Coercive Secularism

Russell Shaw.

Currently, the United States Senate, under the rubric of health-care reform, is moving to force people who reject abortion on conscience grounds to help pay for the elective abortions of people who don't. And in Washington, D.C., the local archdiocese may have to scale back social-service programs -- a significant loss to the entire community -- because it can't accept the implications of a same-sex marriage law recently passed by the city council. (The city election board did its own coercive bit by refusing to allow D.C. voters a referendum on gay marriage.)

These things are neither accidental nor unrelated. Says Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver, "Today's growing harassment of religious charities flows out of a crisis in America's governing philosophy." Its name is coercive secularism.

Shaw also provides the timeline, beginning w/JFK's Houston speech.