Religious Freedom and the Conservative Quest for Absolute Truth

Religious Freedom and the Conservative Quest for Absolute Truth

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When the Obama administration declared that employees of Catholic institutions must have contraception covered in their health plans (before the president’s deft backtracking compromise), one group of religious Americans stood firmly opposed to Obama’s original position.

No, it wasn’t Catholics. Despite the bishops’ howls of protest, poll after poll showed Catholics supporting the administration’s new rule. The opposition came from white evangelical Protestants, who stood against Obama by a whopping margin of 56 percent to 38 percent. Protestants take a stronger stand than Catholics against birth control? Curious, to say the least.