Hobby Lobby: Trying to get DemProgs to understand what it means

Support Hobby Lobby With Your Business… And Help Explain the Truth About Them and the Supreme Court Decision to the Low-Informed

Bookworm Room: Impressed by the ill-informed hysterical reaction that my “real me” Facebook friends had to the Hobby Lobby decision, I explained to them that the decision is very narrow and will not (a) ban contraceptives across America and (b) lead to anti-gay lynch mobs. Here’s a slightly revised version of my Facebook post, which still failed to satisfy their paranoia and inability to understand the law.  I’ve also added a little hypothetical that might open their minds.  (No, don’t say it.  It’s improbable, but not impossible, that a DemProg mind can open).

The Hobby Lobby decision addresses one thing only:  whether an administrative rule conflicts with a long-standing law.

In 1993, a Democrat Congress passed, and a Democrat president signed, the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (“RFRA”). RFRA holds in relevant part that the federal government may act in a way that substantially burdens the exercise of religion only if it can establish that its action is the least restrictive means of advancing a compelling government interest. Nothing in the Act distinguishes between individuals and corporations.

The administrative rule at issue is the edict from Health and Human Services (“HHS”) mandating that all corporations affected by Obamacare must provide their female employees with unlimited access to all contraceptives available on the market.

Hobby Lobby is a closely-held, family-run corporation. The Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, has a strong Christian faith, and is open about the fact that it runs its company in a way that is consistent with the family’s religious beliefs. These beliefs affect every aspect of the way in which Hobby Lobby is run, whether it’s the fact that even the least of Hobby Lobby’s employees gets paid an hourly amount that’s almost twice as much as minimum wage, or the fact that many of the store’s craft products come complete with little crosses attached to them.

Hobby Lobby has long provided comprehensive insurance for its employees. As part of this insurance, it makes available to its employees 16 different types of contraceptives. Moreover, Hobby Lobby has never said (a) that it would stop covering contraceptives entirely or (b) that contraceptives should be outlawed in America. Instead, it made a very narrow protest to the HHS mandate:  It objected to the fact that the mandate would force it to offer, not 16, but 20 contraceptives to its employees.  The additional 4 contraceptives are or can be used as abortion-causing agents.  The Green family’s religious faith means that it is adamantly opposed to abortion, which it considers murder.

The HHS mandate put Hobby Lobby in an impossible position: It could either use its own money to pay directly for abortifacient drugs or it could pay $475 million a year in penalties. It was this dilemma, it argued, that constituted a substantial burden on its exercise of religion under RFRA. Put another way, Hobby Lobby argued that it faced a Hobson’s choice:  directly fund something it opposes on core religious grounds or go bankrupt.  On these facts, the Supreme Court agreed that Hobby Lobby had satisfied the “substantial burden” requirement under RFRA.

There was something else that the Supreme Court accepted as given: For purposes of the ruling, the Supreme Court accepted as true HHS’s claim that forcing corporations to pay for their female employees’ contraceptives (simply because the Obama administration says it’s unfair not to) serves a compelling government interest.

(As an aside, I was thinking about this “unfair” point. According to my DemProg friends, the demand that corporations pay for contraceptives arises because it’s not fair that women have to shoulder these costs, while men don’t. Let’s put aside the fact that the DemProgs can’t explain why it’s fair that corporations must bear contraception costs.  The really important point is that, if the reason to force corporations to shoulder the burden is so that women don’t have to pay more in costs related to their unique biology just because they are women, corporations should also be required to pay for tampons, sanitary pads and, most importantly, chocolate, all of which are costly menstrual necessities that burden women, not men.  Additionally, corporations should be entitled to learn which employees have gone through menopause, so as to scale back on those uniquely feminine costs.  And now back to the Hobby Lobby case…)

With the Supreme Court having accepted that Hobby Lobby had proved that it was being significantly burdened and that HHS had proved a compelling government interest, the sole issue before the Court was whether HHS was using the least restrictive means to advance its compelling interest. Based on this single, limited issue, the Supreme Court concluded that HHS’s birth control mandate did not meet the RFRA test. The Court had a very simple metric for proving this conclusion: HHS itself handed the Court proof that there was a less restrictive way to serve this compelling interest.

HHS created this less restrictive contraception mandate when religious non-profit organizations objected to paying directly for contraceptives and abortifacients. HHS said that religious institutions could avoid the mandate by signing a document stating that their religious beliefs prevented them from complying with the contraception mandate. With this document, the onus shifts to the insurance company to apply the mandate.  (The Little Sisters of the Poor are challenging this workaround on the ground that it cannot apply to self-insured entities.  Likewise, even if the religious entity has a third party insurance company, the insurance company will simply increase its rates, with the result that the money for the contraceptives and abortifacients will still come from the corporation that has religious objections.  The Supreme Court’s eventual decision should be interesting.)

With HHS having already figured out a less intrusive method for getting “free” contraceptives to women, the Supreme Court held that the same workaround that applies to religious non-profits can apply equally well to closely held corporations if the owners have a sincere belief in a core religious issue. And that’s it. That’s the whole Hobby Lobby decision.

My Facebook explanation was clear enough that those who have been brainwashed into being terrified by the Hobby Lobby decision had only two defenses left. The first was that religious fanatics will use the decision to justify myriad things such as banning birth control nationwide, revoking the rule that corporations must pay for women’s contraceptives, and refusing to hire gays (a fear based upon this letter from a religious leader who clearly hadn’t read the Hobby Lobby decision himself).

The second defense, which I’ll address in the remainder of this post, was that the entire decision is wrong because, as a predicate matter, it treats a corporation as a person. “Corporations aren’t people” my DemProg friends cry, as they’ve been programmed to do since the Citizens United decision.  In other words, Hobby Lobby has no conscience and therefore cannot be treated as a conscientious objector.

