Dozens of Pro-Lifers Arrested at White House Opposing HHS Mandate

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Over the weekend, two dozen pro-life advocates were arrested at the White House for praying and holding pro-life signs protesting President Obama’s pro-abortion HHS mandate
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In total, 22 pro-lifers gave up their freedoms to make a point about the mandate.
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Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, was one of the pro-life protesters willing to risk arrest to take a stand.
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“For the faith community, we can never be silent or indifferent when it comes to matters of justice, human rights and religious freedom,” he said. “people of principle and faith, we must purpose in our hearts that we will never comply with an unjust or immoral government mandate which would require us to violate our conscience, the teachings of the Scriptures and the historic teachings of the Church.”
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feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifenews/newsfeed/~3/sqOl7xfofao/

I just want to throw my :twocents: into this, and it give me an oppritunity to bring up one of the criticisms of the pro life movement (not the issue). But I feel like the political side of the pro life movement, I’ll leave out names for now, are to quick to be willing to be arrested. They think it makes a statement to people but it really doesn’t, some pro life people will say that is horrible what about free speech but they won’t spend the time to actually try and change free speech laws. Others will say this was a bad idea if they took the time to have a legit protest they could have. Pro choice people will blow it off and have a more negative view of the pro life movement. I could go on and on.

my point is that putting yourself in a situation where you KNOW your going to be arrested is not a good thing. There are instances where I think the arrest is bad, but getting purposly arrested doesn’t work either. There is a reason in this country that we have a legal system why we have congressmen and senators, tell them to change the laws don’t get purposely arrested.

I don’t want to dominate the discussion so I will go ahead and post this.
 
Speaking the truth and getting arrested for it sure worked of Peter and Paul.

Why not now?
 
SpeakInSilence said:
Speaking the truth and getting arrested for it sure worked of Peter and Paul.

Why not now?
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just because it worked for peter and paul doesn’t mean it is going to work for today’s pro life movement.

but think about it is there anyway peter and paul could have preached the truth and not gotten arrested?

is there anyway you can preach the truth and not get arrested in the pro life movement? well yes.

you have to look at the situation you are dealing with and judge is the best way to get our message out is to purposely get arrested. Personally I don’t think so, we live in a country where we are given free speech and if you go through the proper means you are able to use it. But some people out there think that they can just use it when ever they want to but this isn’t true.
 
Peaceful protest can bring publicity to the issue, it sends a message to the White House. This is a very serious issue, millions of people will be forced to abide by a mandate that by providing are putting their souls at risk of sin if Obama is reelected

Priests for Life have vowed civil disobedience over the HHS mandate
 
_Abyssinia said:
Peaceful protest can bring publicity to the issue, it sends a message to the White House. This is a very serious issue, millions of people will be forced to abide by a mandate that by providing are putting their souls at risk of sin if Obama is reelected

Priests for Life have vowed civil disobedience over the HHS mandate
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I don’t disagree peaceful protest can do that but that doesn’t mean that its ok just to show up at the white house without going through the proper means to be able to protest there. We live in a country where we have a right to free speech but you have to do it with the correct means. Now if they unfairly discriminate against us and don’t give it to us then maybe you do what they did.

lastly the priest for life issue you brought up has to do with churches and orginizations refusing to corporate with the government when they try to force them to buy contraceptive coverage. That is different.
 
catholictiger said:
I don’t disagree peaceful protest can do that but that doesn’t mean that its ok just to show up at the white house without going through the proper means to be able to protest there. We live in a country where we have a right to free speech but you have to do it with the correct means. Now if they unfairly discriminate against us and don’t give it to us then maybe you do what they did.

lastly the priest for life issue you brought up has to do with churches and orginizations refusing to corporate with the government when they try to force them to buy contraceptive coverage. That is different.
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It is a form of civil disobedience, just a different type than the pro lifers are doing in front of the white House. Both have a place

Do you think pro lifers would be allowed a permit to be there?
 
catholictiger said:
feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifenews/newsfeed/~3/sqOl7xfofao/

my point is that putting yourself in a situation where you KNOW your going to be arrested is not a good thing. There are instances where I think the arrest is bad, but getting purposly arrested doesn’t work either. There is a reason in this country that we have a legal system why we have congressmen and senators, tell them to change the laws don’t get purposely arrested.
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In most cases you would be right, however not when that prayer takes place on the sidewalk outside the White House. You can stand and take photos, dance, wave your hands, pick your nose or just stand there, however if you kneel down and pray you are breaking the law and face arrest.
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This bit of information taken from the LifeNews.com article posted on this thread was eye opening to me. I had no idea that folks can’t kneel down and pray on the sidewalk outside the White House.
About 20 years ago, my DH and I brought our children to DC for fun/education around cherry blossom time. As we walked away from the white house tour, on the sidewalk, a bird did a really big mess on my head…no joke…had some passerby’s chuckling at me before I even realized the damage.
What I mean is…so what?
 
interestedman said:
Didn’t Paul die in Jail and Peter was crucified upside down? Is that what you call “working out?”
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Perhaps you should direct that question to the 1.2 billion and growing number of Christians in the world?
Go zealously on, good presidents! you will stand higher with the people if you sacrifice the Christians at their wish. Kill us, torture us, condemn us, grind us to dust. Your injustice is the proof that we are innocent.
Therefore God suffers that we suffer like this. For lately, in condemning a Christian woman to the leno [pimp or seducer] rather than to the leo [lion], you confess that a taint on our purity is considered among us something more terrible than any punishment and any death.
Nor does your cruelty, however exquisite, do you any good. It’s just a temptation to us. The more often we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed. (Apology 50)
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  • Tertullian
 
God Bless those who are willing to stand up for our rights! God Bless those who, like Martin Luther King, Jr, were arrested for standing up for what they believe in!

