Explosive Video: NY Dem Rep Told at Town Hall that ObamaCare Mandate is “Tyranny” against Religious Freedom

Via Freedom’s Lighthouse:

Video from Buffalo, New York station WGRZ, reporting on a Town Hall Meeting held yesterday, 2/24/12 by Democrat Rep. Kathy Hochul (CD NY-26).

I wonder if she was expecting to be met with so much opposition to her support of the Obama administration’s  contraception mandate.

 New York Democrat Rep. Kathy Hochul (CD-26) is told by a man attending a Town Hall Meeting that Barack Obama’s mandate on religious institutions to violate their religious beliefs is “tyranny” – a “slap in the face” to Catholics in America, and an attack on “Religious Freedom.” Hochul supports Obama’s mandate, and her only response was to say she held a Town Hall somewhere else and the people there were focused on jobs!

The words flowed effortlessly from this righteously indignant man, and she had no response  for him. How do you explain why you favor trampling on religious rights? “We’ll just agree to disagree?”

It’s beyond me why anyone in their right minds would be looking to Democrats for “ways to get people back to work”, at this point. None of their ideas work – they’ve had their chance, and failed miserably.  But it’s funny how the contraception issue was put out there to deflect from Obama’s economic failures, and now this issue has become so toxic for them, they’re trying to shift back to the failing economy.

Nice job, Barry. Like I keep saying, picking a fight with the Catholic Church during an election year was not a smart plan.

More video from the town hall, with citizen after citizen speaking their minds,  here.

UPDATE:

Oh my! NY Democrat Rep. Kathy Hochul Admits at Raucous Town Hall: “Basically, We’re Not Looking to the Constitution” when it Comes to ObamaCare Mandates – Raw Video 2/24/12

I think we can safely consider Rep. Hochul, the ObamaCare contraception mandate’s first casualty. That was a fast two years, wasn’t Congresswoman? Send your complaints to Obama’s genius reelection committee.

SEE ALSO:

Ed Morrissey, Hot Air: Video: Dem Rep booed by constituents over HHS mandate:

A week ago or so, Duane Patterson and I got into a debate on my show over the impact of the HHS mandate on Catholic voters.  Duane worried that Barack Obama had split Catholic voters, but I reminded Duane that the Catholic vote is always split, and usually tilts slightly towards Democrats.  Obama won the Catholic vote by nine points in 2008.  What Obama did was unify Catholics — and not just Catholics, either — in opposition to his arrogance.  Bishops and priests are organizing opposition to this mandate, and this is just one small measure of the result.

Hochul, it should be remembered, is only in office because of Chris Lee’s virtual tomcatting on Internet dating sites.  He resigned when the scandal broke, and Hochul won the special election in an R+6 district one year ago.  It was one of the few rays of sunshine for Democrats midway through Obama’s term, but her chances of winning again seem to be dimming substantially in NY-26.  This is a small measure of the political miscalculation made by Obama and his administration on the mandate, and perhaps a signal to opponents of the mandate in other districts to follow suit.

The Foundry: Thousands More Oppose Obamacare Mandate’s Religious Liberty Violations:

More than 2,500 Christian leaders have signed a letter opposing Obamcare’s anti-conscience mandate. The letter’s release adds to the most recent furor over the rule’s blatant violation of religious liberty and decries the mandate’s coercion of religious employers to subsidize abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization regardless of moral or religious objections to such services.

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Looks like our side is pushing back against the left’s lame attempt to frame the issue as somehow about woman’s rights. It’s nothing of the sort.

On February 27, Heritage will host Women Speak Out: Obamacare Tramples on Religious Liberty. A panel of women will discuss how religious freedom is an early casualty in Obamacare’s collision course with freedom and why protecting religious liberty, specifically, and individual freedom, generally, requires the repeal of Obamacare.

Join us Monday at 2 p.m. (EST) for the event or watch it live online.

Pundette: Dear Nancy: Time to review your catechism:

Oh, Nancy, Nancy, Nancy. What are we going to do with you? You are such a constant source of disinformation on Catholicism:

“I’ve come from an era when (Catholic) women were deprived of receiving absolution if they confessed that they used birth control,” Pelosi complained, “It is good to get it out on the table.”

Oops. I’m not sure where, or how, you got that information. But it’s completely wrong. There is no sin God won’t forgive. But there are a couple of catches. Looks like it’s time to brush up on the sacrament of confession.

KUHNER: Obama’s pseudo-religion:

Mr. Obama has declared war on our Judeo-Christian culture. He understands the economic transformation of America cannot take place without a government-imposed social revolution: Smash religion and the family – the key institutions of civil society – and the restraints upon the federal leviathan are removed. The path is laid for a soft authoritarian nanny state. The president acts as if he is hell-bent on eradicating Christianity from the public square.