Written by Anugrah Kumar

The New York Times is being criticized for having double standard by allowing a full-page ad by the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) against the Catholic Church in response to the Hobby Lobby decision, while the newspaper had rejected an “anti-Muslim” ad in 2012.

“Remember when the New York Times rejected an ad aimed at one religion?” asks journalist David Harsanyi of The Federalist on Twitter, with a link to the Think Progress blog post from 2012 that drew attention to how the newspaper “rejected a full-page anti-Islam advertisement submitted by anti-Muslim activists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.”

But on Thursday, the Times carried an FFRF ad denouncing “all-male, all-Roman Catholic majority” on the Supreme Court for its decision in the Hobby Lobby case.

The Times had responded to the “anti-Muslim” ad submission. And the Media Research Center quotes Geller as describing the newspaper’s response: “Bob Christie, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications for the New York Times, just called me to advise me that they would be accepting my ad, but considering the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, now would not be a good time, as they did not want to inflame an already hot situation. They will be reconsidering it for publication in ‘a few months.'”

Matthew Balan, a news analyst at MRC, notes that while the Times is entitled to choose what ads to run, its response simply proves one of Geller’s points that “almost no Catholics are likely to respond violently even to harsh criticism of the Catholic Church – but enough Muslims are likely to respond violently to harsh criticism of Islam (whether the response is against the critic or against others) that the Times itself views such criticism as unsafe.”

There are plenty of peace-loving Muslims, but “unfortunately there are also enough extremist Muslim thugs to affect what the Times is willing to publish,” Balan adds. 

In a statement, Catholic League‘s Bill Donahue on Tuesday cited examples of “the reaction of bigots to the Hobby Lobby case.”

“‘Court’s Catholic Justices Attack Women’s Rights’ is the headline of Margery Eagan’s Boston Herald article (it’s those Catholics again). The American Humanist Association issued a statement with a picture of a rosary next to birth control pills. Cute,” Donahue said.

He also referred to The Huffington Post, in which Ryan Grim noted that “these men [the five judges who voted for religious liberty] are Christians.” He also said, “The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Christian business owners are special.”

Donahue concluded by saying, “Catholics are 25 percent of the population and comprise two-thirds of the high court. Jews are 1.8 percent of the population and comprise one-third of the high court. Note: only the former is a problem.”

This article was originally posted at the Christian Post website.

While reams have already been penned examining the implications of last week’s Hobby Lobby decision, most of what’s been written, particularly in the liberal press, has missed the point entirely.

Though I’m mildly pleased that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is not quite ready to take gasoline to both the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), signed into law by Bill Clinton, a liberal, in 1993, I am alarmed, and so too should you be, that only 56 percent of our sitting SCOTUS justices are still willing to give the U.S. Constitution a modicum of the respect, recognition and compliance it not only deserves, but requires.

America was dragged before Emperor Obama’s counter-constitutional, secular-”progressive” firing squad and remarkably, miraculously, they missed.

But it’s a false sense of security. As we Christians and conservatives celebrate with chest bumps and high fives, we remain bound, gagged and blindfolded while these “progressive” fascists reload. The next volley of cultural Marxist lead is but moments away.

Tick, tick goes the judicial-supremacy time bomb.

I don’t mean to throw a wet blanket on the party. There is much to celebrate, and this ruling’s broader implications are profound indeed. The opinion simply doesn’t go far enough.

Yes, Hobby Lobby was, in part, about the non-negotiable fact that government cannot compel religious business owners of private, closely held corporations to be complicit in abortion homicide. It was also, tangentially, about the self-evident reality that women are not, never have been and never will be, entitled to expect Christian men, who are not their husbands, to pay for their birth control and abortion drugs so that they can have consequence-free sex or otherwise murder their pre-born babies.

Hobby Lobby was chiefly about one of our very first freedoms: religious liberty.

How is it that this was a 5-4 decision? Even an elementary understanding of American history and a cursory analysis of both our U.S. Constitution and RFRA establish that this opinion should have been roundly unanimous. The majority decision merely recognized, in the weakest of terms, Americans’ God-given, inalienable, constitutionally guaranteed right to religious free exercise (yes, even for those pesky Christian business owners).

Still, while lovers of freedom rejoice across the nation, the reality is that there are at least four domestic “enemies within” currently sitting on the highest bench in the land, not the least of whom is Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Ginsburg tells you everything you need to know about Ginsburg: “I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a Constitution in the year 2012,” she disgracefully vomited a couple years back in an interview about the fledgling Egyptian government. “I might look at the Constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights. … It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done. Much more recent than the U.S. Constitution.”

Ginsburg hates the America of our founding. She hates our constitution and, like all true “progressives,” endeavors to circumvent it at every turn.

