March 24: A Major Day In Religious Conflict

A day after the Catholic Bishops held rallies across the country to promote their right to deny their employees birth control (I tried to find coverage in the Dayton paper, but the search turned up coverage of a priest conducting an exorcism of an abortion clinic earlier in the month), many of the notable historical occurances for this date have a link to religious conflicts:

1603- James VI of Scotland also becomes James I of England.

The man who authorized the King James Bible, became King of Scotland because his mother, Mary Queen of Scots was forced to abdicate because of her Catholicism:

The care of James was entrusted to the Earl and Countess of Mar, "to be conserved, nursed, and upbrought" in the security of Stirling Castle. James was crowned King of Scots at the age of thirteen months at the Church of the Holy Rude, Stirling, by Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, on 29 July 1567. The sermon at the coronation was preached by John Knox. In accordance with the religious beliefs of most of the Scottish ruling class, James was brought up as a member of the Protestant Church of Scotland. The Privy Council selected George Buchanan, Peter Young, Adam Erskine (lay abbot of Cambuskenneth), and David Erskine (lay abbot of Dryburgh) as James's preceptors or tutors. As the young king's senior tutor, Buchanan subjected James to regular beatings but also instilled in him a lifelong passion for literature and learning. Buchanan sought to turn James into a God-fearing, Protestant king who accepted the limitations of monarchy, as outlined in his treatise De Jure Regni apud Scotos.

Two years after becoming the King of England, Guy Fawkes failed to blow James to Kingdom Come in the Gunpowder Plot.

Later in English history, in 1823, we have this:

The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, allowing Catholics to serve in Parliament.
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws. Requirements to abjure the temporal and spiritual authority of the Pope and transubstantiation placed major burdens on Roman Catholics.
From the death of James Francis Edward Stuart in January 1766, the Papacy recognised the Hanoverian dynasty as lawful rulers of England, Scotland and Ireland, after a gap of 70 years, and thereafter the penal laws started to be dismantled. The most significant measure was the Catholic Relief Act of 1829, which removed the most substantial restrictions on Roman Catholicism in the United Kingdom.

Just three years later in 1832, here in Ohio, we have this:

In Hiram, Ohio a group of men beat, tar and feather Mormon leader Joseph Smith, Jr..

Smith's stay in nearby Kirtland was stormy, with charges of bank fraud driving him west, where he settled in Missouri, and then Illinois, where he met his demise.  Shifting to Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1922, we get the McMahon murders:

Irish War of Independence: In Belfast, Northern Irish policemen break into the home of a Catholic family and shoot all eight males inside.
The McMahon murders occurred on 24 March 1922 in Belfast, Northern Ireland when six Irish Catholic civilians were shot dead and two wounded by policemen of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) or Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). The dead were aged between 15 and 50 and all but one were members of the McMahon family. The policemen broke into their house at night and shot all eight males inside. It is believed to have been a reprisal for the IRA's killing of two policemen the day before.
Northern Ireland had been created ten months beforehand, in the midst of the Irish War of Independence. During this time, its police forces – especially the USC, which was almost exclusively Protestant and unionist – were implicated in a number of attacks on Catholic and Irish nationalist civilians as reprisal for IRA attacks.

Moving on to 1972:

The United Kingdom imposes direct rule over Northern Ireland.

Finally, in 1980:

 Archbishop Óscar Romero is killed while celebrating Mass in San Salvador.

While I understand the bishops' position about religious freedom, history is clogged with examples of much worse instances of injustice based on religious freedom or the lack thereof.  Mandating that employer-provided health insurance cover birth control at no charge doesn't rank at the top of the list of infringements of religious freedom.  It's on the list, yes, but not at the top.