Tomorrow, February 16, the U.S. House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing addressing the question, "Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?" It starts at 9:30 a.m. in Room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C., but it will be streamed live at this link. Witnesses include Bishop William E. Lori, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee for Religious Liberty; John Garvey, President of Catholic University; and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, Yeshiva University's Director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. The president of Belmont Abbey College, Dr. William Theirfelder, will also testify. Belmont Abbey is one of the religious organizations targeted by the HHS "contraceptives" mandate and is being represented in a federal lawsuit challenging the mandate by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, an organization that has spent millions of dollars in recent decades working to eradicate religious symbols and expression from public life, will be represented at the hearing by its executive director Barry Lynn.

Former Justice Department officials David Rivkin and Ed Whelan explain how the new HHS “contraceptives” regulation violates the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  This is so even if Mr. Obama follows through on the intention he stated on February 10 to shift the mandate to pay for contraceptives, sterilization services, and abortion-causing drugs from employers and employees to their insurers.  The mandate violates the First Amendment's Free Exercise clause and fails to satisfy the "compelling government interest" and "least restrictive means" tests established by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Rivkin and Whelan mention a few of the many "other ways to increase access to contraceptives that intrude far less on the free exercise of religion."

Michael Gerson at the Washington Post responds to Andrew Sullivan's assertion that the Obama-Sebelius "contraceptives" mandate may have been an ingenious political trap that Mr. Obama set for religious conservatives: "Consider the implications of this praise. It means that Obama assaulted the core beliefs of some of his fellow citizens in order to lure them into politically self-destructive behavior." But Gerson does not think the mandate is the creation of "a Machiavellian monster, undeserving of high office."  The decision has resulted in negative political ramifications for the Obama administration from members of the president's own party and from high-profile religious leaders who formerly expressed their admiration or support for him. 

Stanley Carlson-Thies at the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance notes that the Obama-Sebelius HHS Department finalized the offending "contraceptives" mandate rule "without any changes at all" but points out that "after months of resistance, the administration now concedes that it cannot limit its accommodation of religious concerns only to churches." Mr. Obama has promised to expand the religious exemption — probably not before the presidential election — but it is "not encouraging that the administration several times already has insisted that one or another very limited religious freedom accommodation was all that was needed or approporiate."

This story reviews an open letter to President Obama, signed by 61 non-Catholic religious leaders, illustrates why the HHS ruling is offensive not only to Catholics whose ecclesiastical teaching says mandated forms of birth control are immoral, but also to all citizens whose religious freedom is called into question by this interpretation of the Affordable Care Act. 

Michael Sean Winters offers a series of accusations suggesting this HHS ruling is directly opposed to President Obama’s religious-liberty speech at Notre Dame, the Supreme Court’s unanimous Hosanna-Tabor decision, and the fundamental principles of philosophical liberalism.   Winters, a self-described “liberal Democrat,” voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and has supported his presidency.   Recapping the virtues of private religious associations, Winters bluntly chides the President to reverse course and honor historically American views of toleration and religious freedom.

Link to a series of six posts (Jan. 26-30, 2012) by EPPC President Ed Whelan presenting a robust analysis undermining the Obama Administration’s shaky legal justification for the religious-freedom violations mandated by HHS’s August 2011 and January 2012 HHS decisions. The posts review the core protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Supreme Court’s unanimous Hosanna-Tabor ruling, and related decisions from the High Court.  (Ed. note: Ed Whelan’s 45-minute interview on C-SPAN can be viewed here.) 

In explaining the broader context surrounding the HHS ruling, this post by Thomas Messner compiles responses from Catholic bishops and pastors (and cites a National Review column by EPPC’s James Capretta). It also notes that the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has brought federal suits on behalf of Colorado Christian College and Belmont Abbey College challenging and describes the HHS rule’s exemption for religious organizations as employing “the stingiest definition of a ‘religious’ organization to appear in federal law.”

A presidential candidate presents the HHS ruling as a direct offensive against religious liberty and the First Amendment’s protections for individual conscience.  Arguing against the Administration’s move, Gov. Romney cites the Supreme Court’s Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church v. EEOC unanimous decision as a principled opposition to this decision, suggesting the Administration’s 12-month provision for faith-based communities to comply is motivated by election-year politics—and arguing liberal and conservative citizens alike should defend religious freedom against the President’s interpretation.

Peggy Noonan’s summary response to the Obama administration’s HHS mandate is that “the Catholic Church was told this week that its institutions can’t be Catholic anymore.”  Additionally, Noonan reviews the massive grassroots campaign that reached as many as 70% of Catholic congregations on the Sunday following the January 20 ruling.

In a house editorial, USA Today says the Obama Administration “galloped over” the constitutional line that requires “government [to] steer away from meddling in church affairs.”  The editorial rebuts the administration’s three main arguments in support of its “contraceptives” dictate to religious organizations.   However, the editors seem to believe that religious freedoms should be balanced against competing interests.  But such balancing always ends up being conducted by government officials, who should never be granted leave to determine the importance of Americans’ religious interests and beliefs. 

Dr. Richard Land, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, gives voice to the views of his constituents and of members of other faith communities who are “outraged with President Obama’s so-called compromise on his administration’s abortion mandate.” Mr. Obama’s approach to the religious-freedom violations of his mandate reveal a “dangerous presidential blind spot” on First Amendment rights and freedoms. The approach fails to address the coercive effect the rule will have on the hundreds of thousands of members of just one Southern Baptist medical plan provider.

