LifeNet

Just out - Major win for religious freedom!

A Press Release from the Catholic League. More information to follow as we get it.

OBAMA’S HHS MANDATE SUFFERS MAJOR DEFEAT

Obama's HHS Mandate Suffers Major Defeat

March 28, 2018

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a very important federal court ruling on religious liberty:
 
The Obamacare Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate forcing Catholic non-profits to provide coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization, was dealt a lethal blow by U.S. District Court Judge David Russell.
 
He issued a permanent injunction stopping the federal government from enforcing the mandate against the Catholic Benefits Association (CBA). He also issued a declaratory judgment, holding that the mandate was illegal; it violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
 
The CBA represents over 1,000 Catholic employers, including 60 dioceses and archdioceses, as well as many religious orders, colleges and universities, hospitals, and other ministries. Baltimore Archbishop William Lori chairs the CBA; serving with him are six other archbishops. Douglas G. Wilson is the CEO of the organization.
 
Judge Russell's ruling not only binds the Trump administration (which was opposed to the HHS mandate anyway), but all future administrations. Catholic employers who belong to the CBA are now free from attempts by the federal government to coerce them into providing morally offensive healthcare coverage.
 
This is a smashing victory for religious liberty and a stunning defeat for the pro-abortion industry and its allies.

 

Little Sisters of the Poor score win for Religious Freedom - in brief + links

The fact that the Supreme Court unanimously sent their case back to the lower court to get a settlement satisfactory to the Sisters - everyone sees this as a win for Religious freedom.

Here are some commentaries on the case -

Bill McGurn, WSJ columnist -

Big Win for Little Sisters

To begin with, the justices vacated the lower-court rulings the sisters were fighting. The parties, the court said, should have another opportunity to work out a way to deliver contraceptives that doesn’t violate the religious objections of the Little Sisters and their co-plaintiffs.

Most important, the Supreme Court took away the administration’s tool for bullying: The government, it said, “may not impose taxes or penalties” on those who refuse to authorize their plans to provide the contested coverage.

From Ed Mechmann at the NY Archdiocese -

Victory for Religious Freedom

There are a couple of crucial take-aways from this.

• All along, the argument by the religious non-profits has been that they don't want to be involved in providing abortion and contraception services that they find morally offensive.
• This ruling vindicates that argument, and sends a clear signal to the government that they can't force religious people to violate their religious beliefs by threatening them with ruinous fines.
• The ruling also makes clear that it is not the business of the government or courts to tell people when their religious beliefs are burdened by a law. The Court's decision is a direct rebuke to the lower courts who substituted their judgement about Catholic and Christian belief for the plaintiffs.
• The government has not been told in no uncertain terms that they have to be more accommodating of religious belief, and more creative in coming up with ways to achieve their goals without burdening religious beliefs.
• The government's parsimonious view of religious freedom has now been dealt its fourth consecutive major blow -- starting with the Hosanna Tabor case, through Hobby Lobby, and now with Zubik, the Court is sending a clear message that the constitutional recognition of religous freedom has to be given special weight when it is negatively impacted by government policies. 

The Becket Fund Press release -

Unanimous Win for Little Sisters at Supreme Court

WASHINGTON, D.C. –Today the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the government cannot fine the Little Sisters of the Poor.  The Supreme Court vacated the lower court rulings against the Little Sisters, accepting the government’s admission that it could meet its goals of providing the free services to women without involving the Little Sisters or using their plan.  The Court also ordered the lower Courts to help the government choose an alternative method of providing the services that does not require the participation of the Little Sisters.

And from the Scotusblog, here is a "neutral analysis" - thanks to Ed Mechmann for sending us this link.

Without settling any legal issues surrounding the Affordable Care Act’s birth-control mandate, the Supreme Court on Monday nevertheless cleared the way for the government to promptly provide no-cost access to contraceptives for employees and students of non-profit religious hospitals, charities, and colleges, while barring any penalties on those institutions for failing to provide that access themselves. Thirteen separate cases were sent back to federal appeals courts for them to issue new rulings on the questions the Justices left undecided.

 

Christian purge from Mosul, Iraq

An editorial in today's Wall Street Journal.

