“The controversy is perhaps the biggest divide yet between the Obama administration and religious groups, and even some leading Democrats have criticized the administration’s move. It’s one of the rare moments when evangelicals and Catholics across the ideological spectrum — liberal and conservative — have united against the administration. Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr., a Catholic who is liberal on many issues, said Obama had “utterly botched” the issue and had thrown “his progressive Catholic allies under the bus.”
“The federal government has drifted dangerously beyond its constitutional boundaries, encroaching on religious freedom in a manner that affects millions of Americans and harms some of our nation’s most vital institutions,” Boehner said. “If the president does not reverse the department’s attack on religious freedom, then the Congress, acting on behalf of the American people and the Constitution that we’re sworn to uphold and defend, must.”"
Says the Megachurch pastor, Rick Warren, ”"I’d go to jail rather than cave in to a government mandate that violates what God commands us to do. Would you? Acts 5:29,” author and pastor Rick Warren wrote on his Twitter account Feb. 7 before adding, “I’m not a Catholic but I stand in 100% solidarity with my brothers & sisters to practice their belief against govt pressure.”"
“Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and Barrett Duke, ERLC vice president for public policy and research, co-wrote a Baptist Press column saying the HHS rule must be reversed. (The entire column can be read at http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=37127)”
“The Obama administration has declared war on religion and freedom of conscience,” Land and Duke wrote. “This must not stand. Our Baptist forebears died and went to prison to secure these freedoms. It is now our calling to stand in the gap and defend our priceless First Amendment religious freedoms,” says Michael Faust in the Baptist Press.