Three Jewish, Evangelical, and Catholic co-authors address why the debate over the HHS mandate is not at root about contraceptives or the Catholic Church but, instead, a fundamental debate about religious liberty. Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, evangelical leader Charles Colson, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl point out how George Washington’s famous 1790 letter to a New York synagogue regarding religious liberty stands in direct contrast to HHS Secretary Sebelius’s claim that the value of religious liberty must be “balanced” against the administration’s policy preferences.

Ed Haislmaier and Jennifer Marshall write at National Review Online: “The Obama administration [on February 10] put into federal law the very [HHS] regulation that drew objections from almost 200 Catholic bishops, some 50 religiously affiliated colleges and universities, 65 North American bishops of Orthodox churches, numerous other Jewish, Evangelical, and Lutheran leaders ... without changing so much as a comma.” The piece includes several links to legal and factual sources.

Jonathan Last at the Weekly Standard reviews the Catholic Church’s response and the responses of liberal and conservative Catholic laity to the January 20 HHS rule mandating coverage of “contraceptives.” He comments on the rule's effects on Catholic and non-Catholic employees as well as on hospitals, universities, and relief and development organizations that serve society in ways President Obama says he finds laudable.

It used to be common knowledge that America's first national Thanksgiving Day was established by President George Washington in 1789. While a few modern critics might be rankled by, as Washington's proclamation puts it, an official "day of public thanksgiving and prayer," for most Americans, the first national Thanksgiving Day stands as an enduring precedent reminding us of Washington's wise vision for American religious freedom.

Both chambers of Congress requested that Washington proclaim an official day to thank "Almighty God" for allowing the American people to create a republican "form of government for their safety and happiness."

The vast majority of Americans still believe that was a good decision. In a survey conducted earlier this month, respondents were asked whether the federal government did the right thing when it declared the first national Thanksgiving Day. They were told that the government recommended that Americans engage in thanksgiving and prayer to "acknowledge with grateful hearts" the blessings of Almighty God.

Eighty-four percent said the federal government did the right thing. And when told that it was President Washington who was the source of this proclamation, 92% of Americans — 8 percentage points higher — agreed that Washington did the right thing.

This overwhelming support for such a public act of religion might be galling to those activists who have subjected America to over six decades of acrimonious litigation in an attempt to expunge all evidence of religion from public life.

These activists would have us believe that every expression of religious sentiment or reverence for God in the public square is a step on an irreversible path to theocratic control of government by the religious at the expense of the non-religious.

President Washington knew better. His vision for the proper role for religion in public life and for church-state relations was both realistic and balanced.

He recognized that government should not be in the business of building houses of worship or of saving souls. Although he was a longtime leader of his Virginia parish of the Church of England— a state-established church in the old country — he knew that our new nation should never establish a church. The First Amendment, drafted and ratified during Washington's presidency, states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

But Washington also knew that Americans were a religious people. He knew that the Constitution was crafted to foster and protect freedoms, including a robust right to public expression of religious sentiments — even if that expression might offend some segments of the population.

In fact, the protection of religious freedom was so important to Washington that he stated that "the establishment of civil and religious liberty" had been "the motive that induced me to the field of battle" as commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War.

At an event in Washington, D.C., last week launching a new program to protect American religious freedom, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., aptly characterized Washington's motivation: "Washington understood that religious liberty is a fundamental human right and, in the American context, the premise and predecessor for all the other rights that our founding documents and the law give us."

As military commander, Washington demonstrated his commitment to this fundamental right by repeatedly imploring the Continental Congress to provide enough military chaplains, of diverse religious views, to meet the needs of his many soldiers. As president, he ensured that members of Congress had two chaplains of different religious backgrounds to minister to their spiritual needs.

Both practices endure to this day. Contrary to the overwrought fears and rhetoric of strict separationists, neither providing chaplains, proclaiming an official day of prayer and thanksgiving, nor anything else Washington did has caused any movement toward America's establishing a national church, much less a theocracy.

Looking at Washington's example, it is striking to see how he combined in one man two seemingly contrary characteristics. First, he routinely, publicly, and unabashedly lauded the benefits of religion in the life of our nation. At the same time, however, he fastidiously avoided promoting one religion or sect over another.

Further, the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia that Washington presided over decided that no religious qualifications — "no religious test" — may ever be a criterion for attaining national office. This provision of the Constitution protects from official stigma not only those of different religious beliefs but also those who believe in no deity.

In his 1789 proclamation, President Washington listed the blessings for which his countrymen should be thankful. As we gather with our family and friends, we Americans still have much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving — including the wisdom and foresight of the founders' remarkable vision of religious freedom.

Citing Maryland’s ground-breaking adoption in 1649 of religious freedom rights, Maryland Catholic bishops issued a statement calling the faithful to prayer, education, and action to protect religious freedom.  Mounting threats, the statement says, include government mandates violating formerly unquestioned rights of conscience and hostile legislation such as the 2009 measure considered by the Connecticut legislature that would have imposed a reorganization of the governance structure of the church. (Main page |  Press release |  PDF of full statement)      

The Justice Department reported that it has closed an investigation of the town of Schodack, NY, after the town scrapped a portion of its zoning ordinance that expressly discriminated against churches.  The ordinance barred churches from meeting in commercial districts.  “Churches were barred from commercial districts, although non-religious assemblies such as membership clubs and lodges, funeral homes, libraries, and museums could locate as a matter of right in those districts.” (DOJ release, dated October 2011)