And that’s the prism through which we must interpret the parade of hyperbolic horribles in her scathing Hobby Lobby dissent. She excoriated the constitutionalist majority for its ruling, calling it a “radical” decision “of startling breadth.” Still, when you cut through the alarmist tripe, she actually gets to the meat of the matter.

“In a decision of startling breadth,” she wrote, “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.”

Uh, yeah, and?

Here’s what Ginsburg actually meant: “I hate the First Amendment. It’s broad, inalienable, and I want to alienate it. Oh, and dead babies. Lots of dead babies.”

Ginsburg is right. This decision was “of startling breadth,” but only if you happen to be a secular elitist hell-bent on marginalizing Christians and wielding unchecked power over your fellow Americans.

Indeed, the secularist left’s utter meltdown over having but a small measure of control over others wrested away is highly instructive. Still, why would we expect lefties to understand the First Amendment when these Rhodes Scholars are calling a decision penned by Justice Samuel Alito “#ScaliaLaw” on Twitter?

In his concurring opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who more often than not gets it wrong, got one right:

In our constitutional tradition, freedom means that all persons have the right to believe or strive to believe in a divine creator and a divine law. For those who choose this course, free exercise is essential in preserving their own dignity and in striving for a self-definition shaped by their religious precepts. Free exercise in this sense implicates more than just freedom of belief. … It means, too, the right to express those beliefs and to establish one’s religious (or non-religious) self-definition in the political, civic, and economic life of our larger community.

Wow. And now for the pink elephant in the room: Although the Hobby Lobby decision did not directly address the raging cultural debate over counterfeit “gay marriage” and the irreconcilable friction this modern, sin-centric novelty has with the long-established and inalienable right to religious free exercise, it doesn’t take a Phi Beta Kappa to read between the lines and discover, as Ginsburg and Kennedy evidently agree, that the “startling breadth” of the decision most assuredly touches and concerns the debate head on. (And not in favor, I might add, of the homofascist “you-have-to-affirm-my-faux-marriage-or-go-to-jail” crowd.)

While Justice Kennedy is anything but predictable on these matters, this ruling makes it pretty clear that, as both the First Amendment and RFRA already assure, the Christian baker, photographer, florist or any other business owner, is protected from being forced, under penalty of law, into indentured servitude – from having to give their God-given time and talent to create goods or services that require they violate sincerely held religious beliefs.

In other words, both the First Amendment and RFRA trump any and all so-called “sexual orientation” laws. Or, as Ginsburg put it, private businesses “can opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Darn skippy.

Furthermore, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act expressly protects religious free exercise while ignoring newfangled notions of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.”

When religious belief comes into conflict with sexual identity politics, religious belief wins every time. Period.

Let me be clear so there’s no misunderstanding. I’m a Christian. If I’m a business owner and someone comes in requesting goods or services that would require me to violate my conscience – especially my biblically based, sincerely held religious beliefs – I will not, under any circumstances, provide those goods or services. This is my absolute, non-negotiable, constitutionally guaranteed right.

No debate. No question. No compromise.

The language of the Hobby Lobby decision simply acknowledges this reality.

On Monday at the Aspen Institute’s “Aspen Ideas Festival,” Hillary Clinton offered some ideas that could have floated right out of the pot-clouded mind of a Colorado stoner.

She discussed the recent U.S. Supreme Court Decision which held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) exempts closely held companies from being compelled to violate their religious beliefs by providing abortifacients to their employees.

When a conservative makes an inartful or boneheaded statement, it’s trumpeted around the country by our unbiased “journalists” at CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC, and by the huffing and puffing posters at HuffPost. But when one of their own makes an utterly preposterous statement the sound of crickets chirping is deafening. And when the preposterous statement issues from their political high priestess, Hillary Clinton, you can almost see the glistening flop sweat as they try to figure out how to avoid addressing it.

Here’s what the Pythia Clinton prophesied in response to the recent Hobby Lobby decision:

Just think about this for a minute: It’s the first time that our court has said that a closely held corporation has the rights of a person when it comes to religious freedom, which means that the …corporation’s employers can impose their religious beliefs on their employees and, of course, denying women their right to contraception as part of their health care plan. I find it deeply disturbing that we’re going in that direction.

Part of the reason I was so adamant about including women and girls in our foreign policy, not as a luxury, but as a central issue is because they are often the canaries in the mine. You watch women and girls being deprived of their rights. Some of them never had them. Some of them lose them. And among those rights is control over their bodies, control over their own health care, control over the size of their families. And it is a disturbing trend that you see in a lot of societies that are very unstable, that are anti-democratic, that are, frankly, prone to extremism, where women and women’s bodies are used as the defining and unifying issue to bring together people—men—to get them to behave in ways that are disadvantageous to women, but which prop up them because of their religion, or sect, or tribe, or whatever.