I came up with a hypothetical scenario — a probable hypothetical scenario — that should have DemProgs insisting that, yes indeedy, corporations can and should be people — or, at least, Leftist corporations can and should be people.

The year is 2026. Since 2020, Republicans have majorities in Congress and a president in the White House. The wars in Syria and Iraq long ago merged, starting a conflagration that constantly threatens to spill over into every region of the world. The result is the Islamist caliphate equivalent of the Cold War, with the U.S. trying to put out small Islamic fires all over the world in order to de-fang the Sunni and Shia monsters without having to engage them directly on American soil.

The military is more central to American life and survival than ever. Defense costs have therefore skyrocketed, so Republicans went looking for new ways to equip the military. To this end, they noted that America’s business class was arguably benefiting most from the military’s efforts, because businesses were able to carry on and profit primarily because the military kept the Islamists far from American shores. It therefore would be logical for corporations to subsidize a significant part of the war effort.

Based upon this reasoning, in 2022, the Republicans successfully passed a new law, known as the Act for an Affordable Military (“AAM”). The Acts’ supporters affectionately call it “Adopt A Marine.” Its detractors refer to it disdainfully as “America’s A Monster.”

AAM goes far beyond traditional military funding, which relied upon tax revenues funneled to the Pentagon. Instead, AAM directly engages corporate America as an essential part of equipping the American military. Immediately upon the Act’s passage, the Pentagon was tasked with creating rules under AAM (a 3,200 portmanteau document written in vague and broad terms) that would shift onto corporations primary responsibility for equipping troops.

The Pentagon immediately issued a rule mandating that henceforth every corporation will be responsible for outfitting Marines with everything a Marine at war could need:  uniform, pack, weapons . . . the whole megillah.  Moreover, the number of Marine Gear Kits (or “MGKs”) that a corporation must assemble will be equal to the number of employees the corporation has. Thus, a corporation with ten employees must put together 10 MGKs, a corporation with 50 employees must put together 50 MGKs, and so on. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2012 Obamacare decision, this kind of . . . ahem . . . “tax” (i.e., forcing taxpayers to purchase a product, even if they don’t want it themselves) is perfectly legitimate.

Corporations that fail to comply with the MGK mandate will be assessed an annual tax equal to $10,000 per MGK, with no maximum cap. That means that, if a corporation with 50 employees refuses to put together its designated MGKs, it will pay an annual penalty of $500,000. A corporation with 30,000 employees could find itself on the hook for $300,000,000 annually.  Again, the Supreme Court’s 2012 Obamacare decision legitimized this “penalty” for failure to “pay” the “tax.”

Something else has changed now that the Cold War against the new Caliphate is being carried out by Republicans:  The DemProg peace movement is resurgent. Two of the most active peaceniks, Sol and Luna Giggleweed started out in their home office in 2020 (when Republicans finally re-took Congress and the White House following Elizabeth Warren’s ill-fated four-year presidency), designing, creating, and marketing bumper stickers, window signs, mugs, toilet paper . . . anything that could advance the pacifist cause.

With business booming, the Giggleweeds incorporated, calling their new business “Pacifists United Together Zone” or “PUTZ.” They now have 50 full-time employees working in their green-compliant factory in San Francisco’s SoMa district.

Thanks to the Giggleweed’s business acumen, you can now walk into any trendy store and buy one of PUTZ’s $25 king-size mugs emblazoned with “Live Peacefully or Die.”  If that’s too expensive, for $10 you can get a set of 10 bumper stickers reading “Peace : The New Caliphate Wants It Too.” PUTZ also manufactures the usual complement of sweatshirts with peace signs on them; posters urging people to “Visualize World Peace” or “Pray for Israel’s Destruction”; and the ever-popular Naughty Underwear set, in both multigender and cisgender versions, with “Make Love, Not War” glitter-stamped on the crotch.

For the Giggleweeds, peace isn’t just a gimmick to make a motive; it’s also their core ideology. Both Sol and Luna attended the Bush-era anti-war protests, and they oppose Republican-led wars with every fiber of their DemProg beings.

Significantly, even the Giggleweed’s faith is driven by their pacifism. They are ardent members of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (aka “PCUSA”).  In 2018, PCUSA’s governing board formally voted that “We, the PCUSA, oppose all wars, except for those wars dedicated to Israel’s destruction.”

Nobody quite knows how it did it, but PCUSA asserted that this vote reflected a core religious principle derived from the Books of Samuel, 1 Kings, and 1 Chronicles.  PCUSA’s revised doctrine is immune to challenge thanks to the tattered remnants of the First Amendment (which, in 2018, was amended to state that “Except as to matters of human sexuality and gender identity, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . .”).

PUTZ employees are as devout as the Giggleweeds. Indeed, many of them came to the Giggleweed’s attention during the Bush War protests.  Without exception, all of the employees belong to PCUSA or affiliated faiths. Their strong anti-war beliefs (unless, of course, the war is waged against Israel) infuse every aspect of their lives.  They are grateful to work at PUTZ, a corporation with a business model that puts pacifism on the front line, so to speak.

For these reasons, the Giggleweeds and their PUTZ employees were horrified when AAM became law and, even worse, when the Pentagon explicitly passed to corporations the responsibility for providing MGKs. PUTZ therefore joined with PCUSA and other like-minded churches and mosques, which are also on the hook for MGKs, to object to the mandate that they directly invest in MGKs or pay a substantial penalty to help fund the “Republican Anti-Caliphate War Machine.”

