When the American Founders wrote protections of religious liberty into the Constitution, they were concerned with protecting religious minorities from legislative coercion by the majority. Now, writes Adam J. White, challenges to freedom of religion have taken a different shape:
During Barack Obama’s presidency . . . the collisions between progressive policy and religious liberty are not the result of legislative compromise or political give-and-take. Rather, they come from administrative agencies pushing a specific agenda as aggressively as possible, or from courts announcing new rights in absolute terms, leaving little apparent room for religious freedom. In this respect, the threat to religion comes not from popular majorities, but from minority factions that succeed in capturing either administrative or judicial power and leveraging it against religious minorities who stand in the way of their policy agenda.
Administrative absolutism was illustrated perfectly in the Hobby Lobby [case before the Supreme Court] and subsequent cases. The contraceptive mandate that the Obama administration wants to enforce against religious employers, and now against religious organizations, is found nowhere in the Affordable Care Act itself. . . . But regulators are not the only unelected officials prone to writing new laws in absolutist terms. To the extent that same-sex couples’ right to marry ultimately results from judicial decisions (at the administration’s behest) rather than legislative compromise, judges’ expansive vision of such new rights may leave legislators little room to exempt religious institutions, organizations, and persons from direct involvement with same-sex weddings.
Read more on Weekly Standard: http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/obama-s-reformation_958400.html