So to introduce this element into our society—We’re always going to argue about abortion. It’s a hard choice and it’s controversial, and that’s why I’m pro-choice. I want people to be able to make their own choices.

And it’s very troubling that a sales clerk at Hobby Lobby who needs contraception, which is pretty expensive, is not going to get that service through her employer’s health care plan because her employer doesn’t think she should be using contraception.

I know it’s a spectrum, but all these decisions about women and women’s rights and women’s bodies and women’s roles are on that spectrum. Thankfully we’re far away from a lot of countries that don’t even issue birth certificates to girls because “they’re so worthless, why would we record their births.”

So, we’re very far from that, but, this kind of decision raises serious questions.

Say what?

Allow me to summarize the priestess’s overwrought—make that, bizarre–claim: The very narrow decision that permits Christian owners of businesses to act in accordance with their religious beliefs which prohibit the taking of innocent human life is akin to the actions of primitive, tribalistic, unstable, anti-democratic, extremist societies, in which men seek to use women’s bodies to prop themselves up. Further, this judicial decision butters up the slope which will send America hurtling toward a culture in which little girls are deemed so devoid of human worth as to be denied a birth certificate.

And this from the woman who supports the “right” to kill girls in utero. In Clinton’s twisted moral universe, denial of a birth certificate is a greater moral evil than denial of birth.

Clinton claims that abortion is a difficult, controversial issue on which individuals should have the right to  decide, except of course those Christians who decide they don’t want to subsidize it.

When the interviewer pointed out that the Supreme Court’s decision was based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed by her husband, Mrs. Clinton interrupted abruptly and defensively, explaining that RFRA was passed “because at that point there were real cases of discrimination against religious people.”

Yes, real cases, unlike the fake ones in which the government tries to compel Christians to subsidize the taking of innocent lives (or to use their labor in the service celebrations that God abhors.)

Why is Clinton not “very troubled” and “deeply disturbed” about the government compelling the owners of Hobby Lobby to facilitate the killing of innocents, an act which the God they serve forbids (Ex. 20:13)?

Clinton wrongly claims that a hypothetical Hobby Lobby employee will be denied contraception because “her employer doesn’t think she should be using contraception.” The employers’ thoughts about whether their employee should use contraception are completely irrelevant and were never part of the case. The case was about what the employers thought they should be compelled to provide to their employees.

Why did Clinton have nothing to say about the employers’ choice to spend their income in ways that are consonant with their beliefs, especially on an issue of such grave consequence? Even Clinton has acknowledged the grave implications of abortion when many years ago, she asserted that abortion should be rare (which raises the question, if incipient life is so devoid of personhood that it doesn’t deserve constitutional protection, why should it be rare?).

The demurral of owners of companies to pay for contraception does not rob women of their right to access it any more than the demurral of my employer to pay directly for my food robs me of the right to access it. People work in order to earn money to pay for the stuff they need and want. Employees have  a right and responsibility to set priorities and make spending choices in accordance with those priorities.

As to Clinton’s claim that contraceptives—and she must mean only the 4 types of contraceptives (out of 20) to which the Hobby Lobby owners objected—are “expensive,” here is what Planned Parenthood says:

The IUD is the most inexpensive long-term and reversible form of birth control you can get. Unlike other forms of birth control, the IUD only costs money in the beginning. The cost for the medical exam, the IUD, the insertion of the IUD, and follow-up visits to your health care provider can range from $500 to $1,000. That cost pays for protection that can last from 5 to 12 years, depending on which IUD you choose.

Worst case IUD scenario, it would cost $200 per year (less than $17 per month). Best case: $60 per year ($5 per month).

Plan B and Ella are two other forms of contraception that Hobby Lobby does not have to cover. These are more expensive than IUDs but they’re used only for emergency contraception—not for a woman’s regular mode of contraception, so if used properly, the annual cost would be insubstantial.

According to the Consumerist, the average American worker spends $20 per week on coffee and $37 per week on midday meals (rather than packing their lunches, which would cost about $15 per week). A Netflix subscription is $9 per month and the average monthly cost of an HBO subscription is $16. Without even looking at clothing, accessories, cosmetic, gift, travel, or dining out expenditures, I’ve just saved the average American $144 per month—more than enough to purchase Cadillac contraceptives.

And let’s not forget that women who want contraceptives have male sexual partners who have a far greater obligation to subsidize their partner’s contraceptives than do the owners of Hobby Lobby.

Maybe if the Clintons weren’t so broke, they could pay for the IUDs and Plan B and Ella prescriptions for those Hobby Lobby employees who want them.

Clinton frets about men using women to “define” and “unify” some societal constituency in order to achieve a cultural advantage. Can she with a straight face claim that Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and she are not “using women” to define and unify the Democratic Party in the service of their political advantage? Isn’t that just what these head-scratching and offensive comments from Clinton were intended to do?

