Rick Santorum, United States Senator from Pennsylvania In office January 3, 1995 – January 3, 2007
Pat Toomey, United States Senator from Pennsylvania, Assumed office January 3, 2011 (He replaced Arlen Specter)
Arlen Specter, United States Senator from Pennsylvania In office January 3, 1981 – January 3, 2011

Watchwoman: That the U.S. Supreme Court killed the White House’s effort to control church leaders dictating who they would be forced to hire and not be allowed to fire including so do mites and what nots,  is great news. Now for some background on how the Supreme Court managed to kill the effort by the evildoers to force churches to hire objectionable people.  Dating back a few years ago on how this Supreme Court got Chief Justice Alito and Judge Clarence Thomas approved is important because they are the two who managed to kill this evil legislation.  Without their votes, this evil law would be the law of the land, that churches could be dictated to hire all the worst of the objectionables regardless of how widely opposed they were to their church’s beliefs.  At the time, the then Senator Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania backed Senator Arlen Specter, the incumbent US Senator, at the desire of then President George W. Bush II.  Senator Arlen Specter was a flaming liberal Republican and Pat Toomey, the challenger, was a good man, a religious conservative running as a Republican, opposing Specter for reelection. I don’t think any truly conservative religious organization didn’t approve Pat Toomey while loathing Arlen Specter’s liberal voting record.  Many of us were very upset with Santorum at the time for supporting Arlen Specter. Here is why Santorum did what he did, even beyond the idea that his boss, President Bush told him to, and that’s not easy to overcome in politics.  Disregard that.  Here is the main point.  Arlen Specter blackmailed the Republicans. Here is how he did it.  Specter was the head of the Judiciary Committee and Specter had the power in his grasp to see to it who got appointed to the Supreme Court and who didn’t.  Specter said if the Republican Administration, including President Bush, backed him, he would see to it that Alito and Thomas got approved; otherwise, he’d make sure they didn’t. So Santorum looked at it this way, 6 years of Specter as added onto his incumbency or 60 years of flaming liberals on the Supreme Court appointed to lifetime positions.  Rick Santorum chose the better of the two choices he had.  Back Specter’s reelection and gain two very important seats on the U.S. Supreme Court for the next theoretical 60 years.  6 years vs. 60 years.  Santorum’s decision back then has now effected this outcome of this important decision of the Supreme Court to  kill the effort to control church leaders, dictating who they can and cannot hire or fire.  This decision would not have gone in the church’s favor if Santorum had not backed Specter and Specter had torpedoed these two conservative men, Alito and Thomas, from being appointed to the Supreme Court.  So that’s why I can forgive Rick Santorum for what he did that angered me so grossly at the time. The net result is that we have gotten rid of Arlen Specter, plus we have two conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court, and 6 years later, we finally got Pat Toomey as a U.S. Senator in PA.  ▬  Donna Calvin

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Wednesday the United States Supreme Court delivered a knockout blow to the White House in the cause of religious liberty.

by Joel McDurmon on Jan 12, 2012

Fox News reports,

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a unanimous court swatted away the government’s claim that the Lutheran Church did not have the right to fire a “minister of religion” who, after six years of Lutheran religious training had been commissioned as a minister, upon election by her congregation.

The fired minister — who also taught secular subjects — claimed discrimination in employment. The Obama administration, always looking for opportunities to undermine the bedrock of First Amendment religious liberty, eagerly agreed.

There was just one big problem standing in the way of the government’s plan: the U.S. Constitution. For a long time American courts have recognized the existence of a “ministerial exemption” which keeps government’s hands off the employment relationship between a religious institution and its ministers or clergy.

Here, in this case, the Department of Justice had the nerve to not only challenge the exemption’s application but also its very existence.

But, Chief Justice Roberts pushed back hard, telling the government essentially to butt out:

“Requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs. By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the free exercise clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments. According the state the power to determine which individuals will minister to the faithful also violates the establishment clause, which prohibits government involvement in such ecclesiastical decisions.”

Source: http://americanvisionnews.com/1187/supreme-court-kills-white-houses-effort-to-control-church-leaders

 

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