Protestors speak out against the health care mandate
/ photo by Craig McDowell
SYRACUSE -- Protestors gathered this afternoon to voice their opposition to the government's new health care proposals. They sang "america the Beautiful" and held up signs outside of the Federal Building.
The head of the Syracuse Roman Catholic Diocese made a rare appearance at a rally to speak out against the mandate that employers must provide insurance coverage for birth control. He says this isn't about reproductive rights, but about the government's definition of religious employers as organizations who hire and serve people of their own faith. Bishop Robert Cunningham says, "We would have to ask the people who come to our soup kitchens and food panties if they are Catholic or not, if the children in our schools are Catholic, the patients in our hospitals are Catholic, before we could serve them. That is not who we are."
The federal government has offered to make accommodations, like having insurers pay for birth control instead of religious groups. However, Bishop Cunningham says no accommodations have been made.
The Supreme Court is preparing a ruling on whether the mandate is constitutional.
