Through my eyes: When the belly flop becomes a flip-flop

If President Obama was a diver in an NCAA swim meet, he would have just eliminated his chances of winning by making the biggest belly flop in diving history. His new "Obamacare" health package compels organizations to provide free birth control in their insurance policies for female workers, and that has raised the ire of everyone whose religious beliefs prohibit the use of contraceptives.

Among those offended is the Catholic Church. That, of course, is a big voting block. Now, the flip-flopping begins!

The vice president, Joe Biden, happens to be Catholic, and he is promising a huge attempt to "work this all out." Now, the working out of "all this" comes with the statement that the Catholic Church is exempt from this mandate. However, Catholic hospitals and schools and organizations are not. Pretty complex, huh? You can bet that by the time you read this there will be some major backpedaling on this major issue. Why? You guessed it; the president is up for reelection.

Whether this issue bothers you are not, it is just one more step in the government making big strides toward telling citizens of the United States how to live their lives. I have no doubt that this will be well "flip-flopped" by election time, and one only has to look at the way the Super Pac money controversy was handled. President Obama spoke out against it as a candidate; now he has somehow decided it is permissible. His rationale is this: why should he be at a disadvantage when his opponent will be using it?

You and I have often talked about the socialistic slant our nation is taking. The "spread the wealth" idea is to raise the taxes on private businesses who have, by the sweat of their brow, not only secured financial success for themselves but for the thousands of workers for whom they have provided jobs. I am not talking about the huge conglomerates which have been bailed out of disaster by stimulus money - taken from your tax dollars - that is being spent so very freely by this administration. Will all of that money ever be recovered? And, if it is, will it be used to pay off our incredible national debt?

The guarantee of "Freedom of religion'' in our constitution is in peril when the government can tell the Church what to do. Perhaps some of us are so comfortable in our lifestyles that these not-so-subtle changes in government intrusion do not bother you, but they should. Some politicians are now no longer using the term freedom of religion, but "the right to worship as you choose." That is not exactly the same thing. You may worship as you choose individually, but it seems with these latest intrusions, the government wants to tell your religion what to do.

I think we all agree that our Constitution was written to restrain government, not the people it serves. See you at the polls!