The NY Daily News, has long had a progressive slant. Surprisingly, on its editorial page on Tuesday, the liberal tabloid scolded the Obama administration for its attempts to force faith-based institutions to violate their core religious beliefs by funding birth control.
The editorial cited Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan, whose ruling rebuked the administration for ordering two New York Catholic high schools, Cardinal Spellman in the Bronx and Monsignor Farrell on Staten Island, to provide contraception and sterilization coverage to employees.
Standing for American tradition, Cogan also neatly exposed as a sham the Obama administration’s scheme to pretend the government was not compelling faith-based organizations, such as the high schools, to violate their core beliefs.
Obama Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius badly overreached in requiring virtually all employers to cover pregnancy prevention. Well aware that she was treading into moral ground, Sebelius exempted churches — but her mandate was still so sweeping that it covered the likes of the Archdiocese of New York.
Facing an uproar, President Obama concocted a supposed compromise under which a religious employer could sign a paper swearing to moral objections and give the document to its health plan administrator. The insurer would then supposedly offer the objectionable coverage free of charge to the employer’s staff.
Insultingly, Obama lawyers argued that the rule ordered employers only to sign a piece of paper. “It’s just a form,” the claim went, so no big deal. Wrong, said Cogan, because the two high schools, and two Catholic health care providers that also sued, view the action as endorsing immoral conduct. That’s what counts, not Obama’s beliefs or the general acceptance of contraception in American, including by this editorial page.
“What the government cannot do — absent a compelling interest and narrow tailoring — is compel plaintiffs to act in violation of their religious beliefs,” Cogan ruled.
Who can argue with that? Obama, for one — although he’s flailing around with it.
The editorial concluded with:
The one-size-must-fit-all structure of Obamacare explains why the President wound up breaking his pledge that Americans could keep their health coverage if they like it. He ordered up new provisions for everyone, so the policies people liked went over the side.
Here, forced uniformity has pitted the President against a basic tenet of life in these United States. Not where he should be.
