The San Antonio Tea Party and a coalition of civic and religious groups will rally at noon on Saturday, February 18th, for the dual purposes to protest the recent Obama Administration contraceptive mandate forced on religious institutions, and to support and celebrate the First Amendment—part of the US Constitution that the Administration seems to have forgotten. The rally will be held at Main Plaza (San Fernando Cathedral) located at Main and Commerce Streets downtown San Antonio.

“All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing,” wrote English philosopher Edmund Burke. If ever that were true, it is now. Please join us for the rally this Saturday! Bring your signs, banners, and flags to let San Antonio and ultimately Washington, D.C. know “enough is enough!”

Please pass this information to others and invite them to join us. For more information on this issue, read the following statement by SATP President George Rodriguez.

 Obama Attacks the First Amendment

The opposition to President Obama’s Contraceptive Mandate for religious hospitals and clinics is based on two fundamental points: personal religious belief and the U.S. Constitution.

First, the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution clearly states that the government cannot interfere in religious belief. Religious belief is the most personal and precious aspect of an individual’s personality. How we think makes us what we are. “As a man thinks, so is he.” Our personal and private beliefs are the basis of individual freedoms.

However, the dictators make every effort to control personal thoughts to control people. This is why our Founding Fathers prohibited this in the first amendment to the Constitution, to prevent the government from telling the people what or how to think. But Obama is trying to “fundamentally change America” (his words). He wants a political system where the government limits the freedoms of the people, instead of where the people limit the authority of the government. It is not the government’s business to make any church or any religion change its doctrine and beliefs to fit government policies. The Constitution clearly stops the government from imposing its ideas over any religion.

Second, we believe the real target of the Obama administration’s contraceptives mandate is the U.S. Constitution by using Obama-care as a weapon. We have seen other examples where the Constitution does not matter to the Obama Administration such as ignoring states’ rights. Liberal women’s groups want universal access to birth control but ignore the fact that there are many private nonprofit clinics that can provide such services. Why pick on religious groups? Where is the freedom of choice the liberals always clamor for?

In an effort to “accommodate” (Obama’s own word) the religious anger, the contraceptive mandate was shifted from Catholic employers to insurance companies. Instead of being forced to buy an insurance product that violates their beliefs, religious institutions will be forced to buy an insurance product that contributes to the profits and viability of a company that is federally mandated to violate their beliefs.

Obama wants to implement his liberal policies regardless of the Constitution. He feels the government and the collective should supersede the rights and beliefs of the individual. The mandate clearly impedes the free exercise of religion by requiring religiously affiliated medical centers to provide birth control assistance in spite of their religious belief. If Obama can be successful with this policy mandate, we are on a slippery slope to undermine personal freedoms of every kind.

This mandate must be rescinded completely, and Obama must stop his attack on religion, personal freedoms, and the U. S. Constitution. This is not just a religious issue; it is an American freedom issue.

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