{"id":120,"date":"2009-01-26T17:15:39","date_gmt":"2009-01-26T17:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/01\/shocker-removing-gag-rule-upse.html"},"modified":"2009-01-26T17:15:39","modified_gmt":"2009-01-26T17:15:39","slug":"shocker-removing-gag-rule-upse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/01\/shocker-removing-gag-rule-upse.html","title":{"rendered":"SHOCKER! REMOVING GAG RULE UPSETS VATICAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

I knew you would not be happy, Jay, that President Obama did what he had always said he would do–remove the restriction against even discussing abortion by groups which are engaged in international family planning and receive any tax dollars.  The rule imposed by the Bush Administration was so broad that it prohibited such counseling or referral even with privately raised dollars, much less those government dollars.<\/p>\n

The fact that these funds have been unavailable has had an incalculable negative effect on the health and safety of women all over the world. Combined with U.S. “no condoms” policies and other anti-scientific actions, the Bush Admininistration left a legacy of bad “public health” carnage.  I actually spoke about this last year at the Harvard University School of Public Heatlh and wrote about it in a column<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I also knew that the Roman Cathollic hierarchy in the United States and the Vatican itself <\/a>would not like Obama’s move.  What I found really odd was the language the Vatican used to condemn the action: arrogance. Monsignor Rino Fisichella said Obama had “the arrogance of those, being in power, [who] believe they can decide of life and death”.<\/p>\n

Of course, some of us have been deeply concerned for years about another kind of arrogance: the arrogance of those men with ecclesiastical power who have managed to delegitimatize the moral decision-making power of women in regard to reproductive health.  They have often resided in places like the Vatican and they have often successfully lobbied secular officials around the globe to bend to their theological arguments.<\/p>\n

Barack Obama has stood up to them.  This does not make him “pro-abortion”.  This just makes him the first President in eight years who seems to know that there is a difference between state-imposed religious dogma and the American concept of making ethical choices based on one’s own spiritual and reasonable principles. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I knew you would not be happy, Jay, that President Obama did what he had always said he would do–remove the restriction against even discussing abortion by groups which are engaged in international family planning and receive any tax dollars.  The rule imposed by the Bush Administration was so broad that it prohibited such counseling…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-white-house","tag-vatican-news-gag-rule-barack-obama-international-family-planning"],"yoast_head":"\nSHOCKER! REMOVING GAG RULE UPSETS VATICAN - Lynn v. Sekulow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/01\/shocker-removing-gag-rule-upse.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SHOCKER! REMOVING GAG RULE UPSETS VATICAN - Lynn v. 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Lynn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","caption":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn"},"description":"Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution's religious liberty provisions (www.au.org). In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues. An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}