The National Public Radio headline was provocative.

“Has Obama Waged a War on Religion?” it asked ominously.

NPR religion reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty told listeners that the Roman Catholic hierarchy and other religious conservatives are accusing the Obama administration of hostility to religion in general and Christianity in particular. Some presidential candidates, keen to pick up evangelical and traditionalist Catholic votes, have joined the drumbeat.

But the critics’ evidence of Obama opposition to faith is thin at best. They say his comprehensive medical insurance plan exempts churches from its birth control mandate but does not give exemptions to some other religiously affiliated institutions. And his administration has on at least one occasion denied a federal contract to the bishops because they would not (because of doctrinal mandates) provide the services the government intended.

The Religious Right and the Catholic hierarchy also do not like the fact that President Obama refuses to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court. DOMA bars the federal government from recognizing the state-sanctioned civil marriages of same-sex couples, and the administration considers the measure inherently discriminatory.

The president, of course, isn’t asking churches to recognize those unions. But the bishops and their fundamentalist Protestant allies fear that federal grants might not go to “faith-based” social service agencies if those agencies refuse to help legally wed same-sex couples who need assistance.

So the bottom line is this: The federal government may ask church-affiliated ministries to obey civil rights statutes if they get public funds. And the law mandating comprehensive health insurance coverage for women may apply to church colleges, church hospitals and other institutions that serve the general public and hire many employees whose religious beliefs are different from those of their employer.

Hmmm. This doesn’t really sound like a “war on religion” as much as it is a defense of civil rights and the public interest.

As Americans United’s Rob Boston told NPR, “I am tired of hearing Religious Right organizations or the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church play the victim.

“All we’re really seeing right now,” he continued, “is a very modest attempt from the Obama administration to put some controls on how some government money is spent when it flows to religious organizations. It’s a very reasonable thing that quite frankly should have happened a long time ago.”

It’s important for Americans to know the truth because it’s clear that the Catholic hierarchy and its Religious Right allies are going to ratchet up the rhetoric about the “threat to religious liberty.”

The bishops have formed a new lobbying unit – the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty – to agitate for that perspective, and they’ve brought in the massively funded Knights of Columbus to help with the project.

And we know, of course, that the relentless legion of Religious Right groups will be there to shore up the movement’s right flank.

Those of us who favor church-state separation and equality for all Americans have our work cut out for us. Gird for battle.