Posted on 12/28/2012 4:20:05 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o
An attorney for Hobby Lobby Stores said Thursday that the arts and crafts chain plans to defy a federal mandate requiring it to offer employees health coverage that includes access to the morning-after pill, despite risking potential fines of up to $1.3 million per day.
Hobby Lobby and religious book-seller Mardel, which are owned by the same conservative Christian family, are suing to block part of the federal health care law that requires employee health-care plans to provide insurance coverage for the morning-after pill and similar emergency contraception pills.
The companies claim the mandate violates the religious beliefs of their owners. They say the morning-after pill is tantamount to abortion because it can prevent a fertilized egg from becoming implanted in a woman's womb.
On Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor denied the companies' request for an injunction while their lawsuit is pending, saying the stores failed to satisfy the demanding legal standard for blocking the requirement on an emergency basis. She said the companies may still challenge the regulations in the lower courts.
Kyle Duncan, who is representing Hobby Lobby on behalf of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said in a statement posted on the group's website Thursday that Hobby Lobby doesn't intend to offer its employees insurance that would cover the drug while its lawsuit is pending.
"The company will continue to provide health insurance to all qualified employees," Duncan said. "To remain true to their faith, it is not their intention, as a company, to pay for abortion-inducing drugs."
In ruling against the companies last month, U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton said churches and other religious organizations have been granted constitutional protection from the birth-control provisions but that "Hobby Lobby and Mardel are not religious organizations."
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
God bless you. It is inspiring to hear about people like you, willing to sacrifice so that good may prevail.
Stay strong! May the Lord uphold you.
Amen sister!
LLS
And if you truly can't personally resist, then you have to personally support those who do.
I read somewhere (my usual authority: "I read somewhere...") that all law depends on voluntary compliance, such that if 5% of people consistently defy the law, it cannot be enforced.
Oh, they'll try. They'll take the first resisters and slam them, bankrupt and jail them, make a big spectacle out of it in order to intimidate the rest. But if 5% continue to say "I will not," their numbers start growing and soon the law is a dead letter.
Or so I've heard.
Train that puppy! ("Bite right here, that's a good little doggie...")
Krylon -— wow, that looks beautiful. Gives me an idea...
Mrs. Don-o wrote:
Krylon - wow, that looks beautiful. Gives me an idea...
The mercury glass objects look great in Christmas displays with votive lights flickering inside——I used cobalt blue accent pieces.
:o)
Even law recognizes a "necessity defense" when there is something important at stake. E.g you could break into somebody else's locked house that was on fire, without their permission, to rescue a person, a pet or even a valuable piece of art.
You would not be arrested for "breaking and entering" or "trespassing" under such conditions. And even if you were, you could successfully argue in court that a "reasonable person" would not call your action unlawful.
Similarly with the red light: if it's 3:00 a.m., there's no traffic, and you're trying to get your wife who's in labor to the maternty hospital, you'd likely not be arrested, nor would a jury convict you.
Ice Queen Sebelius, on her own unfettered authority as HHS Secretary, demanding that religious people violate their moral code on a life-or-death matter?
I would have no qualms whatsoever about resisting this so-called law, which is actually a piece of contemptible tyranny.
I don’t recall the Constitution referring to the free exercise of religious organization. Then again, I am not a judge and lack the secret decoder ring they use to read laws.
Thanks! I do want to get married, and working less than fulltime is not conducive to saving up for that. *sigh*.
This is basic natural law. Certain laws are higher than other laws. It is lawful to break the lesser law to protect the higher law, which is what we see in all your examples. :)
Fair enough.
Yeah - sorry you got the brunt of a rant. arrrggggg
I don't either and it's making me darned mad. I don't 'belong' to a big religious organization that will lobby for my 1st Amendment rights but my convictions are solidly pro-life and I don't want to participate in helping pay for abortions if I can help it. Apparently I already do if I pay taxes. But this asshat judge is essentially saying I don't have 1st Amendment protections of religious freedom or exercise to be protected if I don't belong to a major organization.
I never wanted to see a shooting war in this country but I'm changing my mind about that. The Progressives want to turn this country into a statist dictatorship? They need to pay for that with blood. A lot of blood.
“Simple solution, then. Don’t offer insurance to your employees.”
Incidentally, that is a big part of the solution to the healthcare “crisis.”
No problem. All bring out points that should at least be respected. It’s obvious this sordid excuse for a “health system” is nothing more then a huge set of regulatory measures to destroy the private industry and force all Americans into a European style socialist heath care system.
Civil disobedience
just do not obey their stupid laws
“But this asshat judge is essentially saying I don’t have 1st Amendment protections of religious freedom or exercise to be protected if I don’t belong to a major organization.”
Which is exactly why the FREE EXERCISE of one’s religion IS what is protected. Our forefathers (well many of them at least) did not belong to any specific denomination/church organization EITHER. However, they all knew how important the right to choose for ourselves was. Half of the reason for the 1st Amendment is because of the religious persecution between “branches” of Christianity in England - the fight between Roman Catholics and the Anglican Church. (It was not just the RC Church that participated in various ‘inquisition’ style purges.)
The right to NOT belong to a religious organization and STILL be protected in regards to our religious and spiritual beliefs IS what the 1st Amendment is all about...
As a non-practicing Catholic (but still a believer) I have thought about this a lot since the start of this whole health care debacle. Why would I need to go back to the Church in order to have my rights under US Law recognized? That is precisely the type of thing our Forefathers were against - completely. One should never have to “declare” what religion they are, nor what specific “church” one belongs to/in.
So much more I could say, but you get the drift, I know that... SO frustrating. My personal choices and contemplations about rejoining the church officially should NOT be a decision made from fear of being persecuted and going to hell because of some man-made unconstitutional mandate. I don’t appreciate the government involving itself in my spiritual decisions in this manner in the least... How I worship God is between ME and GOD Himself - I will NOT bow to pressure from MAN forcing me into any decision I have not made in my heart with conviction of my OWN.
Sadly, there is not a Hobby Lobby near where I live, or I’d spend a lot of time there!
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