The Republican establishment was unmoved by anti-AAM protesters. Instead, it took great pleasure in reminding the protesters and litigants that, thanks to agitation from this same cadre of people in the wake of the Hobby Lobby decision, Congress in 2016 (Year One of Elizabeth Warren’s disastrous administration) amended RFRA to state explicitly that it does not apply to corporations, regardless of the corporation’s size or whether it’s publicly traded or closely held. There is no way out for the Giggleweeds and PUTZ: they either put together MGKs for the Marines, or they pay $500,000 so that someone else can put the MGKs together for them.

To the Giggleweeds and their ilk, the Republicans have only one thing to say:  It’s always nasty when your own chickens come home to roost.

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Hobby Lobby Wins SCOTUS Decision as Obama Racks Up a String of Judicial Losses at Supreme Court

It has been a tough week for President Obama at the Supreme Court!  As the somewhat surprising ObamaCare loss to Hobby Lobby was added to the tally on Monday, the Obama administration lost 4 out of 5 big decisions and 2 were rare 9 to 0 decisions.

The Roberts Court

By Marion Algier – Ask Marion

Although not unanimous decisions, after months of judicial rulings reining in big government and police on issues like snooping on Americans without a warrant, restrictions on campaign finance and President Obama’s recess appointment powers, the administration’s losses on ObamaCare rules and compulsory union dues served as a final rebuke by the Supreme Court on their last day of this session.

In the five years that President Obama has been in office, the Supreme Court has rejected the government’s argument with a 9-0 decision 20 times.

During the eight years each in the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the government lost on unanimous votes 23 times and 15 times, respectively, putting the Obama administration on course to to be the biggest loser in recent history in terms of judicial losses.  Unfortunately for the American people, Obama won on the big one… the most damaging decision for America: ObamaCare, a decision many people are still baffled by and questioning.

President Obama appointed two of the sitting Supreme Court Judges Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, under an umbrella of considerable scrutiny and dissent by conservatives, the right. So the number of unanimous cases are important in that nobody can say, ‘Well, there are five Republican appointees on the court and only four Democrats.’

“These cases where they haven’t gotten the votes of either of the two Obama nominees means the arguments being presented by the Justice Department to the court are just out of left field,” said Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.

Monday’s decisions were not unanimous, but congressional Republicans and other critics of President Obama saw the rulings as evidence that the Roberts court is finally acting as something of a final line of defense, a check and balance as they were meant to be, against a president who brags about his use of executive power to bypass Congress and impose his progressive agenda on the American people.

House Speaker John A. Boehner said of Monday’s decision, “It is a victory for religious freedom and another defeat for an administration that has repeatedly crossed constitutional lines in pursuit of its big government objectives.”  Boehner announced last week that he would be suing the president for abuse of executive authority.  And although it is unclear how that lawsuit will play out, the administration’s recent track record in high-profile cases has been poor.

Chief Justice John Roberts managed to corral unanimous votes on both privacy and recess appointments — cases that have dealt stinging defeats to the president, having himself been a lawyer and former lecturer on constitutional law.

US Supreme Court to police: To search a cell phone, 'get a warrant':

Christian Science Monitor: WASHINGTON — In a major affirmation of privacy in the digital age, the US Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that police must obtain a warrant before searching digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested.

The 9-to-0 decision marks a Fourth Amendment landmark of profound importance given the ubiquity of cell phones, tablets, and portable computers in public places throughout society.

“Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. “With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans the ‘privacies of life,’ " he said.

“The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought,” the chief justice said.

“Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple – get a warrant.” Read More

The Supreme Court delivered a solid blow Thursday to President Obama, ruling that he went too far in making recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board.

SCOTUS Limits Recess Appointments Decision:

Fox News: In a unanimous decision, the high court sided with Senate Republicans and limited the president's power to fill high-level vacancies with temporary appointments. It was the first-ever Supreme Court test involving the long-standing practice of presidents naming appointees when the Senate is on break.

In this case, Obama had argued that the Senate was on an extended holiday break when he filled slots at the NLRB in 2012. He argued the brief sessions it held every three days were a sham that was intended to prevent him from filling the seats.

The justices rejected that argument, though, declaring the Senate was not actually in a formal recess when Obama acted during that three-day window.

Justice Stephen Breyer said in his majority opinion that a congressional break has to last at least 10 days to be considered a recess under the Constitution. Read  More

On recess appointments, justice was delayed but served…

Mandatory Union Fees Curbed by Court in Blow to Labor

BusinessWeek: A divided U.S. Supreme Court handed a setback to organized labor by placing new limits on the ability of unions to demand fees from some public-sector workers.

The high court, voting 5-4, invalidated Illinois rules requiring union payments from people who provide in-home care for disabled Medicaid recipients. The majority said those rules violated the workers’ constitutional right to freedom of speech and association because the home health-care workers weren’t true public employees.

“If we accepted Illinois’ argument,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in today’s majority opinion, “we would approve an unprecedented violation of the bedrock principle that, except perhaps in the rarest of circumstances, no person in this country may be compelled to subsidize speech by a third party that he or she does not wish to support.”  Read More

Hobby Lobby Wins SCOTUS Decision

Ask Marion/THITW:  Monday’s decision was very narrow and some pro-life and religious groups question whether it was a win in the long run in their battles.  It certainly was in the short run!! You be the judge…

Attorneys Who Defended Hobby Lobby Celebrating

American Thinker: Hobby Lobby 1, Obamacare 0

The Supreme Court upheld the religious freedom rights of Hobby Lobby, the closely-held corporation owned by believing Christians who objected to being required to supply the abortion pill to their employees.

Steve Ertelt of Life News reports:

…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.”

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.

The Hobby Lobby decision only applies to companies. 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.

Note that this ruling only applies to closely-held corporations, but does not rule out applying the same religious freedom reasoning to publicly-held firms and nonprofits.

