HR 3, HR 358, HR 361, HR 1179, H.CON.RES.25, HR 875

Dear Representative Fitzpatrick,

Thank you for your support of pro life legislation, championed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:

• 
  
  The USCCB urged support for the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. Thank you for voting for HR 3.


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  The USCCB urged support for the Protect Life Act. Thank you for voting for HR 358.


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  The USCCB urged support for the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act ("Passage of ANDA is urgently needed to protect the civil rights of health professionals and other health care entities. This bill reaffirms a basic principle: No health care entity should be forced by government to perform or participate in abortions.") Thank you for co-sponsoring HR 361.


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  The USCCB urged support for the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. Thank you for co-sponsoring HR 1179.

With regard to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, chairman of the USCCB's Subcommittee for the Promotion & Defense of Marriage, has stated that

• "DOMA is rational, and its repeal would be unjust....
  
  "Redefining marriage to mean simply an arrangement of consenting adults violates justice because it interferes with basic human rights.
  
  "First, changing the institution of marriage by making it indifferent to the absence of one sex or the other denies that children have the fundamental human right to be cared by both their mother and father. Such revision transforms marriage from a child-centered to an adult-centered status to the detriment of children....
  
  "Second, redefining marriage also threatens the fundamental human right of religious freedom. Those who refuse on moral and religious grounds to accept or accommodate the redefinition of legal marriage are already being wrongly accused of bigotry and hatred, bias and prejudice....
  
  "All persons have a rightful claim to our utmost respect. There is no corresponding duty, however, for society to disregard the meaning of sexual difference and its practical consequences for the common good; to override fundamental rights, such as religious liberty; and to re-define our most basic social institution" (November 2011).

Representative Fitzpatrick, it was a great disappointment that you did NOT co-sponsor of H.CON.RES.25 , "Expressing the sense of Congress with respect to the Obama administration's discontinuing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act."

Representative Fitzpatrick, will you co-sponsor and support H.R.875, the Marriage Protection Act?

Sincerely,