Perhaps the reason for the cricket-chirping we hear from the direction of the “progressive” press is worse than merely a desire to protect Clinton’s presidential aspirations. Maybe “progressives” can’t even see how preposterous her comments are.

Help us be your voice for pro-family values! 

This morning, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) handed down a highly anticipated ruling that affirmed First Amendment  protections of religious liberty and freedom of conscience.  In this particular ruling it means that our government does not have the authority to force family businesses like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods to provide abortifacient drugs and contraceptives in their health care plans.

The Illinois Family Institute celebrates this important decision in favor of religious liberty and freedom of conscience. The Court ruled that private companies cannot be forced to comply with onerous federal government mandates that violate their religious beliefs. 

Read or download the entire SCOTUS decision HERE.

No one in America should be forced to violate their deeply held beliefs in order to keep their jobs or run a business.  We should be free to live and work according to our religious beliefs, not the government’s religion.  To put it more bluntly, our government has no business compelling pro-life citizens to bow at the altar of Leftism.  It is a foundational principle on which this country was founded.

In a free, diverse and tolerant society, the government should respect the freedom of citizens to live out their convictions, not just in private but in the way citizens conduct their lives in public as well. 

It must be noted that this was a 5 to 4 vote on ideological lines, which means that barely a majority of the Justices understand that government shouldn’t suppress religious freedom.  On some level it is distressing to know that it took three years and millions of dollars of legal action to affirm what the First Amendment clearly states: that people have a right to live by the dictates of their faith. And in this case, the right not to partake in the destruction of an innocent human life.   While the victory is important and one for which we should be thankful, the fact is that we were within one vote of a significant loss of religious liberty for individuals who own their own business. Don’t misunderstand, I’m very grateful for this victory, but his vote was too close for comfort.

Key to the decision was the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).  This federal law does not give license to discrimination, as many on the Left have mistakenly claimed.  Today, the SCOTUS directly repudiated this false notion and specifically reiterated that RFRA provides no defense to discriminate in hiring. No federal or state RFRA has ever been used to discriminate against someone.  In fact, RFRA is actually about preventing discrimination against any American due to their religious beliefs.

Locally, reaction was swift and jubilant.   “I am proud that our Supreme Court has upheld the fundamental religious liberties of American citizens to engage in the free exercise of their religious beliefs, not only in their houses of worship, but also in their day to day lives, in business as well as at home,” said Thomas Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society.  “Our Justices have affirmed that Americans must not be compelled to put aside their religious beliefs and values as a pre-condition to their entering into the sphere of commerce and making a living for themselves and their families.”

“This ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby is a victory for all who cherish religious freedom,” said Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League and one of the national directors of the Stand Up for Religious Freedom rallies. “The movement that began with hundreds of protest rallies outside federal court buildings has just won a great victory inside the nation’s highest Court.”

Response from national organizations was no less enthusiastic.  Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council had this to say:

The Supreme Court has delivered one of the most significant victories for religious freedom in our generation. We are thankful the Supreme Court agreed that the government went too far by mandating that family businesses owners must violate their consciences under threat of crippling fines.

All Americans can be thankful that the Court reaffirmed that freedom of conscience is a long-held American tradition and that the government cannot impose a law on American men and women that forces them to violate their beliefs in order to hold a job, own a business, or purchase health insurance.

The unfair HHS mandate gave family businesses two non-choices: either violate your deeply held moral beliefs and comply by paying for drugs and services to which you object, or pay crippling fines of up to $100 per day, per employee, for non-compliance. This mandate threatened the jobs, livelihood and healthcare of millions of Americans and forced those who stood up for their conscience, like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood, to either comply or be punished.

Thankfully, the threat the HHS mandate imposed on Americans has been deemed unlawful today as a violation of core religious freedom rights.  While we celebrate this landmark decision, it is our hope that lower courts will follow the Supreme Court’s lead and protect non-profits like Little Sisters of the Poor, Priests for Life, and Wheaton College from the unfair HHS Mandate.

Dr. Russell Moore of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission sums it up well, “Hobby Lobby [and Conestoga Wood Specialities] refused to render to Caesar what belongs to God: their consciences. The Supreme Court agreed.” 

Help us be your voice for pro-family values! 

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled today that the Christian-run Hobby Lobby doesn’t have to obey the HHS mandate that is a part of Obamacare that requires businesses to pay for abortion causing drugs in their employee health care plans.

The Obama administration was attempting to make Hobby Lobby and thousands of pro-life businesses and organizations comply with the HHS mandate that compels religious companies to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees. However, the U.S. Supreme Court today issued a favorable ruling in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a landmark case addressing the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of business owners to operate their family companies without violating their deeply held religious convictions.

Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Samuel Alito handed down the decision for the high court, saying, “The Supreme Court holds government can’t require closely held corporations with religious owners to provide contraception coverage.”

