To the editor:

America changed this week.

The Obama administration decreed that religious institutions will be required to pay for medical services that are in direct conflict with their long-held, clearly stated beliefs, and that ordained ministers of multiple faiths who are serving our troops in the chaplain services are prohibited from discussing these beliefs from their pulpits.

The current administration has thrown off the guise of remaining neutral and has actively joined with the radical liberal forces that have for years attempted to remove any hint of God or religious beliefs from all aspects of public life.

Regardless of your own personal opinion or set of beliefs, the truth is that God has, throughout history, inserted Himself into the structure and makeup of our government. The moral laws, social guidelines and rules dictating good citizenship that are the basis for our Constitution — our rights and our civil liberties — are scripture-based and God-inspired.

But now our own government is seeking to dismantle, piece by piece, those individual rights and liberties that millions have fought and died to preserve. Are we headed down a path where the only rights we will have are those that our government wants us to have?

There is a saying that a Government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have. Are we starting to see that come to pass?

Indeed, America changed. For the first time in our history, the common man, you and I, should fear our government. That is why it is time to stand, to speak and to vote — while we still can.

Richard L. Curry, M.D.
Suffolk