Wheaton College has come out against the Obama administration healthcare mandate the infringes the freedom of religious institutions. The Daily Herald reports:
Wheaton College and other distinctively Christian institutions are faced with a near and present threat to religious liberty.
Last August, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a mandate that the insurance plans for religious institutions (except churches) must provide coverage for all government-approved contraceptives. The list of required contraceptives includes abortifacient drugs — “morning after” and “week after” pills that claim the life of a fertilized egg.
During the period for public debate, the HHS received more than 200,000 comments objecting that the contraceptive mandate would violate the First Amendment rights of anyone who believed — for religious reasons — in the sanctity of human life.
This would be true not only for Roman Catholics who oppose all forms of contraception, but also for Protestants and others who believe that the use of contraception for the purpose of abortion is immoral.
The HHS secretary has been unresponsive to these concerns, and, in fact, has testified to Congress that she did not consider legal precedents for religious liberty in formulating her mandate. In January, she announced that the HHS regulations would be enacted without amendment.
Catholic charities, Christian colleges and other religious organizations still would be compelled to cover contraception in their health insurance plans. And the coverage list still would include abortion-inducing drugs.
In February, these regulations were finalized without amendment. Subsequently, the administration has proposed to offer certain religious groups some sort of accommodation. According to the proposal (which has not yet been enacted), Christian organizations would not have to pay for contraception and abortion; instead, their insurance companies would offer these services for free.
Unfortunately, the proposed accommodation fails to address the religious liberty issues at the heart of the controversy over the HHS regulations. Even if we are not paying for it, institutions like Wheaton College still would be required to cover abortifacient drugs, in violation of our religious principles. Practically speaking, we would still be paying for them, too, as insurance companies inevitably pass along their costs to their customers.
The effect of these regulations on Wheaton College may be dramatic. We are unwilling to compromise our Christian convictions. Will we face punitive fines? Be compelled to abandon medical coverage for our employees?
It is important to understand that Wheaton College is a pervasively Christian institution. Every member of our campus — faculty, staff and student — makes a commitment to live a distinctively Christian lifestyle. Our Community Covenant, as we call it, includes embracing the sanctity of life. As Christians, all of us agree not to commit abortion, alongside other actions we regard as sinful.
Many Americans disagree with our convictions, as is their right. What should not be in dispute, however, is that colleges like Wheaton have the freedom — guaranteed by the United States Constitution — to carry out our mission in a way that is consistent with our religious principles.
It is important to understand that the Obama administration is the hardest left, anti-religious freedom in the history of the United States by a wide margin. The problem is their working definition of religious freedom in which they substitute “freedom of worship” for “freedom of religion.” What this means is that the only activity protected by the constitution is actual worship on Sunday mornings (or Friday evenings) and not any other organized activity of religious people such as Christian colleges, Christian camps, professional organizations, or any mission agency that mixes social service with soul-winning. It is as if they want to restrict religion to the most narrow band of life as possible and claim the widest swath of life possible for the sovereignty of the secular state.
This distinction is critical to the work of the State Department overseas as well. Under the Obama definition of religious freedom the old Soviet Union has freedom of religion all through its existence. Of course this is nonsense, but it is dangerous nonsense.
Every Christian has a duty to stand up to tyranny while the democratic freedom to do so still remains. One witty blogger said that the dispute between the Obama administration and the churches is about contraception is exactly the same sense as the American Revolution was about tea. That is right; both are really about restraining tyranny. All Christians, and all people of any faith, have a compelling interest in opposing the soft totalitarian over-reach of the modern, progressive state.
Cross-posted at The Politics of the Cross Resurrected.
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