“HHS’s contraception mandate substantially burdens the exercise of religion,” the decision reads, adding that the “decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to mean that all insurance mandates.” The opinion said the “plain terms of Religious Freedom Restoration Act” are “perfectly clear.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion saying that government itself could provide the coverage for contraception and the abortion-causing drugs if a company declines to do so.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a dissent that claims the decision is “of startling breadth,” a claim the majority denies. The major decision indicates it applies to the abortion mandate, not blood transfusions or other practices to which people may have religious objections.

The Hobby Lobby decision only applies to companies, including Conestoga Wood Specialties, which had a companion case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Non-profit groups like Priests for Life and Little Sisters are still waiting for a ruling about their right to opt out of the mandate.

The Obama administration said it was confident it would prevail, saying, “We believe this requirement is lawful…and are confident the Supreme Court will agree.”

Responding to the decision, Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel David Cortman told LifeNews: “Americans don’t surrender their freedom by opening a family business. In its decision today, the Supreme Court affirmed that all Americans, including family business owners, must be free to live and work consistently with their beliefs without fear of punishment by the government. In a free and diverse society, we respect the freedom to live out our convictions. For the Hahns and the Greens, that means not being forced to participate in distributing potentially life-terminating drugs and devices.”

In July, a federal court granted Hobby Lobby a preliminary injunction against the HHS abortion-drug mandate. The injunction prevented the Obama administration from enforcing the mandate against the Christian company, but the Obama administration appealed that ruling. Hobby Lobby could have paid as much as $1.3 million each day in fines for refusing to pay for birth control or abortion-causing drugs under the mandate.

After the appeals court ruling, U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton issued a preliminary injunction and stayed the case until Oct. 1 to give the Obama administration time to appeal the decision.

In an opinion read from the bench, the court said, “There is a substantial public interest in ensuring that no individual or corporation has their legs cut out from under them while these difficult issues are resolved.”

A December 2013 Rasmussen Reports poll shows Americans disagree with forcing companies like Hobby Lobby to obey the mandate.

“Half of voters now oppose a government requirement that employers provide health insurance with free contraceptives for their female employees,” Rasmussen reports.

The poll found: “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 38 percent of Likely U.S. Voters still believe businesses should be required by law to provide health insurance that covers all government-approved contraceptives for women without co-payments or other charges to the patient.

Fifty-one percent (51 percent) disagree and say employers should not be required to provide health insurance with this type of coverage. Eleven percent (11 percent) are not sure.”

Another recent poll found 59 percent of Americans disagree with the mandate.

The Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, grew their family business out of their garage. They now own stores in 41 states employing more than 16,000 full time employees. They have always operated their business according to their faith.

Kristina Arriaga, Executive Director of the Becket Fund, tells LifeNews, “In fact, the Greens pay salaries that start at twice the minimum wage and offer excellent benefits, as well as a healthcare package which includes almost all of the contraceptives now mandated by the Affordable Care Act. Their only objection is to 4 drugs and devices which, the government itself concedes, can terminate an embryo.”

“Their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act should be protected by the government. Instead, the government has threatened them with fines and fought them all the way to the Supreme Court,” Arriaga added.

“The government has already exempted tens of millions of Americans from complying with the mandate that forces employers to provide certain specific drugs and devices. However, it refuses to accommodate the Green family because the Green family’s objections are religious.  We believe that the government’s position is not only extreme and unconstitutional; it presents a grave danger to our freedoms,” she continued.

“My family and I are encouraged that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide our case,” said Mr. Green, Hobby Lobby’s founder and CEO.  “This legal challenge has always remained about one thing and one thing only: the right of our family businesses to live out our sincere and deeply held religious convictions as guaranteed by the law and the Constitution. Business owners should not have to choose between violating their faith and violating the law.”

This article was originally posted at the LifeNews.com blog. 

This week the U.S. Supreme Court hears a critically important religious freedom case. The Court will determine whether Hobby Lobby must provide contraceptive coverage to its employees, which would entail violating the religious beliefs of the company’s owners on a matter of no small import: the killing of the unborn.

Judy Waxman, a vice president of the National Women’s Law Center, asserts that “The key question is whether a corporation can have a religion.”

That strikes me as a dishonest framing of the question in that the “corporation” consists of individuals for whom their faith is central.

I would argue that the key question is whether the free exercise of religion protects the right of citizens to allow their faith to shape the means by which they make a living. The key question is whether an individual has the right to have their religious beliefs inform their livelihood decisions. Many Americans spend most of their waking hours working. For Christians, every aspect of life should be lived in submission to God and shaped by biblical truths. Christians should not lose their right to freely exercise their religion in all areas of life just because they have used their gifts and labor to create successful businesses.

