Another day, another tirade from Chuck Colson about the supposed destruction of freedom in America. On his Breakpoint radio bulletin, Colson warned that Secretary Hillary Clinton’s pledge to fight for gay rights around the world is a threat to religious liberty and, once again, falsely maintained that she and other administration officials never use the phrase “freedom of religion.” In fact, the State Department just over a week ago released a statement calling the “freedom of religion” a “universal human right.” He said that gay rights, along with the President’s support of funding for non-abortion related health care by Planned Parenthood clinics and the mandate for contraception coverage in health insurance plans, are putting freedom in jeopardy. “Whether it’s ‘gay rights’ or ‘reproductive rights,’ Colson said, “the forces of secular liberalism are choosing sexual license over our religious liberty regarding human sexuality.”
For some time I have been warning you that the Obama administration has elevated so-called “gay rights” at the expense of religious liberty.
That may sound like an extreme statement, until you remember that Secretary of State Clinton has said “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.” And she and other officials repeatedly use the term “freedom of worship” (a private act) versus “freedom of religion,” (which the Constitution protects, which is the freedom to live out one’s faith in public).
Administration officials have also said that in a contest “between religious liberty and sexual liberty,” sexual liberty triumphs. Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, seeing this trend, is predicting “a national conflict between church and state of enormous proportions and to the detriment of both institutions.”
Friends, I wish I could tell you that gay rights were the only front in this threat to religious liberty. But as you know, the second front was opened up by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who decreed that, under ObamaCare, Catholic institutions will have to violate their religious beliefs and pay for contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs for their employees.
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In one of his first acts as president, he rescinded the Mexico City policy, allowing federal dollars to go to organizations that promote abortion overseas, like Planned Parenthood. In the budget showdown with Republicans last summer, the president warned House Speaker John Boehner that he would allow the government to shut down rather than cut Planned Parenthood’s funding. And now, of course, the right to a contraceptive is being advanced over religious liberty.
Again, the question is why? I think Catholic scholar George Weigel has put his finger on it: “What began as a movement to liberate sexuality from the constraints of moral reason, custom, and law,” Weigel says, “has become a movement determined to use the instruments of law to impose its deconstruction of human sexuality and its moral relativism on all of society.” I urge you to read Weigel’s piece.
Friends, this is a clash of worldviews. Whether it’s “gay rights” or “reproductive rights” the forces of secular liberalism are choosing sexual license over our religious liberty regarding human sexuality.