Ed Lasky points out:

The fact that both these decisions [Hobby Lobby and the forced union dues case] were 5-4 points out the danger of Obama picking the next SC Justice with Reid in control of the Senate. If the opportunity present itself, he will abolish the filibuster for SC nominees, too.

Memo.com: The Supreme Court Gets It Right

Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court has stepped up to defend Americans’ most basic freedoms from the full-frontal assault by the rampaging band of leftists running America. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, a Christian business that objected on religious ground to Obamacare’s mandate that they must cover certain contraceptives.

Hobby Lobby is among about 50 businesses that have sued over covering contraceptives. Some, like Hobby Lobby, are willing to cover most methods of contraception, as long as they can exclude abortifacients.

Justice Samuel Alito said the decision is limited to contraceptives. “Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer’s religious beliefs,” he said. He suggested two ways the administration could deal with the birth control issue. The government could simply pay for pregnancy prevention, he said. Or it could provide the same kind of accommodation it has made available to religious-oriented, not-for-profit corporations.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was part of the majority, also wrote separately to say the administration can solve its problem easily. “The accommodation works by requiring insurance companies to cover, without cost sharing, contraception coverage for female employees who wish it,” Kennedy said. He said that arrangement “does not impinge on the plaintiffs’ religious beliefs.” Everyone’s rights respected and problem solved. Easy peasy.

Of course, Obamacare was never about health care or health insurance. It was only and always about government power and control. Over you. That’s what the contraceptive mandate was all about: social engineering, abortion made even easier to get, and with the government holding the strings of control over all of it.

Thank goodness the Supremes ruled on the side of religious liberty. It’s about time. But that 5-4 split is too close for comfort. As we head into 2016, don’t forget that the Supreme Court—like all of our courts—hangs by a thread, and with it, our most basic freedoms.

Huffington Post:  If Hobby Lobby Wins, Pro-life Christians Lose

We now know with certainty that the Supreme Court will announce its Hobby Lobby decision on Monday. This weekend, the craft and home décor store, along with numerous evangelical institutions that have filed briefs in its support -including my former employer the National Association of Evangelicals–are hoping and praying God will favor them with a whole new expansion of religious freedom and the protection of human life. I’m praying for the opposite.

Along with nearly 50 other for-profit corporations, Hobby Lobby is demanding the same religious freedoms and protections that each of us has. Hobby Lobby was not endowed by its Creator with certain unalienable rights. It does not have a soul. It cannot have faith. Yet its owners (and their lawyers) insist that it should not have to comply with the contraceptive coverage requirement in the Affordable Care Act on religious grounds. The Obama Administration reasonably granted an opt-out to houses of worship and other religious nonprofits. Hobby Lobby wants similar treatment.

Evangelical intervention on behalf of the multi-billion dollar corporation, which donates generously to their causes, is wrong for many reasons but here are two major ones: If you are pro-religious liberty and pro-life and family, you can’t support allowing a for-profit corporation to use religion to deny contraceptive coverage.

First, supporters of Hobby Lobby think they are helping the Christian faith but are actually harming it. In fact, a ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby weakens religious freedom.

When anyone can use religion to claim an exemption on anything, religion loses meaning. Rather than a personal belief embedded in our souls, faith would become a set of arbitrary rules any corporation could choose from to skirt the law.

Is this what evangelicalism needs? I spent nearly three decades in governmental relations at the National Association of Evangelicals defending the free-exercise of religion and the right to life, among many other traditional values. Coming to the aid of for-profit corporations who want to ride on the backs of religion is not one of these honored principles.

Indeed, it is a kind of corporatism invading the body of Christ — concern not for the “least of these” but the richest of those among us. Is this what Christ would do?

When corporations are allowed the same exemptions that have always been reserved just for churches–whether on health benefits, hiring, or land use–those special protections become less clear and more open for interpretation.

If a for-profit corporation is eligible for legal exemptions on grounds of religious freedom, it puts government in charge of deciding what is or isn’t religion. You can just imagine the lawyers who will find work forever litigating these claims. I know, from experience, that their concern for what should be “legal” is not the same as what is “spiritual” or truly serves the interests of the Church.

What if a corporation owned by Jehovah Witnesses refuses to cover blood transfusions? If Christian corporations are allowed to use faith to refuse contraception coverage to women who work for them, what’s to stop a Christian Scientist business from refusing to cover any health benefits?

Second, the supporters of Hobby Lobby think they are being “pro-life.” They are wrong. A massive study conducted in 2012 showed that contraception coverage without a co-pay could dramatically reduce the abortion rate.

That study, conducted by the Washington University School of Medicine, of 10,000 women at-risk for unintended pregnancy found that when given their choice of birth control methods, counseled about their effectiveness, risks, and benefits, with all methods provided at no cost, about 75 percent of women in the study chose the most effective methods: IUDs or implants. Most importantly, as a result, annual abortion rates among study participants dropped up to 80 percent below the national abortion rate.

Well, you might ask, based upon some of the charges being made, aren’t the contraceptive methods being funded through the Affordable Care Act, abortifacients? Not if you believe medical science.

In the words of Jeffrey F. Peipert, M.D., Ph.D., the Robert J. Terry Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine, “these contraceptive methods work by preventing pregnancy (fertilization) from occurring in the first place. For instance, the intrauterine device works primarily by preventing fertilization. Plan B (or the progestin-containing, morning-after pill), along with Ella (ulipristal acetate), delay the release of a woman’s egg from her ovary. The egg does not get fertilized, which means the woman does not become pregnant.”

In sum, Evangelicals supporting Hobby Lobby at the Supreme Court are not actually being pro-religious freedom or pro-life. If they win at the Supreme Court, these causes will be damaged in the long run.

