Trampling

Religious Freedom

To the Editor:

As a woman, I am a proponent of women’s rights and access to preventative care. Having two daughters, I teach them responsibility and share with them my values about having respect for themselves and make sure as they get older, they continue to have access to the best possible preventative care, how to find it, how to get it and yes, pay for it.

As an American, I am offended at this mandate forcing the Catholic institutions to provide free contraception, abortions, and morning after pills for their employees. To me this is a blatant denial of First Amendment rights for the Catholic Church. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” I realize that the President offered an appeasement to the church by mandating insurance companies to give it to the employees free of charge, but this seems irresponsible to make insurance companies offer free services. That’s another story, however.

The government has no problem keeping public schools, government agencies, the military and other public places free of religion. Now when the shoe is on the other foot, the Catholic Church is telling the US government to preserve their religious freedom and stay out of their business and the government won’t do it. The government wants to have its cake and eat it too. I wish more people would understand what exactly is happening here. This has nothing to do with women’s health care rights, this is not a social issue, this is a religious freedom issue and we should be doing everything we can to preserve it. Whether you are Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Evangelical, whatever, our religious freedom has just been trampled on and we’re looking the other way. Good luck to us all; what is next?

Linda Watson

51 High Rock Road, Sandy Hook                            February 13, 2012