Written by Don Byrd
There are at least some who remain unsatisfied by the White House’s announcement that health reform laws will not require religious organizations like schools and hospitals to provide contraception coverage as a part of insurance plans for employees after all. Most of those folks though seem to be either running for President or actively engaged in a lawsuit over the coverage mandate.
Campaigning at the CPAC conference, former Senator and GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum suggested the President’s policies toward religion could lead to some kind of violent revolution.
“When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is the government that gives you rights, what’s left are no unalienable rights, what’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that, but if we follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.”
Wow.
I’m glad the White House adjusted policy in favor of religious accommodation, but let’s be real here. This controversy was about the breadth of an exemption, not an assault on religious freedom.
Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich says the policy shows the President intends to “wage war” on the Catholic Church if he is reelected.
The Becket Fund – which has filed suit over the policy – also does not approve.
For the most part, though, reaction has been positive, and for good reason. A majority of Catholicsapprove of the new policy. Washington Post opinion writer E.J. Dionne, a leading critic of the Administration’s policy initially, writes that the change “is a welcome step away from a religious battle that neither he nor the country needed.”
I think Dionne says it well, as did the BJC – this is a “positive step.” Equally important though – given the level of invective coming from detractors – is a little perspective. This was a very public spat about the scope of a legislative exemption. Important? Yes, as all such details are. An attack on the First Amendment? Hardly.
