Democratic Senators Kill Off Religious Freedom, Preserve Obama's Contraception Mandate "Compromise"

The First Amendment? Never heard of it, must be an internet thing.

The Senate voted 51-48 to kill the amendment, which was offered by Senate Republican Minority Leader Roy Blunt of Missouri as an add-on to the transportation funding bill. Blunt and fellow Republicans cast the amendment as a fight to protect First Amendment rights (which include the freedom of religion.) Prior to the vote, Blunt argued that the language should be deemed noncontroversial by his colleagues, stating on the Senate floor that every member of the Senate, barring some of the most recently elected members, "have voted for bills that have this language in them."

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The future of Thursday's amendment in the closely-divided Senate hung on decisions from a handful of Senate centrists. Retiring Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine voted with the majority of Democrats to table the amendment, while three centrist Democrats-- Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Ben Nelson of Nebraska-- crossed party lines to vote with Republicans in favor of the amendment.

I think it's important to fight for religious freedom but I think making a stand there concedes too much ground from the start. Why in the world is the federal government in the business of telling insurance companies what has to be included in their policies? Oh right...ObamaCare. We need to be careful that we don't win the religious exemption fight only to be left holding the bag on freedom infringements that have nothing to do with religion.

As for the Democrats "argument" that this is about "women's rights" that's insane. Women have the right to the pill, they simply don't have the right to expect others to pay for it.

Sometimes I think conservatives get too hung up on the fight of the moment and the battle right in front of us while losing sight of the bigger war...government encroachment on freedom. We need to fight the immediate fights but we should always tie it to the larger war.

posted by DrewM. at 01:38 PM

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