http://www.steynonline.com/4829/the-catholic-state
“In other words, Islam seems to be finding it a lot easier than Catholicism to get a “religious exemption.” Here’s a caption from the Toronto Star accompanying a picture of the cafeteria at a local public school: “At Valley Park Middle School, Muslim students participate in the Friday prayer service. Menstruating girls, at the very back, do not take part.”
So the Health Commissar, Kathleen Sebelius, has decided that, under Obamacare, religious institutions, like any other employer, will be required to offer their workers free contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients. Well, there’s a surprise.
This entirely predictable news was received with stunned bewilderment by Obamaphile rubes such as the Reverend John Jenkins of Notre Dame, who in 2009 gave the president both an honorary degree and his imprimatur in exchange for the promise of a “sensible” approach to conflicts between church and state. Now that they’re on the receiving end of Obama’s good sense, many of America’s Catholic bishops have issued protests, characteristically anguished and hand-wringing but betraying little understanding of the stakes.