FIC Blog

At noon this past Friday (June 8th) the Family Institute of Connecticut helped gather over 520 people on the New Haven Green for a second Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally. This was one of hundreds of rallies occurring simultaneously in about 150 cities to protest the federal mandate requiring religious institutions to pay for and provide abortion-inducing drugs and other violations of conscience, and it was the only rally in Connecticut.

You can see the magnificent photo album of the rally, 77 pictures sent to FIC by those who attended, on this facebook page. (For those who do not have facebook, these photos will soon be available on FIC Blog.)

You can see Peter Wolfgang’s interview with Channel 3 here and Peter’s speech here.

When the print media ignored the six hundred people who attended the last Religious Freedom rally in Hartford, FIC called them out. This time the media covered us, albeit with some bizarre omissions.

In an otherwise good article the New Haven Register put our numbers at a laughingly inaccurate 200. The Hartford Courant counted double the Register, putting our numbers at 400, though both the first Courant article and the second Courant article avoided any reference to FIC or Peter Wolfgang, even though we organized the Rally and Peter presided over it as master of ceremonies. You can also see the Associated Press article here.

Our two favorite accounts of the New Haven Rally are the National Catholic Register article and the account by David E. Dowd that was published on the official Stand Up for Religious Freedom website.

FIC wishes to thank all those who spoke at the Rally: Catholic Bishop Emeritus Peter Rosazza and Evangelical Bishop Terry Wiles; Fathers Robert Rousseau, Joseph Looney and Greek Melkite Deacon Tom Davis; Nicole Peck of Silent No More; Attorneys Wayne Winsley, Vincent McCarthy and Martha Dean; State Rep. T.R. Rowe and State Senator Michael McLachlan. We also wish to thank Norma Contois and the pro-life ministry at St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, the co-organizers of the rally, and the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, who filmed the whole event and provided a much-improved sound system.

Thanks to FIC, the media is finally covering the growing outrage over the federal attack on our religious liberties. There is a new attack on the state level, also related to Obamacare, that we will be telling you about in the coming days.