The First Amendment does not merely protect the right of people of faith to freely exercise their religion within the confines of their churches. It protects the right of people of faith to exercise their religious convictions in all areas of life, not the least of which is our work. Shaping business decisions in accordance with one’s faith does not constitute a violation of the separation of church and state. Not subsidizing the provision of abortifacients to women does not constitute establishing a religion or imposing a religious practice on others. If the government declares that commerce is an area of life in which individuals have no right to exercise their religion, the First Amendment is gutted.

Take ACTION:  Our friends at the Pro-Life Action League are asking that we join the “Tweet Storm for Religious Freedom” from 8 a.m. to Noon.  People of faith across the country will be tweeting with the hashtag #ReligiousFreedomForAll during that time, when the Justices will be hearing oral arguments in this case.

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of Illinois Family Institute.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a brief Wednesday that responds to the Obama administration’s defense of its abortion pill mandate in one of two major legal challenges the U.S. Supreme Court will hear on March 25. Alliance Defending Freedom and allied attorneys represent the Hahns, a Pennsylvania Mennonite Christian family, and their woodworking business in one of those cases, Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius.

The mandate forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy financial penalties if the mandate’s requirements aren’t met.

“In America, we tolerate a diversity of opinions and beliefs; we don’t try to separate what people do from what they believe,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel David Cortman. “The Constitution guarantees the highest form of respect to the Hahns’ freedom. The government must prove why disregarding that freedom is somehow justified.”

According to the Alliance Defending Freedom reply brief, “the government contends that [the Hahns] harm the ‘freedom’ of third parties simply by not buying them abortifacients…. But that turns ordinary notions of liberty upside down. Citizens are already free to buy birth control for themselves and the government often subsidizes those purchases. Yet in the government’s view that is not enough. For the government, coercion is the new ‘freedom.’”

“Americans must be free to exercise their constitutionally protected liberties without punishment,” added Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “That at least includes freedom from government attempts to force them to pay for other people’s abortion pills.”

In January, numerous third parties filed briefs in both Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius and The Becket Fund’s Hobby Lobby Stores v. Sebelius case, which also challenges the mandate. The briefs filed in support of Conestoga Wood Specialties and Hobby Lobby outnumbered the briefs filed in favor of the Obama administration by nearly three to one.

The Hahns asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review their case after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled 2-1 against them. The decision conflicts with most other circuits and with the vast majority of rulings on the mandate so far. According to a dissent that Circuit Judge Kent Jordan wrote in that case, the mandate could cost the Hahns $95,000 per day if they don’t agree to live contrary to their Christian convictions.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys are lead counsel in the case together with co-counsel Randall Wenger of the Independence Law Center and Charles Proctor III of the Pennsylvania firm Proctor, Lindsay & Dixon. They are two of nearly 2,300 attorneys allied with Alliance Defending Freedom.

The Hobby Lobby craft store chain has won a major legal victory in its battle to avoid compliance with the federal contraceptive and abortion drug mandate when the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a U.S. District Court to re-examine Hobby Lobby’s petition for a temporary injunction blocking enforcement of the mandate against the firm. 

The full panel of the Tenth Circuit ruled that Hobby Lobby had “established a likelihood of success that their rights…are substantially burdened by the contraceptive-coverage requirement, and have established an irreparable harm.” 

The Court concluded that Hobby Lobby had legitimate claims under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  The judges ruled that the right to free exercise of religion includes corporations.    

“The protections of the Religion Clauses extend beyond the walls of a church, synagogue, or mosque to religiously motivated conduct, as well as religious belief,” the judges wrote.  “Religious conduct includes religious expression, which can be communicated by individuals and for-profit corporations alike.” 

“We are encouraged by this decision,” said David Green, founder of Hobby Lobby Stores.  “We believe that business owners should not have to choose between following their faith and following the law.”  

“My family and I believe very strongly in our conviction that life begins at conception,” Green explains.  “The emergency contraceptives that we would be forced to provide under this mandate are contrary to that conviction.” 

Hobby Lobby faced fines of $1.3 million per day for failing to comply with the contraceptive and abortion drug mandate.  That mandate, issued by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, took effect on January 1st.    

The mandate requires all health insurance plans issued in the United States to provide “free” coverage of all contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration.  The FDA definition of “contraceptives” includes abortifacient drugs and devices.   

The Department of HHS just announced “revisions” to the rules governing how the mandate applies to religious organizations.  While organized churches and their “integrated auxiliaries” are exempt from the mandate, other religious institutions are not. 

Under the latest rules, groups who are operated as non-profit entities, hold themselves out as religious organizations, and oppose contraceptive coverage based on religious objections, will not have to “pay” for such coverage in their health insurance plans. 

However, such groups will still be required to cooperate with their insurers or third-party administrators to ensure that the “free” coverage of contraceptives is provided to their employees. 

