(CNSNews.com) - In an event held at a private home in Los Angeles on Saturday, President Barack Obama said that America must make a “fundamental decision” about its values.
The president went on to cite as an example of what he meant the Supreme Court’s decision declaring same-sex marriage a “right”--which he described as "one of the proudest things that we've been able to achieve during the course of my presidency."
Obama also said America’s greatness would be measured by how we treat "the vulnerable and the infirm and our aged."
The president favors legalized abortion of unborn babies up to the moment of birth and as a state senator in Illinois opposed legislation that would have defined a born baby who survived an abortion as a “person,” “human being,” “child” and “individual” under Illinois law.
More recently Obama threatened to veto legislation to fund the federal government—and thus shut the government down—if the legislation included language that prohibited federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood, which harvests tissue from aborted babies, said in its most recent annual report that it aborted 327,653 babies in fiscal 2013 and that it got $528.4 million in “government health services grants and reimbursements” in the year that ended on June 30, 2014.
The Obama administration is also preparing to take the Little Sisters of the Poor to the Supreme Court because the Little Sisters will not participate in the implemenation of an Obamacare regulation that requires virtually all health-care plans to cover sterilizations, contraceptives, and abortion-inducing drugs and devices. The Little Sisters, an order of Catholic nuns that operates nursing homes for the elderly poor, have argued repeatedly in federal court that it would violate their Catholic faith to obey the administration's sterilization-contraception-abortiacient regulation.
When Pope Francis was in Washington, D.C. last month he visited one of the Little Sister's nursing homes to show solidarity with them in their fight to preserve their religious freedom.
Obama said at the Saturday event: “But part of it also has to do with the fact that there is a fundamental decision we have to make as a country in terms of our values--what do we believe, what do we care about."
“I believe that this country works best not when we're only thinking about ourselves but when we're thinking about others,” he said.
“I believe that America is best when we treat everybody with fairness and respect, not just on the basis of whether it's making sure that we're not discriminating because of race or gender, but also that we're not discriminating against somebody because of who they love,” Obama said. “And one of the proudest things that we've been able to achieve during the course of my presidency is marriage equality is now the law in all 50 states. Not just one or two or three or five, but everywhere.”
Obama lauded the people at the fundraiser for their commitment to “justice.”
“So the reason you're here is because you believe that everybody should have a fair shot,” said Obama. “You believe in justice; you believe in equality; you believe in opportunity; you believe in diplomacy. You believe that America’s greatness is measured not just by our skyscrapers and our GDP and how many billionaires we have, but also how do we treat the vulnerable and the infirm and our aged, and our poor and our hungry.”