A left-wing religious organization is running a public-relations campaign in opposition to major Catholic groups as part of its ongoing efforts to promote President Obama’s health-care law.
The group, Faith in Public Life, circulated a memo, embedded below, to members of the news media on June 7 offering a range of talking points and suggested questions attempting to undercut the wave of Catholic opposition to the anti-conscience mandate being implemented by the Department of Health and Human Services as part of Obamacare.
In the latest showing of the church’s opposition to the law, the Catholic Health Association on Monday rejected HHS’s “compromise” on the mandate and requested more broad exemptions from its requirement that all employers facilitate coverage of contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.
The FPL memo is just the latest effort by the group, whose board includes employees of the Service Employees International Union and the Democratic Party-aligned Center for American Progress, to counter opposition to the president’s health care agenda.
While the Faith in Public Life memo suggests that “this religious liberty campaign is in danger of becoming politicized,” the group has an advocacy arm called the Faith in Public Life Action Fund that appears to have no qualms engaging in politics – it routinely attacks Republican political candidates and policy goals.
FPLAF spent more than $250,000 in 2009 and 2010 promoting the president’s health care reform efforts and defending the law once passed, according to IRS filings. FPLAF also gave significant grant money to other left-wing religious groups such as the labor-aligned Interfaith Workers Justice to promote liberal policy priorities.
Note: this post initially identified FPL as a Catholic group. While the organization’s Catholic Program Director sent the email in question, FPL is not a strictly Catholic organization. This post has been corrected to reflect that fact.
