Reply to the letter to the Editor Regarding Chris Hassenstab

Those that get the Wabasso Standard, I encourage you to write a response to the letter Christine Hassenstab wrote. Here are the talking points:
1. The main accusation of Ms. Hassenstab's letter seems to be that the Fortnight for Freedom is a violation of conscience and an unwarranted attack, which is ironic as no Catholic is forced to participate in the Fortnight, but the Government is forcing the church and many of her members to violate their conscience by paying (again either directly or indirectly) for contraception, the precipitating cause of the Fortnight.
2. The bishops have taken a stand for religious freedom, because of a desire to protect freedom and conscience, not as a violation. Further violations of Catholic conscience are possible, forcing the Church to change her practices of hiring/firing, sacraments, use of facilities, and much more.
3. Much of what people claim to be the teaching of Vatican II are simply extrapolations of the teachings, but were not part of the documents of the Council.
4. The Bishops are the authentic interpreters of the Second Vatican Council, whose teachings were annunciated by Bishops of the Vatican Council. There is not a campaign to repeal Vatican II, but to put into action its authentic teaching.
5. While Conscience was addressed by Vatican II, it is assumed that conscience must be well-formed. Vatican II did not open the door to all sorts of sin in the guise of following conscience. Put blunt, while one might think that something is alright due to malformed conscience, the truth remains, and the Church must annunciate that truth.
6. The Fortnight for Freedom is not an election year campaign or fear mongering, but a response to the real attack on the religious freedoms of religious institutions by the US Government. The HHS mandate requires Catholics who desire to live in accordance with Church teaching to violate their conscience by providing contraception (and one can assume a future step of providing abortion services). Freedom of religion is not just about freedom to worship, but also freedom to live in accord with the teachings of the faith, and from that is a freedom from supporting (either directly or indirectly) sin.
7. The Nuns on the Bus campaign is not about the HHS Mandate or Obamacare, but is a self-promotion of the Leadership Council of Women Religious, who recently received criticism that their conferenced were filled with dissident speakers and promoted questionable positions in opposition to Church teaching. The same congregation that criticized the LCWR praised religious sisters for their work, by and large. It is not an assault on religious women, but on the leadership council (that the media wrongly claims to represent 80% of all religious sisters in the US but in reality represents the leadership or 80% of religious communities in the US - the LCWR does not speak for the whole of sisters in the United States or the communities represented). The criticism is that in its own documents, there LCWR claims to have moved 'beyond Christ' and the Church and her sacraments.
8. To claim that because Bishops and priests are celibate they are not able to speak on sexuality issues is false. A doctor does not have to actually have a disease to know how to treat it, for example. An authentic sexuality is one that both honors celibacy and natural sexuality and their consequences.
9. The Fortnight for Freedom is not an attack on homosexuals, in anyway, shape, or form.
10. The 'fact' of 10% of the population is homosexual is not correct. It is an overestimation based on Alfred Kinsey's flawed study in which he used a false sampling method.