We’re gathering on the anniversary of a special day in our nation’s history. Two Hundred Twenty-Three years ago today, James Madison gave Congress his proposal for the Bill of Rights. We’re here today in defense of the very first clause in the First Amendment: protection of the free exercise of religion.
In March, Americans in 140
cities including Concord stood up for religious freedom, moved by the Health
and Human Services Mandate. Today, people are standing up in 160 cities. More
and more Americans recognize that the mandate is not about women and not about
a particular church. It’s about the federal government effectively rewriting
the First Amendment.
Start with health care plans
in which we all must participate under penalty of law.
Make “preventive care” free
to a patient, with no co-pay.
Further, include
contraception, abortive drugs, and female sterilization in the list of what is
“preventive”.
The result of such a plan: we
all subsidize these procedures for the women who choose to use them.
What if I embrace a religious
belief that says these things are immoral? What if I run a business and want to
provide health insurance to my employees without subsidizing these procedures? What
if I’m a woman who rejects the bad science & bad medicine behind the belief
that a healthy woman’s body needs chronic chemical alteration?
Our president and our secretary
of health and human services say “too bad,” and Congress is so far nodding
meekly. Agree that women’s fertility is a disease, or else pay a penalty, they
say.
We say “Go back to the
drawing board.”
Our current President and his
HHS Secretary tried unsuccessfully to buy off the Catholic church in America
with an “exemption” for religious employers. They even tried to tell that
church what a religious employer looks like: a business operated by a certain
religion that serves only those of the same religion.
Stop right there. You have no
right to tell me what my faith means, and you may not penalize me or my
employer or my church for acting on our beliefs.
This is critical. Voters are
watching. Any policy that pushes any religion to the margins and seeks to
extract a penalty from its adherents is unconstitutional. If one religion is
threatened, we are all threatened.
The Administration is welcoming comments from
the public on the mandate, until June 19. Here’s my
comment – the same one I made in March: my faith is not a crime, a woman’s
fertility is not a disease, and this mandate has got to go.
I don’t like using the term
“Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” The fact is that this health care
law is neither protective nor affordable. It claims to protect my family’s health,
but does so at the price of our First Amendment protections. It claims to be
affordable, but in fact by threatening the operation of the most extensive
health care network in the country – the network of religiously-affiliated
health care facilities – it will restrict access to health care and thus drive
up costs. Poor women, single mothers, and children with chronic illnesses will
be hit first and hardest. “Affordable” would be a sick joke.
What do I want to see? An end
to the mandate. You think pregnancy is a disease and women’s fertility should
be suppressed? Go ahead and act on those beliefs for yourself, and make a co-pay.
If you think a co-pay is a war on women, wait until you hear from the women who
know the mandate is a war on religion. Do not expect me to call contraception
& sterilization & abortive drugs “preventive.” Do not threaten to
penalize people of faith because of their faith. You exercise your beliefs and
let me exercise mine. That’s right – turn the clock all the way back to January
2012.
I am grateful that New
Hampshire’s people of faith are getting support from some elected officials. I am
grateful to religious leaders who have spoken peacefully and relentlessly
against the mandate But you and I would be wrong to depend on
anyone else to carry the banner for us. We will be wrong to depend on a
political party to fix everything. We will be wrong to expect a pastor to do
our work for us. We each need to claim the protection of the Bill of Rights,
without apology. We each need make our case to our neighbors who don’t yet
understand what the fuss is about. It’s up to you and me as Americans to let
our leaders know that we will not trade away the First Amendment for our
family’s medical security, and we take a very dim view any politician who
thinks we should.
Don’t wait for media coverage
of this event and this debate. BE the coverage. Keep spreading the news.
I make a special appeal to
people of faith who oppose this mandate and are in one of two specific
callings: professional health care, and caring at home for a loved one with
medical challenges. People who are pushing for this mandate are counting on you
to back them up, or at least to stay silent. This is not the time for silence.
You have experience and credibility. Tell the world what you know about health
care, and what you know about your faith, and why this mandate interferes with
both.
We are not alone in speaking
out. On May 21, 43 plaintiffs filed a total of twelve lawsuits in various U.S.
District Courts. Yesterday, when the White House had an online town hall
meeting on women’s health and invited people to submit questions via Facebook,
women opposing the mandate took to the Internet in Droves. It was ironic that
the video feed showed a room full of women all on board with the “Affordable”
Care Act – while the women speaking out on the Facebook feed were nearly all
opposed to it, with the mandate being the #1 concern.
Take the encouragement you
find here today and bring it to your town, your neighbors, your pastors, and
especially your elected representatives. Thank you.
