The Obama Mandate: The Gravest Threat to Religious Freedom in 226 Years

The Obama Mandate: The Gravest Threat to Religious Freedom in 226 Years

Editor's Note: This column was coauthored by Bob Morrison.

A liberal reporter speaking at a conference in Georgetown recently dismissed conservative alarms about the Obama administration's mandate that forces religious institutions--like Catholic Hospitals and Evangelical colleges--to provide coverage for drugs and procedures that can abortions and that effect sterilizations. "What about the anti-Catholic Bible riots in Philadelphia in the 1840s," she asked. Those led to scores of people actually being killed. Those Bible riots were deplorable, a blot on American history. But they were not the acts of the federal government. They were lawless violence, not a deliberate policy of oppression.