Written by Don Byrd
This CNN headline – “Republicans take detour from economic message at faith forum” – suggests that the religious freedom accusations aimed at President Obama during yesterday’s candidate forum were a departure from campaign season norms. In fact, it seems like we have heard lots of this the last few months:
Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich described the 2012 contest as pivotal, and the Obama administration as antithetical to religious freedom at an event held by the Wisconsin Faith & Freedom Coalition.
They criticized the health care reform law proposed by President Obama as an assault on religious liberty, and invoked the Declaration of Independence’s affirmation of “self-evident” truths and that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
“I believe they chose in those few words and in those principles a vision for America that would make us unique and exceptional in the world,” Romney said of the Declaration signers. “Those rights and what’s associated with them, I believe, are what made America what we are. And today those rights are under attack by this administration which is one more reason we have tot to replace this administration.”