Obama Administration officials have painted the latest religious exemption rules as a compromise.  Catholic and Southern Baptist religious leaders have derided the “accomodation” as a sham.   

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Pro-life and religious leaders are sharply criticizing the Obama Administration’s revised contraceptive and abortion drug mandate, saying that it still requires religious employers to finance abortifacient drugs in their health insurance plans. 

“With another phony compromise, the Obama Administration continues to insult the intelligence of the American people and trample our constitutional rights,” reacted Charmaine Yoest, President of Americans United for Life.  “Our First Amendment freedom of conscience has been violated by Obamacare and these new regulations do not resolve the offense.”  

Under the “compromise” plan proposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, only organized churches, associations of churches, and their “integrated auxiliaries” are exempted from the contraceptive and abortion drug mandate. 

That means religious hospitals, religious educational institutions, and many other non-profit religious ministries that are not formal departments or subsidiaries of a church, will not be included in the religious exemption.    

The federal contraceptive regulation requires that every health insurance policy issued in the United States must include coverage without co-pays for all “contraceptive” drugs and devices approved by the Food and Drug Administration.  This includes drugs like Ella and Plan B, which have both contraceptive and abortifacient qualities.  It also includes intrauterine devices that operate as abortifacients. 

Under the new scheme developed by the Obama Administration, religious non-profits will supposedly not have to include contraceptive coverage in their insurance policies or their self-insurance plan.  However, their insurer or third-party administrator will have to provide separate insurance policies to each of their employees that does include contraceptive coverage regardless of whether the employee wants it or not.      

The proposed “compromise” states that insurers must provide this supplemental contraceptive coverage at no cost to the employee.  This is a ludicrous concept, as the cost of such coverage will obviously be absorbed into the insurance company’s overall expenses, and be charged back to policyholders. 

“This is nothing but an accounting gimmick that forces religious organizations…to be the gatekeeper to objectionable services for their employees,” says a statement from American United for Life.  “The contraceptive coverage is legally required to piggy-back onto the insurance plan, regardless of the employer’s objections.” 

The sham compromise concocted by the Obama Administration still leaves for-profit religious employers at the mercy of the punitive mandate.  Christian business owners will still have to include coverage of abortifacient drugs in the health insurance programs they provide to their employees.  They will still face exceedingly harsh fines of $100 per day per employee if they fail to comply. 

“All Americans, not just those in church organizations, are guaranteed freedom of conscience in their daily lives and in their work,” commented Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom.  “The government has no business putting religious freedom on the negotiating table, or picking and choosing who is allowed to exercise their faith.” 

“This country’s laws and constitution protect the religious freedom of all Americans, whether organized into religious bodies or not,”  says Francis Manion, senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice.  “Religious believers who want to conduct their businesses in a manner consistent with their religious beliefs have the same right to religious liberty as everyone else.” 

Christian medical authorities are also deriding the latest version of the mandate.  “Many employers, regardless of whether they carry a religious label or not, maintain strong conscience objections to participating in any plan that pays for pills that can cause the demise of a living human embryo,” says Dr. Gene Rudd, Executive Vice President of the Christian Medical Association. 

One of those employers is David Green, founder and President of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores.  Green says his company will not comply with the mandate despite the failure of a lawsuit filed in federal court to protect his religious liberties.  Hobby Lobby faces fines of $1.3 million per day under the penalty provisions of the mandate. 

While Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius continues to play games with the religious freedoms of the American people, legal challenges to the abortion drug mandate continue to accumulate.  At last count, there have been a total of 44 lawsuits filed in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the mandate on religious freedom grounds. 

One of the latest to weigh in is the Drury Development Corporation, which operates the Drury chain of hotels.  Drury was founded by devout Catholic Charles Drury, and is now managed by his son Tim.  Drury has filed a friend of the court brief in a lawsuit filed by K&L Contractors, a construction firm located in Highland, Illinois. 

“The Drury family are adherents of the Catholic faith and wish to conduct their business in a manner that does not violate the principles of that faith,” reads the brief authored by Americans United for Life.  “The Drury family believes that life is a sacred gift from God and that they are not permitted to cause or pay for the direct, intentional termination of human life.  The Drury Corporation is forced to choose between conducting business in a manner consistent with its religious principles or pay ruinous fines and penalties.” 

The federal court of appeals whose jurisdiction includes Missouri is making it very clear where they stand on the constitutionality of the abortion drug mandate.  For the second time, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the mandate, this time in the case of Annex Medical, a medical device firm located in Minnetonka, Minnesota.  The 8th Circuit had previously issued an injunction preventing enforcement of the mandate against a St. Louis company, O’Brien Industrial Holdings. 

