From http://www.weeklystandard.com
At a townhall-style campaign event in Ohio on Wednesday, Mitt Romney was asked by a voter about his views on Barack Obama’s “attack on religious freedom.”
Romney replied:
Religious liberty, our first freedom of those enumerated in the Bill of Rights. And the president and his administration said they are going to usurp your religious freedom by demanding that you provide products to your employees, if you’re the Catholic church, that violates your own conscience.
And so whether it’s a Catholic businessperson or the Catholic church itself they’re being told what they have to do that violates their religious conscience. That attack on religious freedom I think is a dangerous and unfortunate precedent.
And I know we’re not all Catholic in this room. Many presumably are. But I feel that we’re all Catholic today. In our battle to preserve religious freedom and tolerance and freedom in this country, it is essential for us to push back against that.
Romney received a 20-second standing ovation.
“Say it again!” yelled a member of the audience as the applause subsided.
“I will say it again,” Romney replied. “That’s one more good reason to get rid of Obamacare. And I’m going to get that done the first day I’m in office.”
After he received another standing ovation, Romney said, “Now, you’d think I’d have started with that. That’s the line I should have started with, right?”
Romney’s remarks on religious liberty begin at the 7-minute mark in this video.
[But there are other things on that video. Listen to the whole thing, right to the end.]
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Meanwhile, for hilarious (however sad) visual commentary on Obama and his insult to American businesses, see this incedible post at SanctePater. Yikes!
Comments on this are welcome. Help this hermit to understand! Hermits vote!
Accompany me, Father George David Byers, S.S.L., S.T.D., as I begin life as a Catholic Priest-Hermit by choice. Holy Souls Hermitage is dedicated to the sanctification of my fellow priests, bishops, deacons & seminarians going through the purgatory of this life or the next. Prayer and sacrifice go up, of course, for both Benedict XVI and the next Successor of Saint Peter. 
The fact that Romney is in for religious freedom makes him better than Obama. All wisdom starts with the fear of God. How blessed it would be for a country to have a President who really understands God. I am not saying Obama is ungodly but his recommendations and interests are to me! Unfortunately am a Ugandan and wont be voting for any of these
That wasn’t the only thing that Romney said on rights. Unfortunately, one thing he said didn’t make that splice.
Romney got a roaring standing ovation, people jumping to their feet when he said that the rights to Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness come from our Creator, not from government.
Yes, Mr. Romney is saying the right things now.
I like to believe in redemption and I like to believe that people can, actually, be converted. I believe that this is the case not only in spiritual matters, but in political matters, as well.
Sadly, Mr. Romney’s conversion is only words right now. He has no past history that shows that those words have been translated into actual actions. His conversion from pro-abortion to pro-life conveniently happened at virtually the same time he made the decision to run for national office as a Republican (where mouthing pro-life words is an absolute necessity). He, to my knowledge, has never reversed his previous positions on the homosexual agenda (where, as MA governor and prior senatorial candidate, he was strongly pro-homosexual).
So we are faced with an interesting dilemma. Think of the old nursery rhyme about Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.
In essence, we have the incumbent, who, by his actions, has clearly demonstrated himself to be in utter enmity with God. His promotion of abortion and homosexuality, not to discuss his actions against the poor and downtrodden (by encouraging their continued dependence and taking economic actions to swell their numbers), have demonstrated that he has no regard for the revelation of God and, in fact, shows his utter distain for mankind. There is an utter moral imperative for his lawful removal from office.
On the other hand, we have a challenger, who, by his past actions, demonstrates no greater alignment with the will of God regarding moral actions in the public sphere. However, he claims to have had a conversion, but one that has absolutely no verification by past actions.
So we have a choice…to vote for definite evil…or to vote for probable evil who claims to have been converted to good. (I recall John 8:44 “…When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”)
What a dilemma…
Uganda: Also, remember that error doesn’t justify. Yikes!