Although this decision in favor of Hobby Lobby is generally seen as a victory by most on the right, and a win for freedom in general, it has opened the door for a lot of whining by the left, who will certainly take their misinformation and use it as a weapon in the upcoming 2014 Elections.  Therefore, it could not be a better time for Carly Fiorina’s new Pac… the UP Project, to educate women.

A big Supreme Court win on ‘greenhouse gas’ regulations for the EPA

The only win for the White House and the EPA this Supreme Court Session was on greenhouse gas:

Human Events:

The outcome is likely to be welcomed by environmentalists because it confirms the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to restrict greenhouse gases.

The justices handed down two separate rulings in a dispute over permits for new or modified power plants and factories.

In a 7-2 vote, the justices agreed the Environmental Protection Agency could force major polluters to use new and better technology to limit their emissions of carbon dioxide.

“These are major polluting facilities, such as factories and coal-fired power plants,” said Justice Antonin Scalia, and they are already subject to EPA restrictions. Now, those restrictions can include limits on greenhouse gases, he said.

The only disappointment faced by the regulatory State was that a separate 5-4 decision kept it from extending this authority to “millions of other facilities,” as the L.A. Times puts it, although I think that could be more properly rendered as “virtually all other facilities.”  The greenhouse-gas fantasy retains its grip on power plants, but at least they can’t make nearly every construction project pull “greenhouse gas permits,” which is where all of this was headed.  Today’s ruling also won’t do anything to stop the broader War on Energy carried out by the Obama Administration.  Considering what they won at the Supreme Court, their losses are trivial. Read More

Jonathan Turly Weighs In On Supreme Court Ruling & Executive Orders Special Report:

REP. BOB GOODLATTE (R-VA): Professor Turley, the constitution, the system of separated powers is not simply about stopping one branch of government from usurping another. It's about protecting the liberty of Americans from the dangers of concentrated government power. How does the president's unilateral modification of act of Congress affect both the balance of power between the political branches and the liberty interests of the American people?

JONATHAN TURLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The danger is quite severe. The problem with what the president is doing is that he's not simply posing a danger to the constitutional system. He's becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid. That is the concentration of power in every single branch.

This Newtonian orbit that the three branches exist in is a delicate one but it is designed to prevent this type of concentration. There is two trends going on which should be of equal concern to all members of Congress. One is that we have had the radical expansion of presidential powers under both President Bush and President Obama. We have what many once called an imperial presidency model of largely unchecked authority. And with that trend we also have the continued rise of this fourth branch. We have agencies that are quite large that issue regulations. The Supreme Court said recently that agencies could actually define their own or interpret their own jurisdiction. (House hearing, December 3, 2013).

Video:  Jonathan Turly Weighs In On Supreme Court Ruling & Executive Orders Special Report

UPDATE: The Kelly File, 2/12/2014: Turley on Expansion of Presidential Powers: "We Have Become a Nation of Enablers"

As for me… All in all, I’d say it was a great week!!  It is just too bad we can’t get decisions on the Constitutionality of important matters a little bit quicker!  It would save us a whole of hurt… money and time!!

Related:

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Justices turn away 'conversion' therapy ban cases

Scalia Dissent: Judicial Gay Marriage Decision Is Jaw-Dropping

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Did NSA Blackmail Roberts to OK ObamaCare?

U.S. Supreme Court dumps AZ voter law

Supreme Court Upholds Obamacare…

Scalia vs. Thomas Jefferson on secession

Democrats eye Hobby Lobby defeat as a weapon on the campaign trail

HUMPHRIES: The liberal bully of the week is … Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Critics Question Constitutionality of President’s Executive Actions – Andrew Napolitano – The Kelly File

Technorati Tags: Supreme Court,Obamaland,SCOTUS,Law,Constitution,Chief Justice John Roberts,Scalia,NLRB,ObamaCare,Constitutional Law,Case Law,Overreach,Speaker Boehner,John Roberts,Fourth Amendment,Unons,EPA,Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Obamacare’s Tough Day in Court

Divided Supreme Court Hears Hobby Lobby’s Challenge to the Contraceptive Mandate

By: Roger Aronoff  -  Accuracy in Media  -  Cross-Posted at the NoisyRoom

Since its passage, a number of lawsuits have attempted to undermine Obamacare as a law, with varying degrees of success. The individual mandate challenge failed before the Supreme Court in 2012, despite what seemed like positive reception to the challenge during oral argument. Hobby Lobby went before the Supreme Court on March 25 to challenge the religious liberty implications of the contraception mandate portion of the law.

While the media have largely focused on the Hobby Lobby challenge, a few blocks away, the D.C. Court of Appeals was hearing another argument about Obamacare—one that, if passed, could well have the effect of ending this law as we know it. And it has liberals running scared.

In the piece “Forget Hobby Lobby. The Bigger Legal Threat to Obamacare Still Has Life,” Alec Macgillis writes for the New Republic, “If the contraception challenge succeeds, it just means that that one sliver of Obamacare is struck down. If this other challenge succeeds, both sides agree that it would blow up the entire law.”

The argument for the plaintiffs is as follows: In order to provide the 60th vote, which was necessary to get the bill through the Senate, Ben Nelson, the then-Democratic senator from Nebraska, insisted on a clause that said that federal subsidies could only go to people who signed up on exchanges set up by the states. The purpose was to incentivize states to actually set up exchanges.

Then, the plaintiffs argue, the IRS wrote a rule in 2012 which reinterpreted the law to say that federal exchanges could give out subsidies as well. “The alternative policy under the IRS’ rewriting of the rule creates a bizarre circumstance where it’s almost impossible to fulfill the Act’s purpose of having state-run exchanges, because it eliminates any tangible incentive for these people to go ahead and adopt the exchanges,” argued Michael A. Carvin, the plaintiffs’ attorney, before the Court of Appeals on March 25. “So they’ve created a situation which has predictably resulted in only 14 states doing what Congress clearly wanted 50 states to do, which is to set up their exchanges.”