The only hope to halt application of the abortion drug mandate to every health insurance provider and consumer is a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding conscientious objections based on religious convictions.  An ultimate decision by the High Court is not expected before the new regulation becomes effective.  There is a public comment period on the revised mandate through April 3rd, after which the contraceptive edict is expected to take full force and effect.

Written by Michael Foust

The Obama administration proposed a rule change Friday it says will appease the concerns religious organizations have about the abortion/contraceptive mandate, but legal groups who defend religious liberty called the proposal inadequate and said it fell far short of what is needed.

Religious groups had hoped the Department of Health and Human Services would announce that all religious organizations — universities, hospitals and charities — are exempt from the mandate, which requires employers to carry health insurance plans covering contraceptives and drugs that can cause chemical abortions. Churches, for example, are exempt from the mandate. Instead, HHS issued a rule it says allows for employees to obtain contraceptives and abortion-causing drugs without the religious employer taking part in the process. Religious liberty groups say employers still will be involved. 

The proposal also does nothing to help businesses such as Bible publisher Tyndale House or Christian-owned Hobby Lobby or any other for-profit whose owners have religious objections to contraceptives and/or abortion-causing drugs. 

“Having reviewed this proposed rule, we … have to say we’re extremely disappointed,” Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said in a conference call with reporters. Becket Fund has helped lead the legal charge against the mandate. More than 40 lawsuits have been filed against the mandate. Duncan called the proposal “radically inadequate.”

According to an HHS website, under the proposal, the religious employer “would not have to contract, arrange, pay or refer for any contraceptive coverage to which they object on religious grounds.” Employees “would receive contraceptive coverage through separate individual health insurance policies, without cost sharing or additional premiums.” The insurance company would be required to offer the drugs for free, HHS said. 

Religious organizations that are self-insured would have to contact a third party administrator, which would “work with a health insurance issuer to provide separate, individual health insurance policies at no cost for participants.” 

Religious liberty groups had multiple objections to the proposal. First, the groups said, religious organizations still will be required to carry an insurance plan that is tied to coverage of contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs. Second, religious employers — particularly those who are self-insured — will be acting as “conduits” with health providers to ensure their employees can obtain the drugs. Third, it’s unclear who is paying for the “free drugs.” As some religious commentators were suggesting: Will insurance companies simply raise rates — and thereby pass the cost for the abortion-causing drugs on to the religious organization? 

Duncan said religious organizations are “going to have to carefully consider whether this accommodation really doesn’t change the moral landscape at all. It’s going to be up to them to make that determination. We believe they’re going to have some serious concerns about remaining unacceptably involved in the provision of these drugs and devices.”

Alliance Defending Freedom senior legal counsel Matt Bowman said the proposal still infringes on religious liberty.

“Religious non-profits will, in fact, be forced to provide an insurance plan with a provider that gives the religious group’s employees abortion-pill coverage in direct connection with that plan, the coverage is definitely not free, and the coverage is imposed ‘automatically’ even against the objection of many employees who don’t want free abortion-pill coverage for themselves or their daughters,” Bowman said.

To qualify for the proposal, an organization must self-certify that it “holds itself out as a religious organization,” according to HHS. Ironically that could mean that many of the nation’s leading pro-life organizations — despite being non-profits — won’t qualify for the accommodation because they’re technically not religious organizations.

The HHS announcement did nothing to change the coverage by for-profits. Hobby Lobby, the arts and crafts store whose Christian owners say they will not follow the mandate, apparently will face fines of more than $1 million each day if a federal court does not step in. Its owners always have made their faith a central part of their business. Their stores play Christian instrumental music and are closed on Sundays. Hobby Lobby contributes to Christian organizations and runs full-page ads in newspapers during the Easter and Christmas seasons with Gospel-centered messages.

The good news for Christian for-profits is they are winning in court, having seen 10 wins and only four losses. Hobby Lobby, though, is one of those losses. The issue likely is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The administration fails to understand,” said Gene Rudd of the Christian Medical Association, “that many employers and individual Americans, regardless of a religious label or not, maintain strong conscience objections to participating in any way, shape or form in a plan that promotes pills that the FDA says can cause the demise of a living human embryo — a developing baby in her earliest stage.”

Covered under the mandate are emergency contraceptives such as Plan B and ella that can kill an embryo after fertilization and even after implantation. Pro-lifers consider that action a chemical abortion.

The mandate was announced by HHS in August 2011 as part of the health care law championed by President Obama. Although the Supreme Court upheld the health care law last June, the justices’ ruling did not deal with the religious liberty issues surrounding the abortion/contraceptive mandate. That means the nation’s highest court could yet strike down what has been for religious groups and some business owners the most controversial part of the law.

Michael Foust is associate editor of Baptist Press. Get Baptist Press headlines and breaking news on Twitter (@BaptistPress), Facebook (Facebook.com/BaptistPress ) and in your email (baptistpress.com/SubscribeBP.asp).