We live streamed the Religious Liberty Rally and Debate at the State Capitol of Connecticut in Hartford today. It was a rally that was announced by FIC on short notice due to the unprecedented onslaught of anti-family legislation introduced by the Judicial Committee in the last few weeks, so the crowds were low, but even still there were over 125 people on this cold, cloudy, spring weekday. The talks were very inspirational with Peter Wolfgang of FIC, Sen Michael McLachlan, Rep. Bruce Morris, and Rev. Eric Thompson. After the rally there was a well attended debate held by the Federalist Society between Prof. Susan Schmeiser/UConn Law and Prof. Robin Wilson/Washington & Lee Law at the Capitol Building. Although the debate was not very stimulating since both debaters were largely in agreement, they did discuss the very timely issues of how to apply the Kerrigan Supreme Court Case that gave CT same-sex marriage. A very informative Day.

Listen to Peter Wolfgang of the Family Institute of CT give his synopsis of today’s events. (We are still working on improving the quality of the recording while doing live streaming, so bear with us. The audio suffered some bad distortion at first but it gets a bit better latter in the video.)

We will post some links to the other videos soon.

Ave Maria!

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Variety #77 – Peter Wolfgang  ( 33min) >>> Play

Ave Maria!

Peter Wolfgang, Executive Director of the Family Institute of Connecticut (FIC), gives a talk at the Knights of Columbus Council #2087 in North Grosvenordale, CT for their fund-raising event to benefit FIC. He relates the current atmosphere of anti-religious bigotry prevailing in politics with that in the time of Fr. McGivney in New Haven, CT in late 1800’s that prompted him to start the Knights of Columbus. He especially mentions the grossly Anti-Catholic bill SB-1098 introduced in the CT  Legislature in 2009 and the recent ACLU attack on FIC, a local Baptist Church in Bloomfield and a high school in Enfield, CT which you can read about here. Peter points out that the irrationality of these attacks suggest a vindictive payback to Catholics and Baptist for joining ranks with FIC to successfully stop gay marriage in the CT legislature.

Ave Maria!

Audio (MP3)

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Ave Maria!

We will be going to the New Haven Green for the FIC Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally against the HSS contraception mandate on Friday, June 8th at 12 noon. We will be reporting on the event. Hope to see some of our local viewers there.

From FIC:

Bishop Rosazza to Speak at June 8th Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally!

Hartford Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus Peter Rosazza has just told the Family Institute of Connecticut that he will speak at the June 8th Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally! The Rally will be held on Friday, June 8th at 12:00 noon on the New Haven Green (corner of Church and Chapel Streets). Please arrive early in order to find parking.

And please do attend the Rally and forward this message to all your friends and ask them to attend! We need as big a turnout as possible for this event. 

You know why this Rally is necessary! Earlier this year, the Health and Human Services Department announced that employers, including religious institutions, will be forced to pay for and provide abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilizations, even it violates their conscience.

You understand the threat! If we lose this battle, we lose our First Amendment right to free exercise of our religious beliefs. FIC has never been this involved in a federal issue before, but given the dire nature of the threat and FIC’s role in saving religious liberty after same-sex “marriage” was imposed on Connecticut, we had no choice.

You know that FIC sprung into action! Leslie Wolfgang published a Hartford Courant op-ed exposing the falsehood of an “accommodation,” Peter Wolfgang spoke at a Tea Party rally, FIC co-hosted a second religious freedom rally that drew 615 people to Hartford (see here and here) and we let the public know that a pro-abortion rally was a failure.

What you may not know: Peter Wolfgang has been on a speaking tour in churches throughout Connecticut. In the last two months Peter spoke at St. Mary’s Church in Norwalk, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Meriden, St. Joseph Church in Poquonock, St. Paul’s Church in Glastonbury, St. Pius X Church in Wolcott and St. Mary Star of the Sea Church in Unionville. Peter will speak at four more churches, both Catholic and Protestant, in the next several weeks.

This is FIC’s closest collaboration with the Catholic Church in years. The Church understands that it is being targeted by these mandates and that the mandates threaten the religious freedom of ALL of us, no matter what our denomination. When Connecticut’s Catholics, Protestants and Jews all come together for a common cause, like the defense of religious liberty, you can be certain that the Family Institute of Connecticut is right there helping to make it happen.

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Incredibly, Andrew McDonald, who introduced his outrageously unconstitutional and anti-Catholic bill SB1098 in Connecticut, has been nominated for a seat on the Connecticut Supreme Court and will have his hearing on Monday and the legislative confirmation vote on Wednesday. SB1098 was the bill specifically targeted at Connecticut Catholics that directly intruded on the rights of the bishops and pastors to lead their congregations, a blatant infringement on the constitutional right to religious liberty. You would think that someone who has displayed such grave difficulty separating his ideology from his job as a state senator and specifically failing to see how unconstitutional his bill was, would be the last person that Gov. Malloy would want as a judge of what is constitutional and what is not. This is especially so in a day of such sharp polarization. Surely a less controversial appointment could be found.

See the FIC Action page to see what is being done about this.

From Jessica Hill AP MSNBC – Several thousand protesters showed up at the state capitol in Hartford even after the bill was withdrawn.

From Wikipedia:

In March 2009 McDonald and Judiciary committee co-chair Mike Lawlor proposed a bill (SB 1098) to regulate the management of Roman Catholic parishes in Connecticut. The bill, by allowing parishioners to create a lay board to govern a parish, in which board all control over fiscal and administrative matters would be vested, would effectively have removed the Parish Priest and Bishop from their traditional positions of power. The bill was specific to the Catholic Church.. The public hearing on this bill was cancelled when, according to Capital Police, 1,000 supporters entered the Capital to protest. Another 4,200 were present outside the building.[2] Opponents charged the bill would violate the separation of church and state clause in the First Amendment. It would also violate the “Supremacy clause,” and the Fourteenth Amendment barring discriminatory legislation.^[9][10][11]

See what Family Institute of CT is doing to stop this appointment.

Here is an interview with Peter Wolfgang of FIC recorded live by Airmaria.com on the day of the protest, gives an overview.

Talk by Bishop Lori of Bridgeport Diocese (Now Archbishop of Baltimore) on the steps of the State Capitol followed by Carl Anderson Supreme Knight of the Knights of the Columbus.

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