The Christian Purge From Mosul. The Islamist attacks on non-Muslims are a problem for Islam.

Imagine if a fundamentalist Christian sect captured the French city of Lyon and began a systematic purge of Muslims. Their mosques were destroyed, their crescents defaced, the Koran burned and then all Muslims forced to flee or face execution. Such an event would be unthinkable today, and if it did occur Pope Francis and all other Christian leaders would denounce it and support efforts by governments to stop it.

Yet that is essentially what is happening in reverse now in Mosul, as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham drives all signs of Christianity from the ancient city. Christians have lived in Mosul for nearly 2,000 years, but today they are reliving the Muslim religious wars of the Middle Ages.

They have been given a choice either to convert to Islam or flee. They were warned before a weekend deadline that if they remained and didn't convert, they would be killed. Thousands—often entire families—have had to leave the city with nothing more than their clothes as militants robbed them of money or jewelry. Crosses have been destroyed across the city.

That such violent bigotry in the name of religion can exist in the 21st century is hard for many in the Christian world to believe, but that is part of the West's problem. Jews know all too well that anti-Semitism can inspire murderous behavior. ...

Today's religious extremism is almost entirely Islamic. ... This does not mean that all Muslims are extremists, but it does mean that all Muslims have an obligation to denounce and resist the extremists who murder or subjugate in the name of Allah. ...

As for the post-Christian West, most elites may now be nonbelievers. But a culture that fails to protect believers may eventually find that it lacks the self-belief to protect itself.

WSJ: "Religious Liberty Affirmed" editorial

Great analysis. Hit the link for the full editorial, which should be available without a subscription.

Judging by the liberal reaction, you would think the Supreme Court majority that struck down part of ObamaCare's birth-control mandate on Monday has suddenly imposed Shariah law. Yet as a matter of law rather than political opportunism, the narrow decision is an important vindication of religious liberty in this (still, blessedly) pluralistic constitutional republic.

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby challenged the Administration's requirement that all corporations cover contraception including abortifacients and sterilization in their worker health plans. The Affordable Care Act did not require this imposition on businesses such as the Hobby Lobby arts-and-crafts chain that tries to operate in accord with religious principles. The White House invented it via regulatory discretion in 2012 as part of its "war on women" election theme.

The problem is that a 1993 law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, requires the government to meet a high standard when interfering with the free exercise of religion. The feds must narrowly tailor such rules and use the "least restrictive means" at their disposal for achieving some public good.

The White House claims to be promoting women's health and gender equality, but it drew an artificial distinction between types of corporations. Its remarkable argument is that businesses forfeit normal conscience protections when trying to turn a profit.

On Monday the Court held 5-4 that RFRA does cover closely held businesses like Hobby Lobby and that the Administration failed the law's substantial-burden test. RFRA is meant "to provide protection for human beings," Justice Samuel Alito writes. "A corporation is simply a form of organization used by human beings to achieve desired ends."

Claiming that for-profit businesses cannot exercise religion reflects the mechanistic liberal view that companies only exist to maximize dollars "at the expense of everything else." But of course corporations have many other goals, such as charitable causes, green energy or, yes, promoting moral beliefs.

The Administration has already made a contraception mandate "accommodation" for nonprofits, allowing soup kitchens and the like to supposedly avoid being complicit in what they view as grave wrongs. This gimmick is being litigated separately and our view is that nothing is solved by hiding the costs of contraception in the balance sheets of third-party insurers. Still, writes Justice Alito, the Administration "has provided no reason why the same system cannot be made available when the owners of for-profit corporations have similar religious objections."

Justice Alito was explicit in noting that the Hobby Lobby ruling only applies to closely held, family-run commercial enterprises. Publicly traded companies with dispersed ownership would have some difficulty demonstrating sincere religious beliefs, and most Americans of all faiths (or none at all) do not share Hobby Lobby's birth control qualms. But tolerance only means something if minority beliefs are respected, especially religious faith and conduct.

******

... political overkill suggests that Democrats are secretly delighted by the ruling, which they hope to use to scare women to the polls and salvage their shaky midterm prospects. Yet the real liberal grievance isn't with the Supreme Court but with RFRA itself. If Democrats are as upset as they claim, they ought to campaign this fall to repeal RFRA and be honest about how little they care about religious liberty.

