Posted on 03/23/2016 6:00:30 PM PDT by Morgana
The Obama administration has been unrelenting in its fight to force a group of Catholic nuns to violate their beliefs and pay for abortion-causing drugs and contraception, arguing that they are essential health care services.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard an appeal from the Little Sisters of the Poor and 37 other religious groups to stop the Obama administration from forcing them to comply with Obamacares abortion mandate. The mandate compels religious groups to pay for birth control, drugs that may cause abortions and sterilization. Without relief, the Little Sisters would face millions of dollars in IRS fines.
While arguing publicly that religious groups should be forced to comply with the HHS Mandate, the Obama administration quietly exempted several major companies from those same rules. Lawyers for the religious groups used this point to argue against the federal governments overarching mandate on Wednesday.
The Catholic News Agency reports more about the situation:
Meanwhile, some other health plans have been grandfathered in and are not subject to the mandate. These include plans offered by ExxonMobil, Chevron, Visa Inc. and PepsiCo.
Furthermore, the U.S. Military includes a family insurance plan that does not offer the mandated services.
And, according to the website, one in three Americans do not have a health plan that satisfies the mandate. The Little Sisters say that since so many employers are offered exemptions under various justifications, there is no reason that they should not receive a religious exemption as well.
While a narrow religious exemption to the mandate is offered to houses of worship and their affiliates, many faith-based charities and non-profits including the Little Sisters do not qualify due to a stipulation in tax law that was used to determine religious exemptions.
Instead, the administration has offered what it calls an accommodation whereby religious non-profits such as the Little Sisters can notify the government of their moral objections, and government in turn will order the issuer of their health plan to provide the coverage.
However, the Little Sisters argue that this still violates their religious beliefs because they would ultimately be facilitating access to services they believe are immoral. Failure to comply with the mandate would mean fines estimated at $2.5 million per year 40 percent of what the sisters beg for annually to run their ministry.
These facts seem to point to a more underhanded motive than simply ensuring Americans have essential health care services. Some have speculated that the Obama administrations real motives in the case are to chip away at religious liberty in the U.S.
The case, Zubik v. Burwell, involves 37 religious nonprofits such as charities and universities that say the HHS mandate violates their religious beliefs. They say the religious accommodation the Obama administration put together still makes them complicit in covering the abortion-causing drugs.
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Hijacking. It seems to me thats an accurate description of what the government wants to do, Chief Justice John Roberts said during oral arguments on Wednesday.
With only eight judges on the Supreme Court, if the high court splits 4-4, then the lower ruling favoring the Little Sisters will stand and the Obama administration would lose its case. But because many of the organizations involved in todays case had lower court rulings against them, they would be forced to obey the mandate if the Supreme Court ties.
Previously, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily protected the Little Sisters from the mandate. The Little Sisters then went before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver to extend that protection, but a panel of the appeals court ruled against them. Eventually the full appeals court ruled in the nuns favor, but the Obama administration appealed.
The Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of Catholic nuns who care for the elderly poor, urged the Supreme Court to protect them from $70 million dollars in government fines for refusing to violate their Catholic faith. This is the second time the Sisters have been forced to ask the Supreme Court for protection from the governments efforts to make them to provide contraceptives to their employees.
The Little Sisters spend their lives taking care of the neediest members of our society that is work our government should applaud, not punish, said Mark Rienzi, Senior Counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The Little Sisters should not have to fight their own government to get an exemption it has already given to thousands of other employers, including big companies like Exxon and Pepsi Cola Bottling Company.
Their Supreme Court brief explains why the government does not need the Little Sisters at all: because it already has many other ways to get contraceptive coverage to those who want it. Indeed, the government has invested billions of dollars in creating exchanges for the express purpose of making it easy to obtain qualifying insurance when it is not available through an employer. The government cannot explain why those exchanges suffice to advance its goal of getting contraceptive coverage to the tens of millions of [other] people . . . yet are not good enough for the employees of the Little Sisters.
Previously, the Supreme Court ruled that the Christian-run Hobby Lobby doesnt have to obey the HHS mandate that is a part of Obamacare that requires businesses to pay for abortion causing drugs in their employee health care plans.
Gee—Whatever happened to equal protection under the law?
Either laws apply equally to everyone, or they do not apply at all.
Congress, including the ever-lying GOP, is also EXEMPT.
So are their staff and ALL their families.
EXEMPT.
America lives as organ donors for the EXEMPT Congress
who will get Kennedy-level of medical care in ALL STATES
for them and their staff, even though Americans
(their slaves) will only get IRS audits
(”thanks” to McCain).
You are right, and this is intentional.
Muslims are exempt from 0bamacare penalties. Islam has preference over all other religions.
Only “Just Law” is allowed in the US Justice System-—all unjust law is “null and void”.
All “Just Laws” promote “public virtue” only......all evil “law”—unequal laws are unconstitutional and “null and void” by definition.
Hmmmm. We no longer are under Rule of Law (Higher Laws/God’s Laws)-—we are under Stalin’s system of Rule of Man-—irrational, arbitrary, man-made up “laws” which are forcing Satanism/paganism or occultism on the nuns.
It is unconstitutional and Ginsberg needs to be impeached years ago.
As I read this, a 4/4 split means the nuns win. Let Trump, Kasich or Cruz name the replacement later.
This is part of the left’s marginalization of Christianity effort that has been going on for a long time. NOW with their alliance with the Muslims it is even more apparent.
I would like to know how that came to be.
“You are right, and this is intentional.”
I had to do how many “Little Sister” posts today before someone figured it out??
I must be slipping.
This is what happens when the gubmint UNCONSTITUTIONALLY forces people to buy things against their will.
FUJR!!!
Aren’t muslims exempt from Obamacare? And aren’t the Amish exempt from Obamacare? Why not the Little Sisters of the Poor?
So much for Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.
Why do liberals even care what SCOTUS says? They’ll just ignore it, anyways.
The government did something similar to Catholic Charities in Illinois. They objected to giving foster children to gay couples. So they lost their government contract for foster care placement.
It's not the same, apples and oranges, but it goes to show how the government forces compliance to their dictums or else.
The "Little Sisters " have indicated that this 'accommodation' still represents a violation of their religious and moral views .
It's too bad the administration has no moral values , yet it :
apologizes to the Cubans
apologizes to the Argentinians
apologizes to the Palestineans
persecutes the Christian nuns
buys off the Iranians in a nuclear deal
spits in the face of the Israelies and Netanyahu
discriminates against Conservatives and Tea Party supporters in IRS tax issues
yet supports the "Black Lies Matter", encouraged by the Dept. of "Just-Us" despite falsehoods, lies , and idiotic chants
and the 'first lady' wears a dress worth 23 years annual salary of a worker in Cuba, while in Cuba
and then this same administration still sleeps soundly at night !UNBELIEVABLE ! !
The lower court ruled in favor of the Sisters, 4/4 means the ruling stands.
The Supreme Court has nothing to do with blind justice or equality before the law. Its just a façade for what is really a mechanism for political decisions.
Well, if one of the Justices hadn't rewritten the law to rule favorably on it, no one would be saddled with it.
The Amish are exempt, not sure why the Little Sisters are not.
Under the cryptoMoslem who renounced US citizenship,
only Islam is the religion of the USA, and
only al Qaeda and the Moslem Brotherhood and Iran
are allies.
And the GOP does NOTHING (SSDD).
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