Whatever the federal government is thinking of doing to protect what the Constitution calls the ‘free exercise’ of religion, it should get a move on. Because right under its nose that freedom is being eroded. Religious persecution, something that hitherto, if we thought about it at all, we associated with Marxist dictatorships and Muslim theocracies or as one of the excesses of history in times of anti-Christian fanaticism such as the French Revolution, is beginning to show itself here.