Changes to Conscience

When playing 13-dimensional chess on Uranus (h/t taggles), Obama is the player that sits there scratching his head with his middle finger. Then, with the decisiveness of a King, he comes in for the kill: He moves the Pawn. While Obama disciples praise, others (not enough) voice, “The Queen was open. She had a clear path to the Bishop. You could have signed FOCA as promised.”

During a Planned Parenthood Action Fund in July 2007, then campaigner Obama said, “the first thing I’d do, as president, is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing that I’d do.”

Instead, how does Obama really play the game? He moves the pawn and leaves the Queen unprotected, for conscience sakes. During a Friday news cycle in February, in the wee minutes of the Obama presidency, an anonymous official came out of the closet to relay the administrations’ intention to rescind the Bush 11th hour Conscience Clause.

A Health and Human Services official said Friday the administration will publish notice of its intentions early next week, opening a 30-day comment period for advocates, medical groups and the public. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the notice has not been completed.

Perhaps that is really what he meant by signing FOCA as his first law. Although by April, in the prime time press conference marking his 100th day, President Obama relayed that signing the Freedom of Choice Act was not his highest legislative priority. (Indeed, having the ability to play chess on Uranus is out of this world to the rest of us living on planet Earth.)

Obama is doing with conscience what he did with his “radical changes” to Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative. In his grand strategy of equal protection under the law, he added a vital inclusion that organizations have the right to sue for discrimination. The slight of hand to progressives is that he did not rescind the entire Faith-Based Initiative.

In an executive order to be announced on Thursday, Obama does not rescind Bush’s provision to allow faith-based groups to discriminate in their hiring practices, but does provide a legal process for organizations to go through in order to ensure that hiring is legal and non-discriminatory.

His disciples would have you believe that as King of Kings, it’s okay to martyr a few pawns. While the religious right would have you think he is Satan. The pawn he is pawning, female sheep and goats, is our roar. He is going to rescind the 11th hour conscience clause (maybe) back to the Church Amendment (appropriately named) that has existed for 30 years.

Review of the Provider Refusal Rule. HHS has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to rescind the provider refusal rule – a recent regulation that expands the interpretation of existing “conscience clause” statutes that protect the rights of health care professionals to refuse to provide abortion services. The comment period ended on April 9. After a thoughtful and serious review of all the comments, HHS will determine whether to rescind the regulations, modify the proposed rule, or propose an entirely new rule. No matter which option is selected, providers will continue to be protected – as they have been for years – by the existing conscience clause statutes that will remain in place.

As announced earlier in the week by the Ministry of Propaganda (the Knights), Obama is scheduled to meet with the Pope next week. This comes on the astronomical cusp, in conjunction with, the announcement of, his tangent to rescind the 11th hour premeditated presidential unconsciousness of Bush.

This meeting of a couple men of yolk sitting around discussing religious conscience while gossiping about the female body (I don’t know, maybe the topic of reproductive rights will come up) has been scheduled since last November.

Though Barack Obama won’t be announcing his foreign travel plans anytime soon, it’s a good bet that the new U.S. President will meet Pope Benedict XVI sometime next year, perhaps in early July to coincide with the G-8 summit in Italy.

Eight pawns sit on one side of the chessboard, and it is coming into full view (for those willing to apply window cleaner to transparency) that Obama intends to pawn off each and every one of them until he gets what he wants: a win in 2012.

Is he trying to replace the votes of pro-choice women and gays (mass run and run and run on generic Windex at the dollar store lately) with the faith-based voting block? Or is his grand strategy, equal opportunity chess games for all under one big tent? Either answer equals votes.

The man isn’t playing 13-dimensional chess on any planet. He is gaming equal protection under the law by pawning women and gays, and all people of faith, for that matter. He is embedding religion deeper into our state right here on Earth.

Obama is but pawning himself out as Bishop to the Faith-Based voting block as Bush did before him. Bush’s conscience built Mega-Churches on corners adjacent gas stations. Obama’s takes us back to that small little Church, down that dirt road, to the left of that big oak tree, where the choir rejoiced and swayed, until the game of musical chairs stops.

He is promising the religious right equal protection of their conscience, while toying with the physical well-being of women and gays. This is not a game. He is thinking with his middle finger. He is screwing with minds and lives and faith.