Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
There it is, plain as day, in black and white. The first statement in Amendment I of the Bill of Rights. Hands off religion, lawmakers. So simple, so straightforward, you'd think even Barbara Boxer could understand it.
But no. This is an "anti-women" position, according to Boxer--among other unintentionally hilarious reasons she gave why the Supreme Court should rule in favor of Obamacare and against the religious rights of the plaintiffs.
The objections came from near and far--far left, that is. Sandra Fluke called the cases "potentially catastrophic" in an indignant article only an attorney who dreads buying her own birth control pills could write. Gene Robinson, the gay priest who turned the Episcopal church on its head a decade ago, labels the plaintiffs "bigoted" against "sinners."
Robinson quotes, "Jesus wept." Yes he did, but perhaps not for the reasons Robinson thinks.
This is something I've noticed when debating liberals. They have trouble staying on topic. In this particular argument, they drag in women's rights, poverty, Catholics on birth control, gay rights, and other extraneous issues too numerous to mention. The crux of the case is this simple fact: the owners of the businesses suing the government don't want to kill babies. Their religious beliefs tell them that abortion-inducing contraceptives kill babies. It's wrong. And they don't want to be responsible for funding murder.
In all cases before the Court, the plaintiff businesses provide coverage for numerous other methods of birth control. But not abortion. What's hard here?
What's hard, what's practically impossible for liberals to accept, is that there is no "right" to force people to go against their conscience. There is no "right" to have your personally chosen method of contraception paid for at another's expense. There is no "right" to coerce a differing viewpoint to agree with your own. But there is, since the beginning of this country, a God-given right to free exercise of religion.
There is no "right" to Obamacare defined in our Bill of Rights, but the first right mentioned is religious freedom. So, do people of faith still have the right to free exercise of religion in our country? The Supreme Court's decision will tell us the state of our national soul.
