Medical Center, which officials were shocked to find in complete disarray. Apart from using “expired medical supplies,” it had “no record of patients receiving anesthesia, didn’t run the legally required background checks on employees who work with minor patients, and didn’t have a registered nurse or doctor supervise patients” recovering from surgery. Staffers failed to do even the most basic tasks like check women’s blood types, secure the office drug supply, and use needles and syringes that aren’t old, yellow, and “physically deteriorated.”

Like Gosnell’s “house of horrors,” this clinic isn’t just unsafe for patients — but staff too. That’s part of the reason state senators are so upset. “These health and safety violations are obviously deeply troubling,” they write in a letter to the agency. “However, even more problematic appears to be [the Department of Health’s] response, which was to allow the abortion clinic to continue operating while granting Hillcrest a six month grace period to correct the cited ‘deficiencies.’” The trio goes on, “We would like an explanation as to why DOH did not immediately move to suspend or revoke Hillcrest Women’s Medical Center’s license upon finding such numerous egregious violations.”

Six years ago, with the haunting images of Gosnell’s urine-stained walls still fresh on everyone’s minds, Pennsylvania passed a law that forced abortion clinics to undergo surprise inspections. With these revelations, people are rightly wondering whether state officials have done enough. Believe it or not, abortion continues to be one of the least regulated surgeries in the United States. A lot of state clinics have fewer regulations than beauty salons or public schools. That has started to change with a wave of laws that force abortion clinics to meet the same standards as ambulatory hospitals. That means more licensed staff, better sanitation, bigger rooms, and safer equipment.

To most of us, that only sounds logical. But to abortion clinics, the bulk of which cut corners to make a profit, it represents a huge hurdle in doing business. For them, the emphasis has always been on revenue, not patient safety. When they’re asked to comply with strict new health standards, most would rather shut down than protect women. And while groups like Planned Parenthood claim that safety is their number one priority, the reality is that they’re part of the coalition spending millions of dollars to fight these common sense regulations. That, more than anything, should expose the pro-abortion movement for what it is: cold, calculating opportunists who see women as profit, not patients.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.