Posted on 07/25/2012 10:18:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
William, Paul and James Newland and their sister, Christine Ketterhagen, who together own Hercules Industries, have no right to conduct their family business in a manner that comports with their Catholic faith.
The federal government can and will compel them to either surrender their business or to engage in activities the Catholic faith teaches are intrinsically immoral.
This is exactly what President Barack Obama's Justice Department told a U.S. district court in a formal filing last week.
Never before has an administration taken such a bold step to strip Americans of the freedom of conscience -- a right for which, over the centuries, many Christian martyrs have laid down their lives, and which our Founding Fathers took great care to protect in a First Amendment that expressly guarantees the free exercise of religion.
As the Founders understood, no government has legitimate authority to take this right away, because it does not come from government. It comes from God. The very purpose of government is to protect this right. A government that seeks to strip it away from the people is by that very process stripping away its own legitimacy.
What we are seeing from the Obama administration today -- in its attack on religious liberty -- is simply evil. When government seeks to compel individuals to act against their consciences and to engage in activities that, if willfully done, would imperil their immortal souls, there is no other word for it.
The Newland family owns and operates Hercules Industries, a Colorado-based corporation that manufactures heating, ventilation and air-conditioning equipment. Through their hard work and dedication, and through their willingness to reinvest their own money in building their family business, they have managed to create jobs for 265 people while exerting a positive influence on the communities they serve.
The Newlands believe the morality the Catholic faith teaches them must animate their lives not only within the walls of the churches they attend, but literally everywhere else, as well -- in the way they deal with their families, their neighbors and, yes, their business.
The Newlands sued to protect their free exercise of religion in this regard because Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a regulation, under the Obamacare law, that requires virtually all health care plans to cover -- without cost-sharing -- sterilizations, artificial contraception and abortifacients.
Under Obamacare, businesses that employ more than 50 people must provide their employees with insurance or pay a penalty, and the required insurance must include the mandated cost-sharing-free coverage for sterilizations, artificial contraception and abortifacients.
At Hercules Industries, the Newlands provide a generous self-insured health-care plan to their employees. It does not cover sterilization, artificial contraception or abortifacients.
"The Catholic Church teaches that abortifacient drugs, contraception and sterilization are intrinsic evils," says the Newlands' lawsuit.
"Consequently, the Newlands believe that it would be immoral and sinful for them to intentionally participate in, pay for, facilitate or otherwise support abortifacient drugs, contraception, sterilization, and related education and counseling as would be required by the Mandate, through their inclusion in health insurance coverage they offer at Hercules," says the suit.
The Catholic Bishops of the United States endorse this view. At a meeting in Atlanta last month, they unanimously adopted a resolution calling the HHS regulation an "unjust and illegal mandate" and a "violation of personal civil rights." They declared that the regulation created a class of Americans "with no conscience protection at all: individuals who, in their daily lives, strive constantly to act in accordance with their faith and moral values.
"They, too," said the bishops, "face a government mandate to aid in providing 'services' contrary to those values -- whether in their sponsoring of, and payment for, insurance as employers; their payment of insurance premiums as employees; or as insurers themselves -- without even the semblance of an exemption."
In a letter read during Sunday Mass in most dioceses around the country earlier this year, many of the nation's bishops flatly said: "We cannot -- we will not -- comply with this unjust law."
In response to the Newlands' complaint that ordering them to violate the teachings of the Catholic Church in the way they run their business is a violation of their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion, the Obama administration told the federal court that a private business has no protection under the First Amendment's free exercise clause -- especially if the business is incorporated.
"The First Amendment Complaint does not allege that the company is affiliated with a formally religious entity such as a church," said the Justice Department. "Nor does it allege that the company employs persons of a particular faith. In short, Hercules Industries is plainly a for-profit, secular employer."
"By definition," said the Justice Department, "a secular employer does not engage in any 'exercise of religion.'"
"It is well established that a corporation and its owners are wholly separate entities, and the Court should not permit the Newlands to eliminate that legal separation to impose their personal religious beliefs on the corporate entity or its employees," said the Justice Department.
This is just as if the Justice Department were to tell a family owned newspaper that it must publish editorials calling for a confiscatory estate tax, basing its coercion of the newspaper on the supposition (which lawyers for the Alliance Defending Freedom argue DOJ is by analogy making) that as a for-profit secular and incorporated employer, the paper has no First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
There are things happening in this country, especially as regards Christians, that decent people would never have imagined could ever happen. Evil is becoming more and more emboldened.
