Forcing nuns—nuns!—to buy birth control (in the form of Obamacare medical insurance) should have been the canary in the coal mine of progressives’ vile, out-of-control authoritarianism. And to a large extent, in the center-right media space, it got the attention it deserved, but it truly deserved a deeper and wider audience, for it was a blinding flashpoint in the whole groin-focused-”reproductive-care”-gay-marriage-”gender-fluid”-what-are-your-pronouns arc launched in earnest during the Obama era.
Last November, when analyzing why Kamala lost, Clarice Feldman summed it up brilliantly:
For some reason I keep thinking about the saga of the Little Sisters of the Poor, beginning back at the end of the second Obama administration. It had, in miniature, the key elements of liberal political psychology that afflicted the Biden administration and the Harris campaign: the compulsive aggression and imprudence of liberal government, which ends up defeating itself through the inability to exercise even a modicum of political self-restraint, combined with the total inability of the aggressors to understand why anyone could doubt their rectitude. [Emphasis added.]
The American people are a great and good people with a deep sense of fairness. Whatever else we are, we are that. It’s ingrained within us. We fled the divine right of kings. We have intense discomfort with some people, who, simply by dint of blood, claim to have been born “superior” to us, having special rights we don’t have and can never get. The British pomp and circumstance is all very entertaining, but that’s them, not us.
Some of us (mostly women) might occasionally fancy watching a “fairy tale” of a royal wedding on television, but princes and kings? For real? Fairy tales are where they belong. We blew that clambake. We work for a living and dream big. We can each be our own kings (and queens), thank you very much. We earn it. Oh, and you’d better have a good reason for getting all up in my business, Mr. Big Government, or you’ll hear us complain loudly about it.
The Little Sisters of the Poor did complain...loudly. They complained all the way to the Supreme Court, and won (mostly), but not completely. Two blue states are still coming after them!
In 2020, the Little Sisters won again at the Supreme Court, securing protection from the mandate. But Pennsylvania and New Jersey have continued to fight in court to strip the Little Sisters of that protection.
— BECKET (@becketfund) August 13, 2025
(The above tweets are part of a much longer thread about how Democrats have been trying to force nuns to fund abortion.)
This level of authoritarianism needs a name: Progressive Neo-Puritanism. They are the Puritans of the 21st century. They will shun you, cancel you, and punish you if you do not comply. And they mean this on a nationwide basis, and that is their problem.
Our fifty laboratories of liberty are merely hubcap-popping speed bumps on their frenetic way to Progressive Utopia. Hence their need, their relentless drive, to get the Supreme Court to affirm things they haven’t been able or willing to get the Hill or the states to affirm through legislation, which is how it’s supposed to be done here in America.
We use the term “slippery slope” a lot. It’s a “slippery slope” indeed.
First, it was “tolerance,” right? Then “coexist.” Then it was legal “domestic partners.” Then came Obergefell with gay marriage. Almost immediately, there were articles in Salon and other left-wing organs talking about “throuples.” Then there were celebratory articles about women “marrying” trees, or their dogs, or themselves! Then came “gender fluidity” and the insistence on pronouns. Then they came for the nuns. And then...
...they came for our kids. Their “gender fluidity.” Their mutilation while they were still developing. Then came the drag-queen story hours in public schools for kids who hadn’t even begun puberty, much less finished it. And the books they publish! Have you seen “Gender Queer”? Good gravy. It’s pornography for kids. On and on... It has done nothing but grow more and more degenerate and dangerous to innocence.
Then, when we complain that we, as parents, should have a say over what our schools are teaching about sex and all things sex-related, we are vilified, shunned, canceled, and punished. Biden’s FBI sends agents to school parking lots to record license plate numbers of the parents who are complaining.
Somewhere along the way, “tolerance” of all their crazy ideas became an insistence on endorsement. They demanded we not merely, silently, just live and work alongside them. Somewhere along the way, that became insufficient. Silence became “violence.”
They needed us to endorse their insanity with compliance, like the whole pronoun thing. Certainly like Obergefell. Which, may—may—get a rehearing at the Supreme Court this fall, thanks to the Kentucky clerk who went to jail (for a few days) a decade ago for not issuing a wedding license to a gay couple because it violated her sincerely held religious beliefs.
I don’t know exactly when tolerance transmogrified into endorsement, but it’s corrosive. It’s got to stop. Compelled speech, compelled expression, is profoundly anti-American.
Liberals used to understand this during the Vietnam era with “conscientious objectors.” Nowadays, they want to force doctors to perform abortions even when it violates everything they hold morally dear.
How is this not “authoritarian”? How is this not just reflexive obedience to the Church of Progressive Orthodoxy? How vile. Can you imagine? Being a physician, a healer—“first do no harm”—being forced into this gruesomely evil scenario? Yet progressives are just fine with it.
Well, I’m not fine with it. Never have been. Never will be. Thank God the right candidate won last November, or we’d be seeing acolytes to the Church of Progressive Orthodoxy insinuating themselves and their insane beliefs into every little nook and cranny of our lives right now. We can only hope Trump can get the swampy RINOs on the Hill to codify much of his agenda into law so we don’t have to fear what comes after him. Maybe they can start with some legislation to relieve The Little Sisters of the Poor.
Image created using AI.