Culture Challenge of the Week: Conscience Coerced

The liberal machine known as the Obama administration continues to accuse the Republican Party and conservatives in general of waging a war on women. Its a nonsense claim, and women arent buying it.

It is, however, a convenient smoke screen blurring the largest assault on religious freedom in decades.

The controversy swirling around the mandate from the Department of Health and Human Services, which forces religious institutions to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-causing drugs for their employees, escalated this past week.

This time, its the good guys on the offensive.

In 12 courts, 43 Catholic institutions have filed suit against the Obama administration and its agencies, asserting that the contraceptive mandate violates the religious freedom of faith-based institutions.

In a statement explaining why the University of Notre Dame has joined the lawsuits, the universitys president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, put the issue simply: The case is about the freedom of a religious organization to live its mission, and its significance goes well beyond any debate about contraceptives.

Dont miss this point: The free-exercise clause is about living our religious beliefs, not just about how we worship. It protects our ability to integrate our faith into what we say and what we do in the public square, not just within our churches, synagogues or mosques.

The Obama administration long has attempted to recast religious freedom as mere freedom to worship. Why? Because to the left, religion (and Judeo-Christian morality) is sort of like secondhand smoke some people like it, but on the whole, it harms society so it must be banned from public spaces and limited to restricted areas (churches, temples and mosques).

The troublesome First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, then, becomes mere freedom of worship. And so, outside of their houses of worship, religious believers would have no right to free exercise and therefore no right of conscientious objection.

Originally posted here:

HAGELIN: Religious freedom is real issue of mandate