There are things happening in this country, especially as regards Christians, that decent people would never have imagined could ever happen. Evil is becoming more and more emboldened.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” - DOI, 1776
Nothing at all surprising here. Govt for some time has been about forcing their edicts rather than relying on consent of the people to conduct their affairs. What will be surprising is the time when We the People stop knuckling under enmass.
Well, we’ve know this was coming for almost 50 years.
If they don’t want to or can’t continue to fight, I would suggest subdividing their business and possibly making some employees independent contractors to keep under the 50 employee rule per business.
How many of those protesting the “unjust laws” voted for the very people who enacted them? The chickens are coming home to roost.
I have heard personally from two small business owners (pretty much all that I know - 100%) that they will be following this family. One has already told his employees that he cannot provide health insurance if the bill stands (even to himself).
First Obama came for the Catholics...
Half of Christians will vote for Obama anyway.
As opposed to voting for the Mormon who wants the same things?
But Sharia law is gonna be just peachy!
Sorry about this Tennessee...
In his attack on ECD and Samar Ali, Degan is echoing those groups that have attacked the governor’s appointment, largely because Ali is Muslim. She was a White House Fellow in 2010-11 and her resume includes work as a lawyer in a U.S. law firm’s Abu Dhabi office that involved Sharia-compliant business transactions – which is routine in many Middle Eastern countries.
Degan spent eight minutes, in a 42-minute recorded interview, talking about Sharia and Ali. Among his assertions:
--"Our governor several weeks ago appointed Samar Ali straight from the Obama administration to the top position in the Tennessee economic development department . . . so we’re preparing our state for Sharia money to come in."
http://www.politifact.com/tennessee/statements/2012/jul/24/woody-degan/candidate-vanderbilt-state-sharia/
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If Obama knew enough Latin to translate “casus belli”, he would be a lot more worried. When a government that is supposed to derive its just powers from the consent of the governed orders individuals to violate deeply held religious beliefs, that government action has crossed a clear line. The American government is supposed to be good, not evil, but that belief on my part no longer matches reality.
Whether Romney believes int eh same things is not the issue. Romney has said that he is now pro-life (Reagan came around and was a staunch pro-life believer after following Holloyweird and being for abortions). Romney would never legislate the same as 0bama and force people who have beliefs to go against those beliefs in a mandate similar to 0bamacare. 0bama is dangerous as he wants to transform this country into a socialist utopia. Romney wants free enterprise and is much more closely aligned to the ideals of our founders.
Whether Romney believes in the same things is not the issue. Romney has said that he is now pro-life (Reagan came around and was a staunch pro-life believer after following Holloyweird and being for abortions). Romney would never legislate the same as 0bama and force people who have beliefs to go against those beliefs in a mandate similar to 0bamacare. 0bama is dangerous as he wants to transform this country into a socialist utopia. Romney wants free enterprise and is much more closely aligned to the ideals of our founders.
But if they didn’t build the business themselves, then other people must have given them help. So therefore corporations are people and they should have their religious liberty protected.
Interesting article. The author doesn’t seem to recognize that he’s bumping the controversy up a notch.
AFAIK all the claims that this is a violation of religious liberty have been with regard to religious organizations other than those that are specifically churches. Hospitals, schools, shelters, colleges, etc.
This article claims that the personal religious beliefs of the owners of a completely secular business should receive similar privilege. While perhaps a valid position, it is certainly an expansion of the issue.
I wonder how the author would react to the Jehovah’s Witness business owner who buys an insurance policy for his employees that won’t cover blood transfusions.
You will stand down on this issue and refrain from harassing faithful Catholics who are attempting to live their lives according to the well-documented directives of their faith, or you are an enemy of this Divine institution and therefore a minion of Satan.
We lost this fight during the 1960s under the guise of Civil Rights legislation.
Listen, dumb rednecks not allowing blacks to eat in their restaurants was certainly despicable and insulting, but when the government said they HAD to serve them, or anybody, they were no longer THEIR restaurants. The government shouldn’t have made it a matter of law, and I still think laws like that are unconstitutional as they violate free association.
Soon they’ll make the same argument about marrying gays. Priests, reverends and rabbis will HAVE to.
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