GOSHEN – Hundreds rallied in Goshen Friday as part of the nationwide Stand Up for Religious Freedom events on the second anniversary of the Obama Administration’s health care program.

Organizers in Goshen maintained the rally and call for an end to mandated contraception and other mandates on women’s productive rights violate the US Constitution.

Paul Laux: Religious freedom

Hundreds attend rally in Goshen

Today’s rally is about religious freedom,” said Paul Laux, an organizer of the Mid-Hudson event. “Don’t let anybody coerce you into think it’s about contraception or abortion; all these things are part of it, but it is about one thing first and foremost – religious freedom in the United States of America.”

Those who attended oppose the US Department of Health and Human Services mandate requiring all employer health plans to include free contraceptives, sterlizations and abortion-inducing drugs, regardless of one’s religious beliefs.

Rev. Jeffery Mauer of St. Mary’s Church in Washingtonville, and a native of Kingston, said the mandate “prohibits the free exercise of our religion.”

Clay Boone said this is a moral conscience issue. “This is a right that is protected under the first clause of the First Amendment,” he said.