:gopray2::gopray2::gopray::gopray:
 
_Abyssinia said:
It is a form of civil disobedience, just a different type than the pro lifers are doing in front of the white House. Both have a place

Do you think pro lifers would be allowed a permit to be there?
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The point, I think, is that it is not disobeying the law that needs to be changed, but another law that is unrelated regarding permits. Civil disobedience is not good in itself, but only when what is being disobeyed needs to be disobeyed.

Now, of course, if they actually weren’t allowed to get a permit, that’d be different. And if they tried and were denied, then that also makes sense.

But the picture I got (that might be wrong) is that some people decided to hold a protest (which is fine) that to do so legally they would need to get a permit (which is fine) that they did not try to get one (which is not fine if true, and please correct me if not) and so got arrested for not having one (which is unfortunate, but makes sense). So they were not arrested over prolife issues, but over permit issues. Nothing would have changed at all in how they were treated if the had been protesting for the legalization of pot, for example.

Again, if they tried to get a permit, and were denied said permit because they were prolife, then protesting anyway and getting arrested would make sense. In the same way, refusing to comply with the mandate and getting arrested would be ok.

But this not, so far as I can tell (and again, please correct me if I’m wrong) what happened. What happened is that they got arrested not because of the content of what they were saying, but because they ignored an unrelated civil law in doing so.

Edit: the linked article seems to imply that an individual would get arrested for kneeling and praying quietly. That is certainly wrong if true. A person should be able to do this. A couple people together should be able to do this. But requiring permits for groups of appreciable size to protest together is, I think, reasonable. It is possible that the protest was not of the scale that a permit should be required, I do not know. If they were arrested for praying in small groups in a non-disruptive way without permits, that would certainly be unjust.
 
Unless I missed it in the article, just exactly what law did they break? :confused:
 
catholictiger said:
feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifenews/newsfeed/~3/sqOl7xfofao/

I just want to throw my :twocents: into this, and it give me an oppritunity to bring up one of the criticisms of the pro life movement (not the issue). But I feel like the political side of the pro life movement, I’ll leave out names for now, are to quick to be willing to be arrested. They think it makes a statement to people but it really doesn’t, some pro life people will say that is horrible what about free speech but they won’t spend the time to actually try and change free speech laws. Others will say this was a bad idea if they took the time to have a legit protest they could have. Pro choice people will blow it off and have a more negative view of the pro life movement. I could go on and on.

my point is that putting yourself in a situation where you KNOW your going to be arrested is not a good thing. There are instances where I think the arrest is bad, but getting purposly arrested doesn’t work either. There is a reason in this country that we have a legal system why we have congressmen and senators, tell them to change the laws don’t get purposely arrested.

I don’t want to dominate the discussion so I will go ahead and post this.
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This action will probably be on the national news outlets and, therefore, many will hear
about the issue. For a lot of them, this will be the first time they hear about the
HHS Mandate.
If permission had been granted, few if any would even know it happened. It’s only a
mention in Catholic and Christian media. The March for Life has permits in place each
year for some 30 years and more and more come to participate. In the hundreds of
thousands, as a matter of fact. But do you see/read much in the regular media about
it, or anything about the speakers? No!.
 
Iron_Donkey said:
The point, I think, is that it is not disobeying the law that needs to be changed, but another law that is unrelated regarding permits. Civil disobedience is not good in itself, but only when what is being disobeyed needs to be disobeyed.

Now, of course, if they actually weren’t allowed to get a permit, that’d be different. And if they tried and were denied, then that also makes sense.

But the picture I got (that might be wrong) is that some people decided to hold a protest (which is fine) that to do so legally they would need to get a permit (which is fine) that they did not try to get one (which is not fine if true, and please correct me if not) and so got arrested for not having one (which is unfortunate, but makes sense). So they were not arrested over prolife issues, but over permit issues. Nothing would have changed at all in how they were treated if the had been protesting for the legalization of pot, for example.

Again, if they tried to get a permit, and were denied said permit because they were prolife, then protesting anyway and getting arrested would make sense. In the same way, refusing to comply with the mandate and getting arrested would be ok.

But this not, so far as I can tell (and again, please correct me if I’m wrong) what happened. What happened is that they got arrested not because of the content of what they were saying, but because they ignored an unrelated civil law in doing so.
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Do you think the pro lifers would be allowed a permit?
 
The funny thing is that Lafayette Park has protestors every day of the year.
 
TexCatholic4JMJ said:
This action will probably be on the national news outlets and, therefore, many will hear
about the issue. For a lot of them, this will be the first time they hear about the
HHS Mandate.
If permission had been granted, few if any would even know it happened. It’s only a
mention in Catholic and Christian media. The March for Life has permits in place each
year for some 30 years and more and more come to participate. In the hundreds of
thousands, as a matter of fact. But do you see/read much in the regular media about
it, or anything about the speakers? No!.
Click to expand...
Covered by the MSM? Surely you jest. They will cover this just as much as they cover the March for Life.
 
_Abyssinia said:
Do you think the pro lifers would be allowed a permit?
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Yes. I do. Because I won’t assume that the permit issuing agency will be biased until I have seen that they will. But again, if they were denied a permit for unjust reasons and protested anyway and got arrested, I would think they did the right thing.

Even if we know that they would be denied a permit, they should still try to get one in every case. Thus the protest becomes two-fold: pro-life and against discrimination against pro-life people.
 
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