The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing today on Barack Obama’s unprecedented attack on religious freedom. Democrats invited the notorious Christian-hater Barry Lynn to represent them. Then they withdrew his invitation. And, then they stormed out of the committee hearing hoping to deflect all of the media’s attention away from Barack Obama’s assault on religious organizations.
Think Progress predictably reported that the Republicans would not allow any females on the panel. Not true. Rep. Darrell Issa (R_CA) the committee’s chairman explained to Greta Van Susteren On The Record tonight that the minority party historically is allowed one panelist at a typical hearing. The democrats picked Christian-hater Barry Lynn. Then they switched and chose a young woman to come in and talk about birth control. That was not the topic of the hearing so Issa told democrats they could not bring her in to represent them. Then they walked out. It was all planned.
Of course, the state-run media will never report these important facts.
After the hearing started democrats still tried to disrupt the proceedings and turn it into a sideshow. They were determined to hide from the American people their disdain for religious freedom.
The Huffington Post reported
hree Democrats walked out of a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing on religious liberty and the birth control rule on Thursday to protest Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) refusal to allow a progressive woman to testify in favor of the Obama administration’s contraception rule. The morning panel at the hearing consisted exclusively of men from conservative religious organizations.
“What I want to know is, where are the women?” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) asked Issa before walking out of the hearing after the first panel. “I look at this panel, and I don’t see one single individual representing the tens of millions of women across the country who want and need insurance coverage for basic preventative health care services, including family planning. Where are the women?”
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), told reporters in the hallway outside the hearing that she marched out because it was being conducted like an “autocratic regime.” The other members who left were Maloney and Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.).
There are 10 witnesses testifying at Thursday’s hearing. None of those individuals — listed as testifying prior to hearing — is in favor of the Obama administration’s birth control rule, and few are women.
Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, was listed as a witness for the hearing, but Simon Brown, a spokesman for Americans United, told The Huffington Post that Lynn will not be testifying. (He will, however, be submitting written testimony to the committee.)