"As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." (Joshua 24:15)
Back in June of 2011, I wrote a post entitled "The Sooner We Realize America Is No Longer Free, The Sooner We Can Take Action." Today I see in the news that HHS Secretary Sebelius has gone on to show that the Obama administration is without question hostile to the concept of religious freedom in America.
The announcement essentially states that religious groups are obligated to provide contraceptive coverage (including abortifacient contraceptives) to employees, even if the religious groups believe contraception and abortifacient drugs are intrinsically evil and may never be supported.
Instead, religious groups are given until August 2013 to comply with this requirement.
As Archbishop Dolan put it:
“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,”
and:
“To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable.It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty."
Since such an obligation forces religious groups to choose between serving God and obeying an unjust law, we are forced to become criminals because of the state.
Unfortunately, if this edict is not overturned, we will have to oppose the government of the United States by refusing to obey. No government has the authority to compel a person to participate with evil. If the United States takes this road, this nation will have joined the ranks of totalitarian states who use force and fear to compel people to violate what they believe God requires them to do.
That an administration should so flagrantly ignore the freedom of religion without an immediate outcry and call for the firing of Sebelius is chilling. No it doesn't mean we're going to see "Goose stepping Nazis marching in Washington." I doubt we'll see gulags or other concentration camps in America. But it does mean that we have gone from a nation that says "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" to a government saying we have one year to turn our backs on God and obey the state.
I think it should be pretty clear that at this time the Obama administration is the greater of the evils when it comes to the elections, and I pray he is defeated.
Otherwise, I truly fear what our nation will become.
