Coakley’s comment in the interview is specifically relating to contraception and the unspoken zinger: abortion (since we are talking about people visiting a hospital rather than their family planner, this assumption makes sense to me). Contraception is not a life saving matter like heart surgery or even a medical necessity like fixing a broken leg. Additionally, the Hippocratic oath doctors takes precludes them from refusing to help. Including an exemption clause in any health care requirement with regards to contraception just makes sense.

Some try to pass off the Supreme Court’s decision in Everson v. Board of Education as simply a misreading of Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. Instructive as that letter is, it played but a small part in the Court’s decision. It was only after reaching its conclusion based on a detailed discussion of the historical events leading to the First Amendment that the Court mentioned the letter. The metaphor “separation of church and state” was but a handy catch phrase to describe the upshot of its conclusion. The Court’s reading of the First Amendment in this regard was unanimous; all nine Justices agreed on that much, but split 5-4 on whether the Amendment precludes states from paying for transportation of students to religious schools.

Perhaps even more than Jefferson, Madison influenced the Court’s view. Madison, who had a central role in drafting the Constitution and the First Amendment, confirmed that he understood them to “[s]trongly guard[] . . . the separation between Religion and Government.” Madison, Detached Memoranda (~1820). He made plain, too, that they guarded against more than just laws creating state sponsored churches or imposing a state religion. Mindful that old habits die hard and citizens and politicians could tend to entangle government and religion (e.g., “the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress” and “for the army and navy” and “[r]eligious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts”), he considered the question whether such actions were “consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom” and responded: “In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”

You also argue that the government should not require people to do things contrary to their faith. The government could hardly operate if anyone could opt out of laws with the excuse that their religion requires or allows it. The courts have confronted this sort of issue and have ruled that the government cannot enact laws specifically aimed at a particular religion, but if the government enacts laws generally applicable to everyone or at least broad classes of people (e.g, laws concerning traffic, pollution, taxes, contracts, fraud, negligence), it can require everyone, including those who may object on religious grounds, to abide by them.

In rare (one hopes) circumstances, such a generally-applicable law could put an individual in an ethical Catch-22 if it requires one to take actions one considers immoral. This potential dilemma is not peculiar to any particular religion. Anyone–Christian, atheist, etc.–may be put in such a bind. For just this reason, when such binds can be anticipated, provisions may be added to laws affording some relief to conscientious objectors.

Critical Thinking is not taught with any conviction if all in High Schools. Why do you think the great questions went unasked by those who voted: Whose Hope? Whose Change? What are they both defined as Mr. Obama? So long as people blindly send their kids to Government schools, the USA will continue to lose sight of what Freedom really means.

Unfortunately the majority in this country that voted him in for no better reason than he’s black or he’s a Democrat will have the wool pulled over their eyes on a couple of issues that Obama elects to have “transparent”. These few issues will be the “promise” he kept, and they will not even care to hear about the countless other issues that we will get blindsided with.
The amount of “crap” coming from the Whitehouse sickens me to no end. How is it, the common person refuses to see that the government is slowly taking over and we will be a socialist country if nothing is done.