Freedom of conscience is one of our most deeply held and cherished national values.
As a people, we historically have paid dearly with blood and treasure to secure that freedom for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren.
The idea that the government can force people to act in ways that violate their conscience, or can severely punish them for not doing so, runs counter to everything it means to be an American, and is repugnant to most Americans.
But several recent cases across the nation show a growing disregard for freedom of conscience and a willingness to sacrifice it at the altar of political correctness.
In New Mexico, a photographer declined to photograph a gay commitment ceremony because it went against her deeply held Christian values that such ceremonies are wrong. The state ruled the photographer violated New Mexico's anti-discrimination laws, and the New Mexico Supreme Court upheld that ruling.
In Massachusetts, Catholic adoption agencies were forced close rather than comply with a state law allowing adoption by gay couples.
The most publicized case is the on-going struggle over the requirement in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act that employers provide certain birth control drugs to their employees. On the approved list are drugs that some say induce abortions, the so-called day-after pills.
In Oklahoma, members of the Green family, founders of Hobby Lobby, are in the vanguard of that battle, facing the choice of providing their employees with drugs they believe kill human beings, or paying crippling, on-going federal fines of $1.3 million per day. So far, Hobby Lobby has succeeded in postponing the fines while the legal battle is fought, but there is no guarantee they will win in the end.
This is not about gay rights. Or access to birth control. It is about whether we want a government that can force people to act against their own conscience, and can destroy them financially if they refuse to comply.
The New Mexico case was not a victory for gay rights. It was a loss for freedom of conscience. People on both sides of the gay rights issue should be clear-minded about this. The blade cuts both ways. Those who applaud it as a victory may some day find themselves in a similar terrible moral dilemma.
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