Here is Mario Diaz writing at BarbWire:
The Stormans family owns a pharmacy in Olympia, Washington. As devout Christians, they were committed to run their business according to their convictions.
The government hates that. And they hate it with special animus in the context of abortion or “reproductive rights,” as they call it.
The Stormans did not carry abortifacients in their store, instead referring customers to the more than 30 other pharmacies within five miles of their store that carried it. No customer has ever been denied timely access to abortifacients. But their refusal to betray their deeply held religious beliefs and bow down before Big Abortion won them the ire of their business partners, Big Government.
Therefore, the Washington State Board of Pharmacy set to the task of coming up with new regulations. The task, according to Steven Saxe, the Board’s executive director, was to “draft language to allow facilitating a referral for only these non-moral or non-religious reasons.”
The Governor quickly jumped in with unusual enthusiasm, sending a letter opposing allowing a pharmacy to refer customers for “personal or conscientious reasons.” The States Human Rights Commission also sent “a letter threatening Board members with personal liability” if they allowed pharmacists to refer customers because of their religious convictions.
So the Board passed the law prohibiting a pharmacy from refusing “to deliver a drug or device to a patient because its owner objects to delivery on religious, moral or other personal grounds.” Essentially, Christians should get out of the pharmacy business.
Not surprisingly, with such a clear record showing the whole purpose of the law was to target religious beliefs, the District Court struck down the law. It seems fairly clear that if there is any meaning at all to, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” it would be that government should not specifically target religious beliefs for discrimination, but as we know, reality has broken down in our culture.
Read more: BarbWire
Image credit: www.barbwire.com.
