Gloves Off: Sen. Rand Paul Blasts HHS Mandate as 'Authoritarian' & 'Totalitarian

In an op-ed for National Review online, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) denounces the now infamous decision by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to force religious employers to cover the cost of contraception and abortion-inducing drugs in its employees’ health-care coverage, saying that it’s just one more thing that makes “Obamacare” "socialized medicine."

Sen. Paul goes so far to say that the decision by the HHS is "something generally witnessed only in totalitarian and authoritarian regimes,” and says that it is a direct violation of religious liberty, for all Christians, not just Catholics.

“Because ‘contraception’ includes abortifacients, this decision — made under the powers granted to the executive branch under Obamacare — also threatens many Protestant employers,” Sen. Paul writes.

“The decision is the latest and most outrageous example of why Obamacare — socialized medicine — must be repealed in its entirety. It is also a shocking example of the administration’s choosing to ignore the opinions and beliefs of millions of Americans.”

But the Senator didn’t leave it at that; he was just getting started:

And while the Obama administration has never been a protector of pro-life Americans’ conscience rights — for example, it supports the federal funding that Planned Parenthood receives — this latest decision attempts to crush the freedom of the Catholic Church in this country. The president has declared a “war on religion,” as Michael Gerson wrote in the Washington Post last week.

Considering Obama’s comments about rural Pennsylvanians who “cling” to their religion, however, this is perhaps not entirely surprising.

…

All Americans’ religious freedoms are protected by the First Amendment. The earliest colonists who came to this country in the pre–Revolutionary War days traveled here because they were seeking a home in which they could practice their religion in freedom and peace without government persecution. Religious freedom — which has been called “our first liberty” — is ingrained in the very fabric of our national culture.

But HHS and the administration have decided that their goal of state-run health care trumps our first liberty. What the president is attempting to do here is something generally witnessed only in totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.

Read Sen. Paul’s full op-ed here.

(H/T: The Washington Examiner)