Barack Obama

WASHINGTON – Rick Santorum disregarded Mitt Romney's money-flush campaign in his CPAC 2012 address saying that the presidential race is not about who has the most cash, but about stopping Barack Obama and his growing grip on American freedoms.

Santorum told the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) audience on Friday that he is not concerned about how his campaign's finances measure up to Romney's.

"We're not going to win with money," he said. "We're going to win with contracts, we're going to win with ideas, we're going to win by making Barack Obama and his failed policies the issue in this race." more >>

Religious leaders say the newly announced change to President Obama's controversial health care law mandating contraception coverage does not resolve the underlying issue of the violation of religious liberty.

"They're missing the point when they say this is about contraception," Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski told CNN. "This is about religious freedom. It's a sham to say contraception isn't widely available in this country."

President Obama's remarks on Friday seemed to center around attempting to safeguard religious liberty and making sure that women have a clear pathway to obtain contraceptives. more >>

President Obama announced a compromise on Friday to the controversial contraception mandate in an attempt to appease religious groups that oppose the rule.

Under the new plan, religious organizations such as hospitals and charities will not be required to pay for or provide contraceptive services to employees if they object to it. But women who work for such institutions will still have access to those services directly through the insurance company at no extra cost.

Obama said at a White House press briefing that this new rule would both protect religious liberty and ensure every woman has access to the care she needs. more >>

Lawsuits over the Obama administration's ruling requiring employers to pay for contraception, abortifacients and sterilization in their health coverage, without a broad religious exemption, have already begun. Based upon previous Supreme Court rulings, it is unclear how the courts will rule in these cases, a legal expert told The Christian Post.

Ambassador Douglas Kmiec, professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University School of Law, does not agree with the president's decision, but his analysis of Supreme Court rulings suggests that it is uncertain how courts will decide these cases.

"I would have to tell [President Obama], that my honest answer about the law is that I think it is unclear as to what is required here," Kmiec said, because of the Supreme Court's ruling in Employment Division v. Smith (1990). more >>

In stark contrast to most mainstream Christian leaders, especially those of the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S., a coalition of 22 Christian, Jewish and Muslim institutions has emerged expressing support for President Barack Obama's controversial contraception mandate that affects many faith-based institutions.

Catholics for Choice, Episcopal Divinity School, Jewish Women International, Methodist Federation for Social Action, Muslims for Progressive Values, the Planned Parenthood Clergy Advisory Board, and several others said in a Wednesday statement that the Obama administration was correct in requiring institutions that do not have purely sectarian goals to offer comprehensive preventive health care.

National leaders have the responsibility to "help improve the health of women, their children, and families," the groups wrote in the joint statement. "Hospitals and universities across the religious spectrum have an obligation to assure that individuals' conscience and decisions are respected and that their students and employees have access to this basic health care service. more >>

A former Obama official expressed his disappointment in the Obama administration's decision to mandate coverage of contraceptive, abortifacient and sterilization services without an exemption for all religious institutions morally opposed to using those services.

The contraception mandate is "inconsistent with who Barack Obama is, at least as I see him," Ambassador Douglas Kmiec, professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University School of Law, said in a Tuesday interview with The Christian Post. "I've always admired him for his desire to find common ground among people and his desire to not divide people in any way that can be avoided."

Kmiec, a Catholic, was a Republican and had worked in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, but he supported Obama in 2008. He wrote an editorial about a month before that election arguing that a Catholic can, in good conscience, vote for Obama, because, Obama is a "bridge builder" and someone who seeks to lessen political division in the nation. more >>