Call For Sanity

Recently the Obama administration decided to deny Catholic institutions such as hospitals, clinics, etc. religious exemption from the requirement to provide free contraceptives to all employees, against the teachings of their faith. That was met with an outcry, so the president decided to change the rules to exempt those institutions but still require the insurance companies that they pay to provide health care (mandated by "Obamacare") to offer the contraceptives for free. In other words, it is a shell game, moving from requiring the employer to provide the contraceptives to requiring the employer's insurance company to provide the contraceptives as part of the policies that the employer funds. How is that an exception? The answer is that it is not. The political conservatives have cried out that this infringes on religious freedoms, while the political liberals have hailed the decision as a victory for women and ridiculed the conservatives as wanting to ban contracep...

Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say there is a Constitutional mandate for the "separation of church and state"? Nowhere. The first amendment is the only reference to religion in the Constitution. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. What does this mean? It means quite simply that the Congress of the United States may not establish a national religion in the manner of the countries of Europe at the time, such as the relationship that the Church of England had to England or the Roman Catholic Church had to the Holy Roman Empire. It means that the Congress of the United States may not pass laws that restrict free exercise of religion, such as was the case in the countries of Europe at the time, most of which said that you must only...