Free Republic

The Little Sisters of the Poor were a cause célèbre during President Obama’s tenure, and they’re still in court defending religious exceptions to ObamaCare’s contraceptive mandate. Progressives don’t merely want to win the country’s culture wars. They want to impose a Carthaginian peace. The latest evidence is a case involving the Franciscan Alliance that was heard a few weeks ago by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The alliance is a Catholic hospital system, mostly in Indiana, founded by the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration. As the alliance argues in its brief, in 2016 the government interpreted ObamaCare’s...

The ruling greatly expands the kinds of employers that can cite religious or moral objections in declining to include birth control in their health care plans. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the way for the Trump administration to give the nation's employers more leeway in refusing to provide free birth control for their workers under the Affordable Care Act. The ruling is a victory for the administration's plan to greatly expand the kinds of employers who can cite religious or moral objections in declining to include contraceptives in their health care plans. Up to 126,000 women...

This is the kind of case the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia liked to sink his judicial teeth into -- whether the federal government can compel a religious entity like the Little Sisters of the Poor to violate their religious beliefs and acquiesce to the ObamaCare contraceptive coverage mandate. As LifeSite News reported on Wednesday’s hearing: This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a 175-year-old religious order of women who have vowed their lives to care for the elderly poor.

Pope Francis’ unexpected and unscheduled visit to the Little Sisters of the Poor, a convent of elderly nuns fighting ObamaCare’s contraception mandate in the courts, is a clear message shot across the Obama administration’s bow that such religious persecution is not acceptable, backing up the American Catholic Church’s mantra: we will not comply While the lamestream media focuses on the Pope’s seeming alignment on issues such as climate change and immigration reform, the chattering class ignores this ongoing battle over religious liberty.

Excerpted from BizPac Review: ost freedom-loving Americans celebrated the recently reported news that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted an order on Dec. 31 to temporarily halt the Obamacare mandate requiring the Little Sisters of the Poor to offer contraception. When Attorney General Eric Holder dug in to fight the Little Sisters, country rock icon and conservative tweeter Charlie Daniels offered his encouragement to the nuns.

A favorite tactic of this Administration is to engage in outrageous behavior, and then – with the support of its allies – put its opponents on the defensive by accusing them of engaging in the conduct of which it is in fact guilty. So, for example, the Obama Administration takes far-out positions on social issues— then labels as “extreme” anyone who stands up for mainstream values. The White House promotes monetary policies that destroy jobs– and then attacks the business community for driving “income inequality.” The latest example of this “jujitsu” maneuver involves the Health and Human Services contraceptive mandate...

Cwontheweb wrote: HEY: Townhall dummies... this site is owned and operated by your natural enemies... and they try to keep you fighting over welfare for workers who cannot afford to live on the wages paid by offshoring gangsters... multi national thieves... and robber barons. OF course they defend Chase, Dimon, all the boys on Wall St... this site is there to teach you that the gansters are the good guys... and the $7 an hour worker is the enemy...dum dum dum.;.... there will never EVER be another Republican president until and unless the GOP becomes the party of MAIN ST...

Many of you have heard about the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of nuns providing care for the elderly, who  are now taking on the Obama Administration over the Affordable Care Act's (ObamaCare) contraception mandate. Religious exemptions from the ObamaCare contraception mandate are often made for government-approved entities, but the Obama Administration has deemed the nuns, who work exclusively with the elderly, unworthy of an exception. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor recently granted the Little Sisters of the Poor a temporary injunction, so they do not have to violate their religious beliefs by offering health insurance that...

The Little Sisters of the Poor, the stand up nuns who’ve taken on the Obama administration over the HHS Mandate, are a bunch of tough customers. I mean that in the best understanding of the word “tough.” Providing frail elderly people with loving care on a 24/7 basis is work that would make the average Navy Seal turn weak in the knees. When I say 24/7, I mean twenty-four hours, right around the clock; every single day, right around the calendar. Caring for a frail elderly person is more demanding in a lot of ways than caring for a toddler....

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has blocked the administration’s mandate that the Little Sisters of the Poor contract to provide contraception coverage to their employees. That the case has gone this far illustrates the sickness of the left, the complacence of our popular media culture, and the weakness (partly self-inflicted) of President Obama’s political opponents. The Little Sisters of the Poor provide nursing home care to the elderly poor. They are giving the old, indigent, and isolated not only a place to live, but the care rooted in a kind of personal love that neither the government nor business...

