By Pete Kasperowicz 

 

Several House Republicans on Wednesday morning protested the Obama administration's decision not to exempt religious organizations from a requirement to provide birth control coverage in healthcare plans, including contraceptives and abortion drugs.

 

Obama's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) exempted churches and other places of worship from the requirement, but did not extend the same exemption to religious-backed universities and other organizations.

 

"As an Irish Catholic, I remind my co-religionists and all Americans that no government can come between you and your conscience and the central tenants of your creed," an angry Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) said on the House floor.

 

"What we are seeing now is the unfortunate fruits of the logical extension of the cesspool of [Jean-]Jacques Rousseau and his civil religion, whereby which your true religion was tolerated as long as it was subservient to the state," he said. "That is not what this nation is about, it is a clear violation of your constitutional right to freely exercise your religion."

 

 

Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.) said the HHS decision threatens the "very foundations of our First Amendment rights and our religious liberties."

"This is a direct attack against religious liberty for all religions," he said. "Forcing Catholic schools, hospitals, Catholic charities to comply with a federal mandate that violates the core moral commitment of protecting lives of the unborn is unconscionable."

 

Republicans also noted that the HHS decision was made under the 2010 healthcare law — another reason to repeal that law.

 

But Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) rejected these assertions in her own morning comments, and said HHS exempted 335,000 thousand churches and places of worship.

 

"We're not requiring Catholic churches to go out and buy contraceptive coverage for all, in spite of what you have heard," she said.

 

"But this rule does require that religiously affiliated universities and hospitals, which are operating as large businesses, and employ and serve a diverse array of people, would have to follow the same rules as other businesses," Moore said. "This is the part that keeps getting lost in the debate."

 

Moore added that the purpose of these larger institutions is not to worship, and thus should not be exempted from the HHS requirements that other businesses face.

 

"The concept of separation of church and state protects these 335,000 places of worship, but the concept of separation of church and state does not mean that a church can use their bully pulpit to separate millions of women from critical healthcare benefits," she said.

 

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