Arguably, however, the mostly Republican governors who have refused to set up exchanges also did so for political reasons.

Carter-appointed Judge Harry Edwards had a Hillary Clinton moment during the oral arguments. He demanded that Carvin “forget the subsidies” argument and explain why it was important whether the federal government or states control the exchanges. He demanded loudly, twice, “What difference does it make who does it? Forget the subsidy.”

But we can’t forget the subsidies. They are at the heart of the law, and its practice. The Washington Post has reported that “About 85 percent of those signing up for insurance in federal-run exchanges have qualified for financial assistance to purchase coverage.” In other words, this amounts to a massive federal redistribution of wealth for millions—85% of enrollees. (Let’s ignore for a moment that we have no idea how many enrollees actually purchase their insurance after “selecting” it. If they know, the federal government isn’t telling us.) “Without those subsidies, the insurance would be less affordable, leaving those with the greatest health needs with more motivation to purchase coverage,” writes the Post. “That makes for a worse risk mix, driving up the cost of insurance to cover the sicker pool of people, creating what’s known as an insurance ‘death spiral.’” The federal exchange is already at risk of a death spiral if it cannot entice enough of the young and healthy to sign up.

The case could also undo the individual mandate. “Were the case to succeed, it would mean that dozens of state governments opposed to Obamacare could significantly narrow its scope by refusing [to] set up exchanges, thus preventing residents from claiming subsidies,” explains the Washington Examiner. “In those states, employers wouldn’t be penalized for failing to offer qualifying insurance (which is triggered by workers seeking federal subsidies), meaning that anti-Obamacare states could become more attractive to businesses trying to get around the employer mandate.”

“It would also increase pressure on Congress to undo the individual mandate.”

Judge Edwards said that this was a transparent attempt by Carvin and his plaintiffs to “gut” the law. Indeed, those opposed to the lawsuit seem more concerned with saving the law than looking at the Act’s original language. MacGillis cites Clinton-appointed Judge Paul Friedman in his earlier ruling that “Plaintiffs’ proposed construction in this case—that tax credits are available only for those purchasing insurance from state-run Exchanges—runs counter to this central purpose of the ACA: to provide affordable health care to virtually all Americans…Such an interpretation would violate the basic rule of statutory construction that a court must interpret a statute in light of its history and purpose.” “Under the challengers’ logic, Judge Friedman added, the exchanges administered by the federal government ‘would have no customers, and no purpose,’” writes Macgillis. Is it really the Courts’ purview to decide whether a government program should survive, as opposed to whether the law is being executed constitutionally and legally?

Indeed, according to The Wire, without federal subsidies, “Many of those people would fall in to the hardship gap and not have to buy insurance or pay the individual mandate.” There are two other cases besides this one “challenging the authority of the IRS to rewrite the statute and allow subsidies to flow through the federal exchanges,” according to Forbes.

Never afraid of punditry, MSNBC abandoned all pretense of journalism and called this discussion of the Senate’s original intent a “drafting error.” Adam Serwer writes that “The Affordable Care Act managed to have two bad days in court on the same day,” adding that the argument means that “Congress was handing Republicans an Obamacare self-destruct button.”

But, he offers hope to his liberal readers: “If the government loses before the panel, it can ask for the D.C. Circuit to hear the case ‘en banc,’ before the judges on the D.C. Circuit.” Then it could go to the Supreme Court.

Why is the ‘en banc’ ability important? Because President Obama has stacked the court, of course. “After the Democrats nuked the filibuster, Obama was able to make four appointments to the court,” writes Serwer. “Though judges’ opinions don’t always track with those of the party that appointed them, thanks to the changes to the filibuster, more Democratic appointees than Republican appointees would rule on the matter.” In other words, partisan politics would play out if the entire bench were to hear the case.

A decision is supposed to come in late June, and looks like it will be in favor of the plaintiffs. But, the Washington Examiner warns, oral arguments can be misleading. “As always, it’s hard to predict judicial outcomes based on oral arguments, a lesson that was made abundantly clear when many observers predicted that the Supreme Court would strike down the individual mandate only to see it upheld,” Philip Klein writes.

Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and can be contacted at roger.aronoff@aim.org. View the complete archives from Roger Aronoff.

Hobby Lobby vs Sebelius Goes Before the Supreme Court

INFOGRAPHIC: What Exactly This Hobby Lobby Case Is About

If the contraception mandate passes, it will ruin a core U.S. ideology

 

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,Affordable Care Act,Contraception,SCOTUS,Supreme Court,ACA,PPACA Medicare,Mandates,Religion,Christianity,Sebelius,Ideology,Americana,Rick Warren,Thoughts,Constitution,Founding-Ideals,Freedom,Hobby Lobby

Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement - Justice Resolutions - Obama Admin Vs Little Sisters 1-4-2014

Video: Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement - Justice Resolutions - Obama Admin Vs Little Sisters 1-4-2014

Pirro On Obamacare Contraception Mandate: YOU LIED!

“And yet, you as a former constitutional professor, refuse to exempt them from the contraception mandate. You, the same guy who grants exemptions and waivers left and right to unions, political buddies, bundlers, but not to the women who have devoted their lives to God and caring for the sick?” – Judge Jeanine Pirro

By Caleb Howe

On Fox News’ Justice With Judge Jeanine on Saturday, host Jeanine Pirro in her opening statement addressed the Obamacare contraception mandate and the nuns made famous recently by Justice Sotomayor.