Supreme Court Religious Freedom decision analysis

There are other good ones which we will be posting; here's one from yesterday's WSJ columnist, James Taranto. And Mr. Taranto is neither a Christian, nor is he pro-life. but he is honest.

Excerpts below the link.

The Corporate Conscience. Hobby Lobby and the left's contradictions.

For-profit corporations, at least if they are "closely held," can raise conscientious objections to government policies under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. So the Supreme Court held today, by a vote of 5-2, in the much-anticipated case now styled Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.

The vote in Hobby Lobby's favor was actually 5-4, along familiar lines, but as we shall explain, two dissenting justices declined to address the question whether RFRA's protections can apply to for-profit companies. The majority, in a decision by Justice Samuel Alito held that Hobby Lobby and two other companies need not comply with the ObamaCare birth-control mandate, to which their owners object on religious grounds.

The plaintiffs in these cases did not claim their First Amendment rights had been violated; such a claim, as we noted in March, would almost certainly have been precluded by the 1990 case of Employment Division v. Smith. But Congress responded to that case by enacting RFRA, which mandates the courts apply "strict scrutiny" to government policies as enforced against litigants who object on religious grounds.

In order to meet strict scrutiny, the government must show both that the policy is justified by a "compelling" interest and that it is the "least restrictive means" of furthering that interest. At least five justices seemed to agree that the interest in assuring cost-free access to the abortifacient contraceptives in question is "compelling": the four dissenters and Justice Anthony Kennedy, who in a concurring opinion wrote: "It is important to confirm that a premise of the Court's opinion is its assumption that the HHS regulation at issue here furthers a legitimate and compelling interest in the health of female employees."

That's true, but the premise was stipulated--"we assume," wrote Justice Alito--not decided. For the plaintiffs to prevail, it would be sufficient for the government to fail either test, and as Justice Alito argues, it clearly failed the least-restrictive-means test:

In fact, HHS has already devised and implemented a system that seeks to respect the religious liberty of religious nonprofit corporations while ensuring that the employees of these entities have precisely the same access to all FDA-approved contraceptives as employees of companies whose owners have no religious objections to providing such coverage. The employees of these religious nonprofit corporations still have access to insurance coverage without cost sharing for all FDA-approved contraceptives; and according to HHS, this system imposes no net economic burden on the insurance companies that are required to provide or secure the coverage.

Although HHS has made this system available to religious nonprofits that have religious objections to the contraceptive mandate, HHS has provided no reason why the same system cannot be made available when the owners of for-profit corporations have similar religious objections. We therefore conclude that this system constitutes an alternative that achieves all of the Government's aims while providing greater respect for religious liberty.

Some religious nonprofits have argued that the HHS accommodation is too restrictive and violates their First Amendment rights; this case does not address that question--or, indeed, whether "an approach of this type complies with RFRA," in Alito's words. The majority cite another less-restrictive alternative: a government program providing contraceptives directly.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed a hyperbolic dissent (citation omitted):

In a decision of startling breadth, the Court holds that commercial enterprises, including corporations, along with partnerships and sole proprietorships, can opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs. Compelling governmental interests in uniform compliance with the law, and disadvantages that religion-based opt-outs impose on others, hold no sway, the Court decides, at least when there is a "less restrictive alternative."

As Kennedy gently observes in response, "the Court's opinion does not have the breadth and sweep ascribed to it by the respectful and powerful dissent." Ginsburg suggests the decision would open up the possibility of religious exemptions from statutes prohibiting race discrimination, a claim Alito and the majority flatly reject: "The Government has a compelling interest in providing an equal opportunity to participate in the workforce without regard to race, and prohibitions on racial discrimination are precisely tailored to achieve that critical goal."

Ginsburg's claim that "the court decides" religious opt-outs should be available when a "less restrictive alternative" is available is misleading. Here the court did not, as it frequently does by necessity, apply a standard of its own invention in interpreting broadly written constitutional language. The "less restrictive alternative" language is in the RFRA statute; it was Congress, not the court, that made that decision.

