Sen Mitch McConnell -- "Hero of Conscience?"

Senator Mitch McConnell is pushing an amendment to the Affordable Care Act that would allow employers to deny coverage not just for contraception, but for any treatment whatsoever that they claimed was against their religious or moral beliefs.

This would mean that if you work for a Jehovah’s Witness, you may not have coverage for blood transfusions.

If you work for a Catholic, you may not get the benefits of stem cell research.

Meanwhile, I still expect them to make Quakers pay for military expenditures–even though they are pacifists and supporting war is against their moral conscience, and Catholics have to pay taxes for wars their Pope has called “immoral” and “unjust”–wars that are, or should be, against their religious conscience:

“In March 2003, just hours after the first American cruise missiles slammed into Baghdad, the Vatican proclaimed the nascent conflict a “defeat for reason and for the gospel.”

“It was a war, said papal confidant Cardinal Roberto Tucci, that was “beyond all legality and all international legitimacy.”

Do we really want to allow people to choose which taxes or public fees violate their individual consciences, and refuse to pay that part of what they owe to society?

During the Vietnam War, many tax resisters went to prison for refusing to pay taxes for an “unjust war.”

Where were the religious of conscience then?