It seems all to obvious, and Pirro puts it in stark terms. But this is a clash of religions and those are rarely settled easily. On one side, the Catholic Church and their fundamental religious objection to providing contraception. On the other, the Liberal Church and their fundamental religious devotion to giving every single living human being on the planet some form of contraception.

The Obamacare acolytes do not care about religious freedom. Well, not Christian religious freedom anyway. It is merely an inconvenient part of American life they tolerate so long as it doesn’t get in their way. But when that free exercise clashes with their fervent devotion to contraception and abortion, you can bet they won’t be willing to budge an inch. Lip service only lasts as long as the lips have nothing to yell about.

Pirro lays the fight right at President Obama’s feet, where it belongs. Here is the transcript of the above clip:

I want a government that respects religious freedom. Mr. President, now that you’re back from your Hawaiian vacation … how’d you hitt them? How’s that handicap? You come back and you try to take away from the Little Sisters of the Poor, a 175-year-old religious organization that cares for low income elderly who are dying, their right to exercise their First Amendment freedom of religion. You promised the Catholic Church you would not, under Obamacare, force those with religious objection to provide contraception to employees, which of course is contrary to their fundamental beliefs and their exercise of their religion.

In spite of your promise, you are spending millions in legal fees to force the Little Sisters of the Poor who spend their lives serving the sick and the elderly to provide contraception, sterilization and abortifacients to their employees? Pray tell, Mr. President, might you have lied to the Catholic Church? And now you’re going to court to sanction one home $6,700 a day? What don’t you understand about the Little Sisters of the Poor? Now, I don’t care if you’re pro-choice or pro-life, you have a fundamental right to practice your religion. You have a fundamental right to the First Amendment, freedom of religion.

And yet, you as a former constitutional professor, refuse to exempt them from the contraception mandate. You, the same guy who grants exemptions and waivers left and right to unions, political buddies, bundlers, but not to the women who have devoted their lives to God and caring for the sick? Hell, even a convicted muslim felon in federal prison can exercise their freedom of religion. They can’t be punished for exercising their religion. And you go after these nuns to force them to violate their religion or put them out of business? Am I asking for too much? We’re only talking about your word. Religious freedom, the First Amendment. Mr. President. It’s 2014, and we are not getting off to a good start.

 

Technorati Tags: Little Sisters,New Year's Resolutions

HHS mandate loses first test in federal court

Hotair:

Posted on Saturday, July 28, 2012 7:12:52 PM by SeekAndFind

Don't get too excited by this court decision, an injunction against the HHS contraception mandate that goes into effect on Wednesday. We've seen other court rulings on ObamaCare go one way, only to be disappointed in the final test at the Supreme Court. Still, I'd rather win the first round than lose it (via The Anchoress):

The Catholic family that owns a Colorado-based company won a court victory in their battle to stop the Obama administration from requiring them to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception, a mandate they say violates their religious beliefs and First Amendment rights.

Hercules Industries, a Denver-based heating ventilation and air conditioning manufacturer that employs nearly 300 full-time workers, got an injunction in federal court which stops enforcement of the controversial ObamaCare mandate. The company's lawyers said they needed the injunction immediately because if the mandate is enforced, it must begin immediately making changes to its health plan, which renews on November 1st.

The case is similar to ones brought by Catholic-based colleges that have refused to provide employee insurance with such coverage, except this time, it is a secular corporation.

In his order, Colorado District Judge John Kane said that the government’s arguments “are countered, and indeed outweighed, by the public interest in the free exercise of religion.”

The injunction only applies to Hercules Industries, not the mandate as a whole, and it's only temporary, as William Jacobson points out at Legal Insurrection. However, the usual paradigms for issuing temporary injunctions are that the judge believes the plaintiffs have a substantial chance of winning the case, and that the regulation or action being halted does significant damage to the plaintiff. That hints at a favorable ruling at the district court level for Hercules, which is definitely good news, as the Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the owners of Hercules, proclaimed in its statement:

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys obtained the first-ever order against the mandate on behalf of Hercules Industries and the Catholic family that owns it. The administration opposed the order, arguing, contrary to the U.S. Constitution, that people of faith forfeit their religious liberty once they engage in business. The mandate could subject the Newlands to millions of dollars in fines per year if they don’t abide by its requirements.

“Every American, including family business owners, should be free to live and do business according to their faith. For the time being, Hercules Industries will be able to do just that,” said Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “The cost of freedom for this family could be millions of dollars per year in fines that will cripple their business if the Obama administration ultimately has its way. This lawsuit seeks to ensure that Washington bureaucrats cannot force families to abandon their faith just to earn a living. Americans don’t want politicians and bureaucrats deciding what faith is, who the faithful are, and where and how that faith may be lived out.”

In his order, Senior Judge John L. Kane of the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado said that the government’s arguments “are countered, and indeed outweighed, by the public interest in the free exercise of religion. As the Tenth Circuit has noted, ‘there is a strong public interest in the free exercise of religion even where that interest may conflict with [another statutory scheme]….’ Accordingly, the public interest favors entry of an injunction in this case.” Kane explained that the government’s “harm pales in comparison to the possible infringement upon Plaintiffs’ constitutional and statutory rights.”

According to the brief Alliance Defending Freedom filed along with the motion requesting the injunction, “the mandate disregards religious conscience rights that are enshrined in federal statutory and constitutional law.” It also violates the First Amendment “due to its massive inapplicability and its discrimination among religions,” the brief explains.

