News

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Bill imposes religion at workplace Feb. 2, editorial
Protecting religious liberty

The editorial against my bill to protect religious freedom against an unconstitutional Obama administration overreach was blatantly misleading.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012 would insert a conscience clause to effectively repeal the new ObamaCare mandate forcing most church-affiliated organizations to offer employees private insurance coverage without out-of-pocket charges for birth control, something they object to on moral grounds. Without this exception, their religious liberties and conscience rights are being violated.

To be clear, this bill does not forbid women from pursuing these products. If an employee asks for birth control, that worker could pay for it themselves or choose to work elsewhere. What it does forbid is government from forcing religious entities to provide them.

Contrary to your editorial, I am not imposing my beliefs on anyone. The culprit here is the Obama administration, which has decided to impose its ideological beliefs on faith-based institutions that have a First Amendment right not to offer birth control to workers.

This is a commonsense bill, based on concerns shared across the political spectrum. That’s because if there’s something liberals and conservatives should be able to agree on, it’s that religious liberty rights enshrined in the Constitution trump this administration’s — and your paper’s — disdain for them.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, Washington

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Read all of today’s letters to the editor here.