Supreme Court: Obama Admin Can’t Make Religious Groups Obey Pro-Abortion HHS Mandate

Life News ^ | Apr 16, 2015 | Steven Ertelt

[xzins]

The Supreme Court issued an order today preventing the Obama administration from forcing religious groups in Pennsylvania to obey the HHS mandate that requires them to pay for abortion-causing drugs for their employees. This is the fifth time the Supreme Court has rebuked the Obama administration and prevented it from making such a mandate.

In an order issued last night, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito prevented the federal government from enforcing its contraceptive mandate against a range of Pennsylvania-based religious organizations including Catholic Charities and other Catholic schools and social service organizations connected with the Diocese of Erie and the Diocese of Pittsburgh. The Supreme Court has previously protected the Little Sisters of the Poor, Hobby Lobby, Wheaton College, and the University of Notre Dame.

According to the Becket Fund, Justice Alito’s order is similar to the preliminary order Justice Sotomayor provided to the Little Sisters of the Poor on New Year’s Eve in 2013. The group said order requires the government to brief the Supreme Court next week on why it should be allowed to fine these organizations for refusing to distribute abortion-inducing drugs and devices and other contraceptives.

Lori Windham, Senior Counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, told LifeNews: “How many times must the government lose in court before it gets the message? For years now the government has been claiming that places like Catholic Charities and the Little Sisters of the Poor are not “religious employers” worthy of an exemption.”

“That argument has always been absurd. Every time a religious plaintiff has gone to the Supreme Court for protection from the government’s discriminatory mandate the Court has protected them. That’s what happened to the Little Sisters of the Poor, Wheaton College, Notre Dame, and Hobby Lobby,” Windham continued. “The government really needs to give up on its illegal and unnecessary mandate. The federal bureaucracy has lots of options for distributing contraceptives–they don’t need to coerce nuns and priests to do it for them.”

The Supreme Court will be considering a similar case involving an order of Nashville Dominican nuns and several Tennessee — and Michigan –based Catholic charities at a conference of the Justices on April 24.

A December 2013 Rasmussen Reports poll shows Americans disagree with forcing companies like Hobby Lobby to obey the mandate.

“Half of voters now oppose a government requirement that employers provide health insurance with free contraceptives for their female employees,” Rasmussen reports.

The poll found: “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 38% of Likely U.S. Voters still believe businesses should be required by law to provide health insurance that covers all government-approved contraceptives for women without co-payments or other charges to the patient.

Fifty-one percent (51%) disagree and say employers should not be required to provide health insurance with this type of coverage. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.”

Another recent poll found 59 percent of Americans disagree with the mandate.

[Alberta's Child]

Right. But the issue in these legal disputes is whether “religion” is even applicable to the matter at hand.

[lepton]

Two of the three clauses of the First Amendment are clearly violated by that. Why on earth should people be compelled to create art, even if they ARE incorporated.

[xzins]

Any lawyer can refuse to take any case. I assume they do that based on something.

[ExTxMarine]

Of course it is applicable, if they are saying I must violate my own conscience. To Liberals, one’s religion is only allowed as far as the doors of their church or synagogue.

To a religious person, we live our religion every minute of every day. Therefore, you making me do something that is against my religion, is in violation of my 1st Amendment rights - PERIOD! Doesn’t matter WHERE or WHEN that violation is forced, it is still a violation.

Any other interpretation of the 1st Amendment, simply DESTROYS the entire Constitution and the foundations of America. Any other interpretation relegates religion to a Sunday morning or Wednesday evening “hobby,” completely removing the moral conscience of religion from everyday life. Which is what Liberals want, because then they can force the replacement of those religious morals with government-sanctioned/government-forced morals like political correctness and social justice!

[Alberta's Child]

That's why you are more likely to successfully challenge this ObamaCare provision as an individual than these organizations are. The problem is that they have mounted a legal challenge against this ObamaCare provision on religious grounds, when in many cases they aren't even religious organizations. Catholic Charities, for example, gets something like 60% of its revenues from the U.S. Federal government. That's not a religious organization. It's a well-organized racket.

Hobby Lobby, on the other hand, was able to win a stay in the Federal courts because they are truly a private organization. It's a corporation, but it's a closed corporation that was established to allow the founding family to run their business based on a Christian code of standards. And they don't require grants from government to stay in business, so they can clearly demonstrate that they are a private organization.