-The fact that the USCCB has voted to make permanent their previously ad hoc Committee on Religious Liberty is nothing more than solidifying an attitude of “Religious freedom for me but not for thee.”   A most obvious example:  their concern all along has been more about limiting access to contraception than about who foots the bill. That suspicion was confirmed when the bishops turned from arguing for an exemption from the contraception mandate to arguing for the repeal of the mandate itself, claiming that it’s a violation of religious liberty.
Under the First Amendment, religious believers have often been granted exemptions from general laws, such as laws requiring service in the military, or school attendance, or children’s vaccinations.  But the logic of accommodation on religious grounds has never meant that the law in question—requiring military service, say, or vaccinations—is itself a violation of religious liberty and must be repealed. (continued)--