The Hill News

The uproar over the regulation requiring contraception coverage as part of the package of preventive health services guaranteed by the Affordable Care Act, and the exemption that allows religious institutions to refuse to provide it, has taken on an air of unreality that some have attempted to exploit for partisan political advantage.

Recently, Republican Party Committee Chairman Reince Priebus wrote in Politico earlier this month, “[t]he president’s contempt for the constitutional restraints on power was evident before.  His disdain for respecting those limits, including freedom of religion, is now on full display.”

As one of the architects of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, I take seriously the government’s obligation to respect, and to accommodate, the religious beliefs and practices of all Americans.

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