Religion, it would seem, has been playing a major role in the Grand Old Tea Party’s (GOTP) primary elections this year. For instance, a lot of the GOTP faithful, unhappy with the slate of candidates vying for the nomination of their party, have been praying daily for another candidate, any other candidate, for their consideration. Sadly, that prayer remains unanswered.
After being ambushed by former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum in caucuses in Colorado, Minnesota and in a non-binding primary in Missouri recently, former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney has been praying for a resurgence of his status as front-runner.
Mitt made the bad move of betting against the American auto workers when he wrote an op-ed piece on Nov. 18, 2008, that stated it would be better if GM, Ford and Chrysler went bankrupt. Because of this, he is in a tight battle in his home state of Michigan. After all, GM and Chrysler have rebounded nicely after getting a federal bailout crafted by President Obama, thereby saving a lot of American manufacturing jobs.
Mitt actually trailed his rival Santorum in Michigan for a bit, but thanks to some heavy spending, this race is now rated a tossup. But should Romney lose in Michigan, the race for the GOTP nomination would be put into turmoil, and that would be an answer to one of President Obama’s prayers.
The whole of the slate of GOTP candidates has taken up the cause of the Catholic Church, which runs some 12.7 percent of the nation’s hospitals. Because it is an employer, it was required by the Obama administration to provide access to contraceptives to its female employees through their health care coverage.
The Catholic Church, which looks on contraceptives unfavorably, immediately blasted the Obama administration for interfering in its religious liberty, despite the fact that 88% of Catholic women use contraceptives. It doesn’t mind providing Viagra for its male employees. It just doesn’t want to provide for any unintended consequences of these drugs.
Thankfully, the Obama administration answered the Church’s prayer by putting the onus of providing contraceptives to its female employees on the insurance companies, thereby allowing these women a solution to healthcare issues such as ovarian cysts that can be cured by the use of birth control pills.
One more religious conundrum has hit the Romney campaign, as if it didn’t have enough trouble. It turns out that the Mormon Church has been baptizing Jews posthumously by proxy and it doesn’t set well with one Elie Wiesel. And he has asked Mitt Romney to tell the Mormon Church to stop this practice.
It turns out that not only is the Mormon Church continuing to posthumously baptize those of the Jewish faith by proxy in violation of an agreement reached with Jewish leaders in 1995, but Elie Wiesel himself has been identified as being eligible for this practice after his death, even though he has made it clear he doesn’t want to be covered by this afterlife insurance offered by the Latter Day Saints. It would appear that Wiesel considers being baptized by proxy a violation of his religious liberty.
Mitt spoke in favor of the Catholic Church when it insisted its moral authority was being taken away by the Obama administration’s rule that required it to provide contraceptives as a part of its healthcare. Will he now speak up Wiesel as well?
testing one, two, three.
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