 

"Test of Fire"; the video & how it came about

This video was posted on youtube in March and has been seen by almost two million (and counting). Below the video is a link to the story of it's creation.

Yesterday, the people who created the video posted this.

Catholics Called to Witness - The Story of the Test of Fire

NY City Rally for Religious Freedom - a big success!

500 enthusiastic people of all ages and backgrounds were there, below the statue of George Washington at the Federal Hall National Memorial at 26 Wall Street.

Of course, this was only one of 140 Rallies nationwide.

FOX was the only television news at the Rally.

You can read about coverage in the local Journal News here Hundreds rally on Wall St. over contraception rule, claim attack on religion including 16 photos

In USA Today Religious rallies across USA protest birth-control mandate

In the Washington Post Social conservatives hope for renewed fervor in contraceptive controversies

No coverage in the NY Times. None. Nada. Didn't happen.

We will post more material from the Rally over the next couple of days.

Here are two short videos to give some sense of the flavor of the day.

The speakers have no sound system, so you have to listen carefully as Dr. Anne Nulte ends her brief talk, pointing out that the drug companies do not fully disclose the dangers of hormonal birth control pills. Then the facilitator of the event, Fr. Augustino, CFR, suggests the crowd sing "Amazing Grace."

 

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound ...

Planning starts for Rally against HHS Mandate attack on religious freedom and conscience

First plan is for March 23rd, nationwide.

Stand up for Religious Freedom

More information as it becomes available.

The website & the national petition to stop the HHS mandate

Here - with extensive information -

STOP HHS Mandate

 

See also this article - President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast. Catholics Won’t Get Fooled Again

The Administration launches a direct attack on Catholic - and other - Churches, and on the primacy of conscience

UPDATE: Even the normally Democratic Party lap dog National Catholic Reporter (NCR) is outraged. NCR - UPDATED: White House refuses to expand conscience exemption

Mandates that contraceptives and abortifacients must be provided in employer health plans with no opt out for conscientious objection.

This is from the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                             JANUARY 20, 2012

 

U.S. BISHOPS VOW TO FIGHT HHS EDICT

 

Unconscionable to force citizens to buy contraceptives against their will

No change in limited exemption, only delay in enforcement

Matter of freedom of conscience, freedom of religion

 

WASHINGTON—The Catholic bishops of the United States called “literally unconscionable” a decision by the Obama Administration to continue to demand that sterilization, abortifacients  and contraception be included in virtually all health plans. Today's announcement means that this mandate and its very narrow exemption will not change at all; instead there will only be a delay in enforcement against some employers.

            “In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

            The cardinal-designate continued, “To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable.  It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty."

            The HHS rule requires that sterilization and contraception – including controversial abortifacients – be included among “preventive services” coverage in almost every healthcare plan available to Americans. “The government should not force Americans to act as if pregnancy is a disease to be prevented at all costs,” added Cardinal-designate Dolan.

            At issue, the U.S. bishops and other religious leaders insist, is the survival of a cornerstone constitutionally protected freedom that ensures respect for the conscience of Catholics and all other Americans.

            “This is nothing less than a direct attack on religion and First Amendment rights,” said Franciscan Sister Jane Marie Klein, chairperson of the board at Franciscan Alliance, Inc., a system of 13 Catholic hospitals. “I have hundreds of employees who will be upset and confused by this edict. I cannot understand it at all.”

            Daughter of Charity Sister Carol Keehan, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, voiced disappointment with the decision. Catholic hospitals serve one out of six people who seek hospital care annually.

            “This was a missed opportunity to be clear on appropriate conscience protection,” Sister Keehan said.

            Cardinal-designate Dolan urged that the HHS mandate be overturned.

            “The Obama administration has now drawn an unprecedented line in the sand,” he said. “The Catholic bishops are committed to working with our fellow Americans to reform the law and change this unjust regulation. We will continue to study all the implications of this troubling decision.”

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First Amendment, heath care, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Freedom of Conscience, U.S. bishops, United States Conference of Catholic bishops, President Obama, Sister Carol Keehan

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New video from Catholicvote.org

Religious freedom