The Catholic Campaign for Human Development gives out $8 million to about 250 organizations nationwide annually. But under pressure from conservative Catholics, the Catholic Church has been cutting off aid to organizations that are even slightly connected to an issues that disagrees the church’s teaching.

For example, it cut off thousands of dollars to a small Colorado nonprofit that provides access to health care and other basic services for immigrants because the organization had joined “an immigrant rights coalition that had joined forces with a statewide gay and lesbian advocacy group.” And recently, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement saying that the Catholic Church should have a right to impose its values on fellow citizens “for the common good,” like cutting off funds to groups with which the church disagrees.

Now, it looks like a Baptist organization is doing the same. A Baptist health ministry in Georgia has withdrawn thousands in grant funding to a women’s health clinic because of what health care the clinic offers:

The Women of Worth clinic’s main goal is to provide Pap smears and cervical cancer screenings for women who cannot afford them — it does not provide abortions, said Executive Director Marilyn Ringstaff.

When a representative from the Georgia Baptist Health Care Ministry Foundation called last year during the application process for a $42,000 grant to ask if they were an abortion clinic, a volunteer told them “no,” she said.

But they do offer the morning after pill.

And when an unidentified pastor saw that the Baptist group had awarded WOW the grant he called the Georgia Baptist Health Care Ministry, accusing the local clinic of providing abortions, she alleged.

On Tuesday, Ringstaff received a letter from Will Bacon, vice president of development for the ministry, officially rescinding the grant offer.

The morning after pill, which prevents ovulation and fertilization to prevent a pregnancy, is in no way the same thing as RU-486, the pill that disrupts an already established pregnancy, and Ringstaff said she explained this to representatives from the Baptist ministry. But the group is still asking for the money to be returned because the clinic clinic provides the medication.

Ringstaff said the funds would have helped staff the clinic, which has been run by volunteers since 2008.

In a town hall this week, Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) conceded that his party’s presumptive presidential nominee’s state health care law is “very similar” to the one enacted by President Obama in 2010.

Cassidy was asked by a constituent in Thibodaux on April 10 whether there was any difference between Mitt Romney’s health care law in Massachusetts and Obamacare. Though Cassidy claimed Romney’s had evolved differently, he conceded that the two were “very similar.” “The fact is that the president plan depends upon that Massachusetts plan as a model,” said the Louisiana Republican:

CONSTITUENT: Is there any difference between the Massachusetts medical care program and Obamacare?

CASSIDY: One of the differences between the Massachusetts medical program and the president’s health care program, the president’s health care program closed its heart and soul to how the Massachusetts program has evolved. Its heart and soul is based on that. In fairness to Governor Romney, he points out that it’s evolved differently than he originally planned. That’s a fair statement. But the fact is that the president plan depends upon that Massachusetts plan as a model. And they’re having all the problems that we can imagine we’re going to have as a country.

CONSTITUENT: Were they very similar?

CASSIDY: Very similar. Very similar.

Watch it:

Indeed, Cassidy is correct that they are quite similar. As ThinkProgress’ Igor Volsky has shown, the two plans are similar in nearly every respect. The White House even consulted Romneycare advisers when they were designing the outlines of Obamacare.

However, Cassidy is mistaken in implying that the Massachusetts plan is riddled with problems. Since it was enacted six years ago, health care costs have gone down as health care access has gone up. Now, nearly all nonelderly adults in Massachusetts have health insurance and access to care when they are sick.

Earlier this week, Medicare Trustee Charles Blahous, who also works for the Koch-funded Mercatus Center, published a study claiming the Affordable Care Act would add at least $340 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade. To produce the number — which contrasts sharply with the findings of the Congressional Budget Office — Blahous thew out the assumption that Congress will fund its entitlement obligations and instead pretended that “when the trust fund reaches its expiration, it would automatically cut benefits.”

But interestingly, Blahous made the exact opposte case to a caller concerned about the longevity of the program during his appearance this morning on Washington Journal:

CALLER: I’m on dialysis and if Medicare is done away with, then I won’t even be able to live because I can’t afford the treatment…I just wish you would rethink it because it helps me when I get dialysis. [...]

BLAHOUS: Well, this is obviously beyond a very compelling story that the caller just gave. This is actually very important to the point of my paper, which is that Medicare finances are a very important part of this whole equation. There is a bipartisan commitment at all times to upholding the solvency of Medicare. Now, one of the effects of the Affordable Care Act, is to extend the solvency…What does it mean for a situation like the callers? What it means is that the measures that the caller has to take in order to keep Medicare solvent are now somewhat relaxed moving forward because we’re showing Medicare to be solvent for eight additional years….So I would just say with respect to the viability of Medicare, you have a bipartisan commitment to upholding that…The caller should remain confident that the Medicare system will be kept solvent as it has for several decades.

Watch it:

In other words, he seems to be saying that once the trust funds run out, Congress will continue the spending that keeps the relevant programs going because our society has a demonstrated commitment to maintaining the social safety net for retirement, health care, and so forth. That honest answer comes from Blahous the Medicare trustee, not Blahous the Koch-funded analyst. As he himself admitted, “I certainly didn’t do [the study] wearing my hat as a Trustee.”

Like any state legislature dealing with 8 percent unemployment and thousands of its residents facing disenfranchisement, the Tennessee Senate is targeting the menace of underage hand-holding.

Last week, the Senate passed SB 3310, a bill to update the state’s abstinence-based sex education curriculum to define holding hands and kissing as “gateway sexual activities.” Just one senator voted against the legislation; 28 voted in favor.

Since the bill specifically bans teachers from “demonstrating gateway sexual activity”, educators would be prohibited from even demonstrating what hand-holding is. Breaking these laws could result in a lawsuit, as Hunter from Daily Kos notes:

If your teacher teaches you anything about sex that isn’t specifically on the approved curriculum, like demonstrating “holding hands” for the class instead of quietly tsking about the dangers it poses, they can be sued.

Still, this anti-hand-holding push may only be the second-worst bill passed in Tennessee this month. Nearly a century after the Volunteer State played host to the Scopes Monkey Trial, the legislature has now enacted a new law allowing educators to teach creationism alongside evolution.