The president mandated that despite their moral opposition, Catholic universities and hospitals will be required to cover contraceptive services, including the morning after pill, through their employee health plans.

I believe the Patient Protection Act, also known as “Obamacare,” is unconstitutional because of its individual mandate. If it is not thrown out by the Supreme Court this spring, it should be repealed and replaced.

The president’s actions last week further demonstrate just how objectionable this law is, and how concerned we should be about government steps to limit the practice of faith in America.

In many federal laws there is a religious exemption based on our First Amendment right to religious liberty. Those exemptions don’t just apply to churches and other houses of faith, but to faith-based institutions like schools, hospitals and charities that hire and serve people outside their own faith.

This is not about whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, or your views on contraception. I am Methodist, not Catholic. I am pro-life. This is not about birth control, and it’s not about women’s health care.

It’s about whether religious liberty still has meaning in America.

Have we come to the point where government believes it can force people to violate their religious beliefs? As Americans, we cannot in good conscience tolerate that kind of overreaching government power, even if we do not share the beliefs of those being trampled upon.

Today it may be someone else’s beliefs that are targeted. But tomorrow, it may be mine.

And the next day, it may be yours.

On July 1, 1776, just before the debate on the draft Declaration of Independence was to begin in Philadelphia, John Adams wrote a letter to a former delegate to the Continental Congress, Archibald Bulluch:

   “We should always remember that a free constitution of civil government cannot be purchased at too dear a rate, as there is nothing on this side of Jerusalem of equal importance to mankind.”

Nothing on this side of Jerusalem.

To the founders of our nation, the only thing more important than liberty was faith. For most Americans, that remains true today.

Catholic leaders have made very clear that they will not comply with this new mandate. If you believe, as I do, that the president has crossed a line that we cannot allow to be crossed, then we must stand together, side by side, united in steadfast opposition. Whatever your faith, or even if you practice no faith at all, we must stand for liberty.

We will not comply.

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