Having a Republican like Kentucky Senator Rand Paul write an article in National Review Online is not a surprise; nor is it a surprise to know that he dislikes the recent decision about Obamacare forcing religious institutions to pay for things they do not endorse.
However, it is a bit of a surprise to know that Senator Paul, a Presbyterian, opened his argument with a 1991 encyclical from Pope John Paul II. The encyclical, Centesimus Annus (On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum), was a critique of socialism, mostly in that it subsumed the individual person into society at large, putting the state over individual. Oh, as the Pope put it, that "Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises in the face of good or evil.”
From there, Senator Paul declares that this indictment is "illustrated in the Obama administration’s recent edict requiring nearly all employers — including Catholic hospitals, schools, and charities — to cover sterilizations and contraception in their employees’ health-care plans." A decision that Paul says also threatened Protestant employers as well.
"[T]his latest decision attempts to crush the freedom of the Catholic Church in this country," Paul stated. "The president has declared a 'war on religion'.” He went on to agree with New York cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan's statment that not only were the administration’s actions “simply un-American,” but also asks, "What other constitutionally protected freedoms might an increasingly powerful federal government revoke?"
Senator Paul went on to state that
Religious freedom — which has been called “our first liberty” — is ingrained in the very fabric of our national culture.
But HHS and the administration have decided that their goal of state-run health care trumps our first liberty. What the president is attempting to do here is something generally witnessed only in totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.
Senator Paul concluded with the announcement that he would co-sponsor legislation in the Senate to overturn the HHS mandate.
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