Before we turn the page on the HHS contraception mandate and focus on the current inadequate compromise, or on just how far the Obama administration will backtrack — or be forced back — let’s not forget what it nearly got away with.

Twice in recent months, the administration has attempted to apply wide-reaching government regulation to religious organizations. And twice it has faced repudiation — first from a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling and now from outraged citizens in the court of public opinion.

But it is the combined effect and underlying philosophy of these proposals that has so many religious believers concerned. The perception is growing that there is hostility within the Obama administration to the role of religious institutions in American life.