Just when you thought the power and influence of the Religious Right was waning, the Bush administration is seeking once again to regulate their views into federal government. According to State Attorney General Jerry Brown the Bush administration is planning regulation that would unravel California's law that requires religious health institutions to provide full birth control services.

At issue is whether or not, health practitioners or rather the company they work for must be forced to provide an abortion procedure or write a birth control prescription, acts they believe compromise their religious beliefs.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle

• California's law was passed in 2000 in response to decisions by many health insurance plans to cover the male potency drug Viagra but continue to deny coverage for birth control pills, forcing women to pay for contraceptives.

• The state Supreme Court upheld the law in a 2004 ruling that applied to 1,600 employees of Catholic Charities and 52,000 employees of Catholic hospitals in the state. The law exempts church employees, but the court said affiliated agencies such as Catholic Charities are secular institutions because they employ and serve mostly non-Catholics.

Bush's proposed regulation would allow these institutions to deny women the full range of care they seek or need. If California continues to enforce its law, it would lose federal funding for health services.

As a progressive Democrat, I affirm the right of women to have access to all family planning options and I certainly believe all health insurance plans should be required to provide these services.

I also agree with supporters of the president who want to protect individuals who do not want to compromise their personal religious beliefs. But the Bush administration is going about this completely wrong.

You don't have to pull federal funding in order to protect religious beliefs. Religious health institutions should be required to provide women's family planning services, but individual practitioners should not be forced to perform a procedure or write a prescription they disagree with. But the organization should have someone available to write the prescription or perform the procedure.

This affirms everyone's rights and protects a woman's health. But Bush is only interested in protecting the rights of business and advancing the agenda of those who want to impose their religion on society.

As far as we can tell, Sen. John McCain has been working hard to court these same religious zealots who carry this dangerous ideology that would undermine California law. Thank God we have a choice on November 4th.