In a conference call on Sunday, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan warned tens of thousands of Evangelical Christians that President Barack Obama would jeopardize "Judeo-Christian, Western civilization values" if he is re-elected.
Ryan said Obama's vision is "a path that grows government, restricts freedom and liberty and compromises those values--those Judeo-Christian, Western civilization values that made us a great and exceptional nation in the first place," ABC Newsreports.
But even members of Ryan's own Roman Catholic faith have objected to his criticism of Obamacare, and Sarah Posner, senior editor at Religion Dispatches, wrote today that Ryan's comments "are standard religious right talking points, and nothing new."
Ryan spoke to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a group founded by conservative Christian strategist Ralph Reed, a former executive director of the Christian Coalition.
"It's a dangerous path," Ryan said of Obama's policies, according to The New York Times. "It's a path that grows government, restricts freedom and liberty and compromises those values, those Judeo-Christian, Western civilization values that made us such a great and exceptional nation in the first place."
But Sister Simone Campbell, leader of "Nuns on the Bus," a group of nuns who lobbies Congress for economic justice, wrote in Monday's Washington Post that it was Ryan's proposed budget to "slash funding for social programs for families at the economic margins" that prompted them to undertake their capaign.
"It's Hail Mary time for the underpriviledged," Campbell wrote. "If ever there was a time when low-income families and their advocates need to stand up and speak out it's now."
Ryan continued his criticism of Obamacare, referring to a requirement that hospitals and other employers affiliated with religious groups to provide insurance for contraception.
"We should not have to sue the federal government to keep our constitutional freedoms," Ryan said, referring to the Catholic Church's lawsuit over the mandate. "Imagine what he would do if he actually got reelected. It just puts a chill down my spine."
"Downfall of civilization because of contraception coverage?" wrote Posner. "It's a losing argument, even among Ryan's fellow Catholics ... Ryan's not talking faith or religion here; he's motivating voters by trying to make them panic--the religious right's electionpocalypse."
Ryan's call comes only days after Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign paid for "robo-calls" to Christian voters warning that "we can't underestimate the threat Barack Obama poses to our faith, our values, our freedom," The Huffington Postreports.
