Lawmakers Push for Conscience Rights to be Included in Budget Bill
Religion & Liberty Online

Lawmakers Push for Conscience Rights to be Included in Budget Bill

Fourteen members of Congress—including 13 women—sent a letter to the House leadership today asking that conscience rights be included in the upcoming budget bill. They mentioned specific violations of conscience rights, including the HHS Mandate:

“This attack on religious freedom demands immediate congressional action,” the 14 lawmakers wrote. “Nothing short of a full exemption for both nonprofit and for-profit entities will satisfy the demands of the Constitution and common sense.”

The continuing resolution that House appropriators released Monday would not cut off funding for the Affordable Care Act, despite years of conservative pressure to defund the healthcare law. But Tuesday’s letter, led by Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), indicates that fights over the health law could still roil the funding debate.

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“Congress cannot ignore the relentless assault on the First Amendment right to religious freedom, and must act before the (Affordable Care Act) provisions are fully enacted in August of this year,” the lawmakers wrote to GOP leaders and appropriators in both chambers.

(Via: Public Catholic)

Joe Carter

Joe Carter is a Senior Editor at the Acton Institute. Joe also serves as an editor at the The Gospel Coalition, a communications specialist for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. He is the editor of the NIV Lifehacks Bible and co-author of How to Argue like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History's Greatest Communicator (Crossway).