[. . . ] The government actually misrepresents the facts before the Supreme Court. It asserts that all the Little Sisters have to do is file a form saying “they are non-profit organizations that hold themselves out as religious and have religious objections to providing coverage for contraceptive services.” That's untrue. The government deliberately added more language to the Little Sisters’ form. Because their plan is “self-insured,” in addition to stating their religious objection, the government requires their form to also specifically tell their insurance administrator that he has “obligations” to provide the abortifacient and contraceptive coverage himself. The government...

Though there's no shortage of cheerfulness at the Little Sisters of the Poor. Since it was founded in France in 1839, its mission has been to give dignity and love to the elderly poor -- to people of every background and religion. And, boy, do the sisters deliver. Sister Regina took me on a tour of the residence. I was struck by the laughter and camaraderie on every floor -- even in the infirmary, where people are near their end, the joy was abundant. You have an opportunity to advance more joy this year. Instead of donating money to the...

A Catholic religious order, the Little Sisters of the Poor, has filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration asking the courts to protect them from being forced to comply with the HHS abortion mandate. The mandate compels religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions. Yesterday, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a religious order of Sisters dedicated to caring for the elderly poor. Without relief, the Little Sisters face millions of dollars in IRS fines because they cannot comply with the government’s...

First Amendment: A federal appeals court has reinstated lawsuits from two religious colleges against the HHS contraception mandate, saying promises to rework it aren't enough. Can a group of nuns helping the poor be protected? On Tuesday, a chink in ObamaCare's armor developed as a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., reinstated lawsuits by Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College that had been dismissed by lower courts on the grounds the two schools had not yet suffered or demonstrated real harm by a law not yet fully implemented. The lower courts ruled the schools had to wait until the oncoming...

This will make you angry. Via the Catholic News Agency: Baltimore, Md., Mar 8, 2012 / 12:34 am (CNA).- The Little Sisters of the Poor say the HHS contraception and sterilization mandate threatens their continued ministry to the impoverished elderly. They are “strongly objecting” to the federal rule and say it should be repealed as soon as possible. “Because the Little Sisters of the Poor cannot in conscience directly provide or collaborate in the provision of services that conflict with Church teaching, we find ourselves in the irreconcilable situation of being forced to either stop serving and employing people of...

Though he’s had plenty of opportunities to compromise on his overreaching contraceptive mandate, President Obama has defiantly refused them all. Now he’s fighting a group of nuns in US Supreme Court. The nuns are the Little Sisters of the Poor, and they run nursing homes for the elderly. The Little Sisters argue they should not be forced to offer coverage that violates their religious convictions. The Obama argument is astounding. The gist is that the nuns really aren’t religious enough to qualify for the church exemption. The administration backs up that position with hefty fines for the Little Sisters if...

One would assume that a lawyer would think twice before suing an order of nuns called the Little Sisters of the Poor, but not Attorney General Eric Holder. Fox News host Megyn Kelly reported that he’s going after them “tooth and nail” on the Friday night edition of “The Kelly Files.” Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted an order on Dec. 31 temporarily restraining the federal government from enforcing Obamacare’s contraception mandate against the Denver-based Catholic order of nuns. Had Holder’s Justice Department done nothing, the government would have eventually been permanently enjoined from enforcing the mandate against the sisters....

Imagine if the government said to a religious employer, “We’re not going to require you to pay for abortions, but we will require you to provide employees with a document that entitles them to a free abortion at the Planned Parenthood clinic down the street.” Would anyone think for a moment that respected religious liberty? Yet that’s the essence of the government “accommodation” here. The Little Sisters object to providing an abortion/contraception voucher — a voucher that could be redeemed for free abortifacients at the discretion of a third-party administrator. So, no, this is not an argument about a form....

A resident and a sister arrange flowers at the Little Sisters of the Poor's Mullen Home in Denver, CO in this undated file photo. Credit: El Pueblo Catolico/James Baca. Washington D.C., Jan 3, 2014 / 05:57 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Despite the claims of the U.S. Justice Department, the demands of the federal contraception mandate threaten the continued works of service performed by the Little Sisters of the Poor, their attorneys say. Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the religious sisters in court, charged that the government's claim amounts to “doublespeak” and...

The US Justice Department on Friday asked the Supreme Court to throw out a challenge from a nuns' group against a birth control mandate in the Obamacare health reform law. The Little Sisters of the Poor had asked the US high court to exempt it from the controversial birth control clause, saying that providing birth control was contrary to its religious beliefs. The US government, in its written response, asked the court to lift the temporary block on birth control, arguing that the provision does not apply to the nuns anyway. The Little Sisters' lawsuit is "not about the availability...