In Speech, Hatch Blasts Washington Democrats for Ongoing Attacks on Religious Freedom Sen. Orris Hatch blasted Washington Democrats’ ongoing attacks on religious freedom protections by forcing religious institutions to provide preventive health services, including birth control,
PoliticalNews.me - Feb 19,2012 - In Speech, Hatch Blasts Washington Democrats for Ongoing Attacks on Religious Freedom
Utah Senator says, “To hear members of the Administration and some members of Congress talk, it is clear to me that providing abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations, and the morning-after pill to women is more important than the First Amendment that we are sworn to the nation and our constituents to defend.”
In a speech on the Senate floor, U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a current member and former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, blasted Washington Democrats’ ongoing attacks on religious freedom protections by forcing religious institutions to provide preventive health services, including birth control, abortion inducing drugs and emergency contraception, even if it is against their conscience and deeply-held beliefs.
“To hear members of the Administration and some members of Congress talk, it is clear to me that providing abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations, and the morning-after pill to women is more important than the First Amendment that we are sworn to the nation and our constituents to defend,” said Hatch. “I do not shock easily, but the cavalier attitude of the President, his administration, and many in Congress to this frontal assault on religious liberty is truly shocking. There was a time when both parties, liberals and conservatives, could come together on the matter of religious liberty. But not any longer.”
Below is the text of Hatch’s full speech delivered on the Senate floor this afternoon:
Mr. President, earlier today we were treated to some very partisan remarks from one of my colleagues on the preventive services mandate. That’s the legal term. Here is what that mandate is in practice.
It is a mandate that will require religious individuals and institutions — to purchase abortion-inducing drugs for their employees. It will require that they purchase insurance coverage that provides for sterilizations and the morning-after pill.
And in doing so, it will require that they violate their most deeply held religious beliefs, in stark contrast to the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty. You would not know that from hearing the other side talk.
You would think that opposition to this mandate was grounded in bigotry, and a lack of concern for our fellow citizens. This is a serious charge — one deserving of a response.
My colleague from California suggested earlier today that the reason Republicans are opposed to this mandate — and the reason that tens of millions of Americans are opposed to this mandate — is because they are anti-woman.
With due respect, one would be hard pressed to concoct a more insidious and misleading explanation of the opposition to this mandate. People are opposed to this mandate for one simple reason — because they are in favor of religious liberty.
They are opposed to it because it is an affront to our constitutional government, to the first right listed in our First Amendment — the right to free exercise of religion. You would not know that from my colleague’s remarks.
