Posted on 07/14/2015 5:59:57 PM PDT by markomalley
Earlier today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled1 that the Little Sisters must comply with the government’s mandate2 to provide contraceptives for employees. The district court ruled the Little Sisters cannot receive a full exemption from the law’s contraception rules because they “do not substantially burden plaintiffs’ religious exercise or violate the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights.”
The nuns disagree. “As Little Sisters of the Poor, we simply cannot choose between our care for the elderly poor and our faith,” says Sr. Loraine Marie Maguire3, Mother Provincial of the Little Sisters of the Poor. “And we should not have to make that choice, because it violates our nation’s commitment to ensuring that people from diverse faiths can freely follow God’s calling in their lives.”
“For over 175 years, we have served the neediest in society with love and dignity,” added Sr. Maguire. “All we ask is to be able to continue our religious vocation free from government intrusion.”
The court held that participating in the government’s contraception delivery scheme is “as easy as obtaining a parade permit, filing a simple tax for, or registering to vote” and that although the Sisters sincerely believe that participating in the scheme “make[s] them complicit in the overall delivery scheme,” the court “ultimately rejects the merits of this claim,” because the court believes the scheme relieves [the Little Sisters] from complicity.”
“It is a national embarrassment that the world’s most powerful government insists that, instead of providing contraceptives through its own existing exchanges and programs, it must crush the Little Sisters’ faith and force them to participate,” says Mark Rienzi, Senior Counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and lead attorney for the Little Sisters of the Poor. “Untold millions of people have managed to get contraceptives without involving nuns, and there is no reason the government cannot run its programs without hijacking the Little Sisters and their health plan.”
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents the Little Sisters’ lawsuit, vows they will keep fighting, “even if that means having to go all the way to the Supreme Court.”
This is a vile thing to do to them.
All the nuns have to do is disincorporate. They are already protected by the 1st Amendment, they don’t need to be a corporation in the first place.
0bama is a bully. Progressives are bullies.
Satan has this country by the throat. The Obama administration, Congress, & the courts are suffused with evil and are doing The Master of Lies’ bidding. Going after kindly nuns who care for the elderly poor says it all.
So if you're only following orders, you're off the hook. What's not to like?
They must have business licenses, state certifications, inspections, liability insurance, and on & on to carry out the work they do. Incorporation is a necessity for them to continue. Even if they disincorporated, it would not stop the Evil that relentlessly pursues them. If Satan can bring down The Little Sisters of the Poor, he can destroy anybody, any institution, any society.
Who are these judges to make that decision? Who are they to judge what is and is not a burden on a religious person’s faith?
The First Amendment clearly says “the free exercise thereof” and the clear meaning of free is unencumbered.
I would say forcing one person to purchase for another something that is anathema to that person’s religious beliefs would be a significant encumbrance to the free exercise of Catholic faith.
What’s next? Will Catholics and other conservative religious orders be forced to pay for assisted suicide?
And if the Sisters are thereby forced to pay for those Planned Parenthood abortions where the murdered baby’s body parts are then sold, that’s really not a concern of theirs.
They will not do it. The old poor people will go without care waiting for someone to help them out. Someone who is benevolent AND who rejects the governments plans to foster fornication, or who is wealthy enough to reject govt and is also benevolent
And If they’re mostly white patients, good luck with that
All Nuns and all over 60 years old ?
They are a lot worse than that.
Get out from under the mandate. Go to part time employees, split up into companies under 50 employees, etc.
Get away from having to provide insurance.
All of those things are required by law only for corporations. And insurance is available for the non-incorporated, too.
Truly, this is a corporate issue, not a religious one. And that goes for gay marriage, too.
The people least likely on the planet to need birth control or an abortion, ordered by the government to pay for it.
Can they get the religious exemption by affiliating with a specific church, aside from being Catholic?
Half the reason they seem to have to pay is because they aren’t a branch of some diocese.
I wonder if these nuns can join the Catholic health sharing ministry that operates under the same exemption as the Amish and Mennonites’ self-insurance.
New Catholic Health Initiative Provides Alternative to Obamacare Insurance
https://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/new-catholic-health-initiative-provides-alternative-to-obamacare-insurance
A religious exemption is still a corporate tax status, specifically, that of an exempt corporation.
If they disincorporate entirely, however, then they fall off the corporate tax map. Then the government would have to sue them on the grounds that they are not practicing a religion at all, but rather operating an enterprise that must be incorporated, and that would be impossible to prove, even now.
The nuns should just refuse, then let the police come and haul them to jail. It would make for very interesting TV, would it not?
The First Amendment clearly says “the free exercise thereof” and the clear meaning of free is unencumbered.
When they incorporated, the nuns surrendered their right to determine their own religion. They traded it for the limited privilege of having their religious beliefs determined according to the needs of the government.
That's not my opinion, that is the actual law of incorporation. That's what incorporation DOES. In return, business's get to offload personal liability. But in the case of religion, THERE'S NO NEED TO INCORPORATE IN THE FIRST PLACE. So there's no trade going on - just the submission of faith under the whim of government needs.
Same with gay marriage.
People REALLY need to get clear on this!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.