“Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience,” [New York Cardinal Tim] Dolan told the Associated Press. “This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.”

Christian leaders are considering their legal options after the Obama administration announced that many religious-affiliated institutions will have to provide free birth control for employees.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius offered a single concession, saying that nonprofit institutions like church-affiliated hospitals and colleges will have an additional year to comply with the requirement.

“I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services,” Sebelius said in a statement.

Under the guideline, HHS said the controversial 2010 health-care reform law would require health plans and insurers to provide no-cost coverage of contraceptives, including those with abortion-inducing properties. Those FDA-endorsed contraceptives include ones that have the ability to cause abortions — emergency contraception, such as Plan B; the intrauterine device (IUD), and “ella.” Emergency contraception is also known as the “morning-after” pill.

The decision has infuriated Christians who called the decision an outright attack on religious liberty.

“Generally, Christian colleges and organizations find the ruling to be outrageous,” said David Dockery, president of Union University (Jackson, Tenn.), a school affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention. “It puts us in a position of having to support something that we fundamentally oppose.”

Dockery said Obama’s decision poses “a real question about the administration’s commitment to religious freedom.”

Mark Foley, the president of the University of Mobile (Ala.), said he had “a great deal of concern about it.”

“It’s another illustration of the intent of this administration to ignore the rights of the citizens,” Foley told Fox News & Commentary. “It will mean that when our health care plan provider approaches us with the adjustments that are now mandated, the university will be forced to cover employees with provisions that are contrary to our purpose and our underlying philosophical and theological position.”

Congressman Randy Forbes (R-Va.) told Fox News & Commentary that it is time for Christians to speak out.

“People of faith are going to have to stand up,” he said. “People are frightened and they are angry because they feel their freedoms are being taken away.”

The Obama administration reached out to New York Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan and personally informed him of the decision. It did not go over well.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on bpnews.net—however, the original URL is no longer available.]