WASHINGTON — Religious leaders and Republican House members said at a hearing Thursday that a federal rule requiring employers to offer benefits covering birth control is still an attack on religious freedom, despite the Obama administration’s revision to accommodate religiously affiliated institutions. Meanwhile, Democrats criticized Republicans for not including enough women in the hearing.

“The policy is an unconscionable intrusion by the state into the consciences of American citizens,” Ben Mitchell, a professor of moral philosophy at Union University in Jackson and an ordained minister in the Nashville-based Southern Baptist Convention, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

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