Imagine, for a moment, all of us in a world where there is no freedom of religion.  We all have to attend the public school closest to our home, being taught what the government feels is in our best interest to learn.  You could also say goodbye to going to church freely like you may do now.

This will, most likely, never happen in our lifetimes or our children’s lifetimes.  But, even today in free America, our freedom of religion is being threatened by the government.  Recently, as part of President Obama’s new health care plan, Catholic hospitals and colleges will be forced to provide insurance for contraception, something the Catholic Church does not believe is right.

The government’s reasoning for forcing them to do this is that Catholic hospitals and schools have people of all sorts of faiths, and to refuse this type of coverage to them would be unreasonable.  But they still have no right to force a religious institution to include things they don’t believe are right into health insurance.

In July 1620, Puritans tired of the English church set sail for a new life in the new world where they could practice religion the way they wanted to.  167 years later, in 1787, the founders of the United States signed into law the new Constitution, which included a list of rights given to every citizen of the country.  And one of the first and most important things they made sure to write in was that every citizen has the freedom of religion.

Article I states, “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.”

The Catholic Church is still an establishment of religion.  That means the government has no right to force them to essentially hand out things that they believe is wrong, such as contraception.

President Obama and his administration have tried to back off these demands, by saying the institutions themselves don’t have to provide contraception themselves.  The catch is, however, all insurance companies will have to provide them, and the Catholic institutions still have to use these insurance companies.

We as Christians need to put our foot down on this issue.  Write Congressmen and Senators about how this will infringe upon freedom of religion.  The government has no right to pass laws restricting religious institutions, no matter what.