Tea party groups and Republican politicians rallied outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday, urging that the justices declare President Barack Obama's health care reform law unconstitutional.
Group leaders led chants of "Constitution, yes. Socialism, no" and "Real women buy their own birth control" while waiting for speakers to come to the podium.
"Obamacare is a cancer in our government and we're going to rip it out!" Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin told the crowd.
Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed declared that "Obamacare is a dagger aimed at the heart of religious freedom."
"From the taxpayer funding of abortion that is allowed under this legislation that has been extensively documented by the National Right to Life Committee, to the rationing of care by the Independent Payment Advisory Board that would lead to the sequestering across the board of funds under Medicare and ration care to seniors, to the elderly, to the infirmed and to the disabled, to the Obamacare mandate on religious charities that would force them to fund health care services that violates their conscience and that offends their morality and which undermines the teaching of their faith," Reed explained.
In contrast to Reed's claims, proponents of the Affordable Care Act argue that it prohibits federal funds from being used for abortions with the exception of certain cases of rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother as was already permitted by the Hyde Amendment.
Former Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann proclaimed that "This is the day that we have been waiting for!"
"We have not waved the white flag of surrender on socialized medicine!" the Minnesota congresswoman yelled to the crowd. "This is one of the most important, consequential decisions that will ever come before this court. ... We believe that the Constitution means something!"
"If they can tell you, you shall buy health insurance then they can tell you, you must buy a dishwasher," Rep. Steve King (R-IA) warned. "Or you must buy a certain kind of health food, that you can no longer use your light bulbs or eat nice, good, juicy, grade 'A' choice beef anymore. I want the nanny state out of my life!"
President Ronald Reagan's former Solicitor General Charles Fried has said that the conservative argument that the heath care reform law would eventually allow the government to force people to eat broccoli was “totally bogus.”
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) told the story of a woman in England who had breast cancer and "died because she had government health care."
"We've seen what government health care does to women's health!" he exclaimed. "You're not going to have your privacy rights anymore because the government will have everybody's health care records. Under Obamacare, the federal government knows every single secret about every person's private health. You want the people that control the IRS, the people that use the IRS to also know your deepest private secrets?"
The president of a group called American Commitment acknowledged the pro-health care supporters at the event, who reportedly outnumbered tea party supporters.
"Let's talk about the chants we are hearing!" he shouted. "Let's do a chant that they will all join in because they are too dopey to know not to. We are the 99 percent! We are the 99 percent!"
"Let me tell you what, if you useful idiots love Obamacare so much, you can have it!" he added. "As for the rest of us, we'll take freedom and the United States Constitution."
As the event was wrapping up, a speaker led the group in a final chant of "Obamacare is doom!"
Later after the court heard arguments on the Affordable Care Act's individual health care mandate, many experts noted that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy skepticism signaled that the provision was likely to be struck down.