By the way, one other point that illustrates the moral issues involved is shown in this recent AP article: Pentagon: Service members now allowed to wear uniforms in gay pride parades ( http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/pentagon-service-members-allowed-wear-uniforms-gay-pride-parades-article-1.1118053)
Here, is the really a clear distinction between the candidates? We all know Mr. Obama’s attitude toward the subject. But what is Mr Romney’s attitude? You can see his attitude back in 2002from this article ( http://www.wnd.com/2007/09/43669/). He now disavows it (http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/01/09/400619/romney-campaign-disavows-2002-gay-pride-flyers/), but the fact remains that they were produced back then.
Tweedle-Dee vs. Tweedle-Dum.
Mitt Romney may have made many mistakes and choices along the way of his career but I truly believe he continues to prove himself a reasonable man of good will. Although imperfect, as we all are, I truly believe he has the best interests of all citizens at heart, that he continually reexamines and reconsiders his choices and reasoning in the light of faith and natural law what’s in the best interest of all.
[13] And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God, and saying: [14] Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will. [Luke 2:13-14]
Upon reading this, I say we should all begin to pray fervently for Mr. Romney’s full conversion to the truth of Jesus Christ found completely in the Catholic Church. He bears the cross of being a politician which, by our sad history in the 20th century, means that most people who hear him will automatically assume he is lying. Let’s make the effort to call down God’s graces on the man so that his heart is rightly ordered and that he speaks the truth always. May he not run away for fear of the wolves.
Yes, we would all certainly like some proof for his words. But that proof, I think we are realizing, has everything to do with our prayers!
So this election the decision is between the devil we know, and the one we don’t. I can only think that I should vote for the latter and pray for a miracle. Kind of like a person who must choose whether to jump from a burning building without being able to see through the smoke if there is a net below.
I agree with the person who to put it bluntly, its achoise of the lessoer of two evils.Im 80 yrs.old and havent missed a Pres. ellection since Ike,Ididnt vote for him either and it looks like it is my only opption this one.Im waiting for an American Indian catholic to run!
I think this is the first time I am almost impressed. I hesitate
because he begins several sentences with ” And”. In the free editing process, which he was in answering a question off the cuff, the use of “And” at the beginning of the sentence indicates missing information. So, if I could, I’d ask pointed questions to determine what that information is. What thoughts did he filter out and not speak? “And ….”
He says ” I will say it again” and then says something different. Still sounds good. But what is he going to do on day 1? Get rid of Obamacare or the thing he filtered out when he began again with ” and”. He also switched pronouns several times- sometimes he owns the position ” I feel that we’re all Catholic now” (a strong statement) vs. “if your the Catholic Church, that violates your own conscience”. By leaving himself out there he is telling us contraception doesnf violate HIS conscience. Then he says he is Catholic too. So Romney is a Catholic who is OK with contraception yet wants me to beleive he will repeal “that ” on day 1 ?
On all accounts Mr. Romney seems beeter than Obama but still I’m skeptical. I cannot even begin to tell you how fed up and DISGUSTED I became with the sham that is American politics after the last election cycle, so fed up and disgusted that it will literally take a miracle to get me to get off my you know what this November to cast a vote for either of these clowns. Like I said before if it’s actually mortally sinful to not vote I’ll vote but if it is not mortally sinful I think I’ll sleep in and let everyone else go out and make believe their votes really matter when the government/society is already so hostile to religion and both candidates are really no better than two sides of the same coin.
The bottom line is that we have lost the culture war in this country. We cannot win by the ballot box and we can’t win in the courts, especially when we really have no one on our side in government or in legal matters. We have to play the game by the rules our enemies set for us on their playing field with a team they hand pick for us. Much prayer, civil disobedience and the witness of giving our lives for our Faith if called to do so is the only thing really left to us in this darkening age. All we can do is to be Catholic all the time be it in Church, at school, at work or wherever else we find ourselves. We can’t end up buying into the secularist idea that we can be Catholic as long as it doesn’t get in the way of “business as usual” in the outside culture.
Justin, I think we can still vote, trusting in God to do all things, but working toward that end with the charity of voting against someone. Not voting makes Obamacare that much more viable. Voting against Obama can buy time. Yes, the Lord is the Lord of History, BUT He wants to use us in that history!