Washington, D.C.– U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following statement on the Senate floor Thursday regarding his support of the Blunt Amendment, which protects First Amendment religious freedom:
“I’ve spent a lot of time in my Senate career defending the First Amendment. Most of that time, I’ve focused on the part that deals with free speech. But recent actions by the Obama Administration related to the President’s health care law have prompted many of us here, and many across the country, to stand up in defense of another freedom that’s covered in the First Amendment, and that’s religious freedom.
“Now let me just say at the outset, that most of us didn’t expect that we’d ever have to defend this right in a body in which every one of us is sworn to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution. Most of us probably assumed that if religious liberty were ever seriously challenged in this country, we could always expect a robust bipartisan defense of it at least from within the Congress itself. But unfortunately that’s not the situation we find ourselves in. Democrats have evidently decided that they’d rather defend a President of their own party, regardless of the impact of his policies.
“So rather than defend the First Amendment in this particular case, they’ve decided to engage in a campaign of distraction as a way of obscuring the larger issue at stake here. And if Democrats no longer see the value in defending the First Amendment because they don’t think it’s politically expedient to do so, or because they want to protect the President, then Republicans will have to do it for them. And we’re happy to. Because this is an issue that’s greater than any short-term political gain; it gets right at the heart of who we are as a people. And we welcome the opportunity to reaffirm what this country is about.
“What makes America unique in the world is the fact that it was established on the basis of an idea, the idea that all of us have been endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights — in other words, rights that are conferred not by a king or a president or a Congress, but by the Creator himself. The state protects these rights, but it does not grant them. And what the state doesn’t grant, the state can’t take away.
“Now, the first of these rights, according to the men who wrote the U.S. Constitution, is the right to have one’s religious beliefs protected from government interference. The first amendment couldn’t be clearer on this point: the government can neither establish religion, nor can it prevent its free exercise. And if the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment means anything, it means that it is not within the power of the federal government to tell anybody what to believe, or to punish them for practicing those beliefs.
“And yet that’s precisely what the Obama Administration is trying to do through the President’s health care law. We all remember then-Speaker Pelosi saying that we’d have to pass the health care bill to find out what was in it. Well, this is one of the things we’ve found: that it empowers bureaucrats in Washington to decide which tenets religious institutions can and can’t adhere to. If they don’t get in line, they’re penalized.
“According to congressional testimony delivered this week by Asma Uddin of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, this is not only unprecedented in federal law, but broader in scope and narrower in its exemption than the 28 state mandates that some have pointed to in the administration’s defense.
“Moreover, even in states with the strictest mandates, religious institutions can still either opt out of the state-level mandate or self-insure. But if they try that now, they run into this new federal mandate, making it impossible for the first time for religious institutions to avoid punishment for practicing what they preach.
“Now, some of the proponents of this mandate say that, in this case, we should just ignore the First Amendment. They say that certain religious beliefs in question aren’t particularly popular, so they don’t really deserve First Amendment protection. But isn’t that the entire point of the First Amendment? To protect rights regardless of who or how many people hold them? Isn’t that the reason people came to this country in the first place, as a refuge from governments that said they had to toe the majority line?
“Some of the proponents of this mandate have also said they’re willing to offer a so-called compromise that would respect what they call the ‘core mission’ of religious institutions. But here’s the catch: they want to be the ones to tell these religious institutions what their core mission is. This isn’t a compromise, it’s another government takeover. Only this time it isn’t the banks or the car companies, it’s religion.
“I mean who do you think has a better grasp of the mission of the Catholic Church: the Cardinal Archbishop of New York or the President’s campaign manager? Who are you going to listen to on the question of whether this mandate violates freedom of religion? The president of one of the largest seminaries on the planet, R. Albert Mohler, or some bureaucrat in Washington? The question answers itself.
“Look: this is precisely the kind of thing the founders feared. It was precisely because of the danger of a government intrusion into religion like this one that they left us the First Amendment in the first place, so that we could always point to it and say, ‘No government, no president has that right. Religious institutions are free to decide what they believe. And the government must respect their right to do so.’
“And remember: as many of us said during the debate on the President’s health care bill, this is just the beginning. If the government is allowed to compel people to buy health care, it won’t stop there. Now, it’s telling people what their religious beliefs are and what their religious practices ought to be. What’s next?
“Let’s be clear: this isn’t about any one particular religion. It’s about the right of Americans of any religion to live out their faith without the government picking and choosing which doctrines they’re allowed to follow. When one religion is threatened, all religions are threatened. And allowing this particular infringement would surely ease the way for others.
“This is something my constituents understood immediately in this debate.
“I’ve received a lot of letters from religious leaders and concerned citizens who know that an attack on the beliefs of one religion is an attack on the beliefs of any religion. And many of them make the case a lot better than I can. So I’d like to just share for a moment some thoughts from my constituents on this issue.
“I’ll start with the Catholic Archbishop of Louisville, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz. Here’s what he wrote:
‘The federal government, which claims to be of, by, and for the people, has just dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those people—the Catholic population—and to the millions more who are served by the Catholic faithful. In so ruling, the Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second class citizens.’
“Here’s Bishop Ronald Gainer of the Catholic Diocese of Lexington:
‘Civil law and civil structures should recognize and protect the Church’s right and obligation to participate in society without expecting us or forcing us to abandon or compromise our fundamental moral convictions. If we have an obligation to teach and give witness to the moral values that should shape our lives and inspire our society, then there is a corresponding obligation that we be allowed to follow and express freely those religious values. Anything short of government protection of that freedom represents an unwarranted threat of government interference…’
“Here’s the President of the University of the Cumberlands, Jim Taylor:
‘The intrusion of the administration into the right of the free exercise of religion is disappointing. The choice to interfere with religious hospitals, charities and schools with a mandate violating their religious views is disconcerting and will, in all probability, be totally counterproductive, further polarizing this nation.’
“And, finally, I want to read a letter from Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. I mentioned him earlier. He’s the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world. I’m going to quote it in full, then I’d like to submit it in the record.
“I’ll conclude with this: if there’s one good thing about this debate, it’s that it has given all of us an opportunity to reaffirm what we believe as Americans. It gives us an opportunity to stand together and to say, this is what we’re all about. This is what makes America unique, and this is what makes it great.
“That’s why I’ll be voting in favor of the Blunt Amendment.
“And that’s why it’s my sincere hope that the President and those in his administration come around to this view too — that they come to realize from the outpouring we’ve seen over the past several weeks from across the country that the free and diverse exercise of religion in this country has always been one of our nation’s greatest assets. And one of the things that truly sets us apart. As I said at the outset of this debate, I hope the President reconsiders this deeply misguided policy and reverses it. It crosses a dangerous line. It must be reversed. But if he doesn’t, either Congress or the courts will surely act.”