In the world of presidential politics this week, more use of religion. At a town hall meeting on Monday, Mitt Romney suggested President Obama's contraception coverage rule is not only a bad idea that burdens religious liberty but is part of a more sinister plot to establish a national religion of secularism in violation of the First Amendment.

Likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney doubled down on his attack against President Obama for allegedly waging a “war on religion” during a town hall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin Monday night, insisting that the Affordable Care Act’s new rule requiring employers to provide preventive health care services like contraception constituted an effort to establish “secularism” as an official religion.

“They decided to say that in this country, that a church, in this case the Catholic Church would be required to violate its principles and its conscience and be required to provide contraceptives, sterilization and morning after pills to the employees of the Church,” Romney said.

Actually, churches and houses of worship are explicitly exempt from the coverage requirement, and President Obama  announced his intention that the final rule should likewise exempt religious organizations that object to the mandate on religious grounds. HHS has asked for public comment on how best to accommodate the views of religious organizations like schools and hospitals while providing women with access to effective health care. How can that be a national religion of secularism? 

The details of the health care law's applicability to religious employers is a tough balancing act that still needs to be worked out, with effective health care access to all and deferential accommodation of religious beliefs where appropriate. We won't all agree, obviously, on how that balance should look in the end. But that doesn't mean one side is engaging in a "war on religion," or seeking to wipe out religion altogether in a national establishment of atheism. 

Romney's comments came on the heels of an unfortunate exchange he had with a questioner at a town hall meeting, who tried to criticize the candidate for past theological positions of his church. A candidate should not be held responsible for every view of his church, especially those the church no longer holds. Similar to the controversy President Obama experienced over Reverend Wright in the 2008 campaign, Romney is not to blame for every utterance of his church, and certainly not the ones now decried.