This is the un-cut, un-edited version of Ron Brown's rally speech. This rally was held Friday June 8, 2012 at the Denny Federal Building in Lincoln, Nebraska. A crowd of 1000 people of multiple faiths came to voice their protest to the coercive HHS mandate that forces faith organizations to pay for contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs. What is the significance of the HHS Mandate? In January, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a mandate requiring all employer health plans to include free contraceptives,sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs, regardless of any moral or religious objections. Although houses of worship are exempted, religious institutions such as schools, hospitals, and social service agencies are not. Businesses owned by people of faith are also not exempted. For Catholic institutions this means being forced by the federal government to choose between closing their doors and providing services that directly contradict Church teaching. The HHS Mandate is an unprecedented assault on religious freedom and must be opposed! Fortnight for Freedom. The fourteen days from June 21—the vigil of the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More—to July 4, Independence Day, are dedicated to this "fortnight for freedom"—a great hymn of prayer for our country. Our liturgical calendar celebrates a series of great martyrs who remained faithful in the face of persecution by political power—St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, St. John the Baptist, SS. Peter afortnight-for-freedom-montagend Paul, and the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome. Culminating on Independence Day, this special period of prayer, study, catechesis, and public action will emphasize both our Christian and American heritage of liberty. Dioceses and parishes around the country have scheduled special events that support a great national campaign of teaching and witness for religious liberty.

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