The Newlands have to win the case and have it upheld at the appellate level before it has force as a precedent. That seems, though, like a slam-dunk, especially after the very recent Supreme Court decision in Hosanna-Tabor Church v. EEOC that unanimously found a ministerial exception to equal-opportunity laws in religious schools — the very kind of religious organizations that got excluded from the religious exemption by the HHS contraception mandate. The fractious justices united in limiting the application of regulations dealing with federal mandates in what might be considered second-tier religious organizations, and the HHS mandate appears to occupy a very similar relationship as the EEOC issues in Hosana-Tabor. Plus, frankly, the HHS mandate seems flat-out offensive on its face to the First Amendment, which seems to be Judge Kane’s take, at least initially.

This is definitely a good start for those who have demanded respect for freedom of religious practice and expression. But, just as a reminder …

CLICK LINK FOR THE VIDEO

Technorati Tags: Catholic Colleges,Alliance Defending Freedom,ObamaCare court cases,ObamaCare,ObamaCare mandates,individual mandate,HHS,HHS mandates,ObamaCare surprises,EEOC,freedom of religion

Catholic Groups File Against Obama Contraception Mandate

A few facts:

Freedom of Religion is the cornerstone of America.  It is the main reason that most of the Founding Fathers and their contemporaries came to America.

Judeo-Christian values were purposely chosen by Thomas Jefferson as a basis for our system of law.

The words or phrase ‘separation of church and state’ is found nowhere in the U.S. Constitution, only in a letter between Thomas Jefferson and his cousin and the intent there was that God could and should be part of American laws and lives.  It is the government that was to be restricted from interfering with religion.  But thanks to the progressive focus to stop teaching history and to using case law instead of Constitutional law, most people don’t even understand the phrase that is being used against them.

Nowhere in the Constitution Does It Talk About Separation of Church and State and the concept was pick up from a letter between Jefferson and a cousin, but the context was changed. The concept was to protect the church from the government, not the government from the church. From:  Did You Know?  The Founding Fathers and God

You can be religious or not… but abortion is the murder of human beings.  If everyone before they had an abortion and everyone who stands back and remains neutral, especially those that believe in God, had to see the graphic photos below or see what their actions and inactions cause(d), abortions would stop.

President Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius support late term and partial birth abortions.  President Obama voted against legislation when he was a Senator allowing babies who survived abortions from being comforted or helped.

Let’s ask Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, In her book “Women and the New Race“, what the purpose of birth control is:(Page 229)

Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives. So, in compliance with nature’s working plan, we must permit womanhood its full development before we can expect of it efficient motherhood. If we are to make racial progress, this development of womanhood must precede motherhood in every individual woman. Then and then only can the mother cease to be an incubator and be a mother indeed. Then only can she transmit to her sons and daughters the qualities which make strong individuals and, collectively, a strong race.

Ok, now it makes sense. Birth control is the sacrament of eugenics.

And let us not forget who is behind ObamaCare, the contraception mandate and forcing taxpayers to pay for contraception & abortions, as well as Catholic and other religious hospitals and facilities to provide these products and services (against their beliefs and consciences)  … Here is Ultra Left Wing HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ Spin (Remember, Sibelius was an ardent supporter of murdered partial birth abortionist, Tiller and her extreme record on abortion has sadly been ignored (or hidden) by the media.)

Please support the Catholic Groups who are fighting for the First Amendment, for life and for America’s value system.

Catholic Groups File Against Obama Contraception Mandate

More than three dozen Catholic archdioceses and institutions filed suit in federal courts on Monday challenging the constitutionality of the so-called contraception mandate in President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul.

Claiming that their “fundamental rights hang in the balance,” a total of 43 plaintiffs filed a dozen separate suits against the requirement that employers’ health insurance plans cover birth control.
The mandate created a storm of controversy when it came to light as part of Obamacare. The Obama administration softened its position on the mandate several months ago.

"We have tried negotiation with the administration and legislation with the Congress — and will keep at it — and there's still no fix," said Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York. "Time is running out, and our precious ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to the courts now."

In a statement, the archdioces said: "The Archdiocese of New York has filed this suit because the federal government is requiring religious organizations, under penalty of law, to provide, pay for, and/or facilitate access to services that are contrary to their deeply held and constitutionally-protected religious beliefs."

Obama shifted responsibility for paying for reproductive procedures from religious institutions to health insurance companies. But employees of Catholic institutions will still be able to get contraceptive coverage from their health plans.

Just last month, Archbishop of Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl told Newsmax.TV, “This is the invasion of our religious freedom by a government mandate.”

A statement from the University of Notre Dame on Monday said the requirement would call on religious-affiliated groups to “facilitate” coverage “for services that violate the teachings of the Catholic Church."

“The federal mandate requires Notre Dame and similar religious organizations to provide in their insurance plans abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilization procedures” and “authorizes the government to determine which organizations are sufficiently ‘religious’ to warrant an exemption from the requirement.”

The Archdiocese of Washington also issued a statement reading in part: “Today, the Archdiocese of Washington filed a legal action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to challenge the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) unprecedented mandate dramatically redefining religious ministry and requiring religious organizations to provide coverage for drugs and procedures in direct conflict with their religious beliefs.

“Archbishop Carroll High School, Inc.; Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington, Inc.; the Consortium of Catholic Academies of the Archdiocese of Washington, Inc.; and The Catholic University of America are also plaintiffs in the same action.

“The archdiocese’s complaint maintains that the HHS mandate violates the First Amendment and federal law by forcing the plaintiffs, all Catholic organizations, to sacrifice their beliefs in order to be able to continue their mission of serving all people in need.
“Specifically, the suit stems from the mandate’s new definition of what constitutes a religious organization. Contrary to long-standing precedent, the law exempts from the mandate only those religious institutions that primarily serve and employ individuals of their own faith. Any other religious organizations, like Catholic schools, universities, hospitals and charities that serve all individuals regardless of their faith, do not themselves qualify as religious for purposes of the exemption.

“Consequently, the HHS mandate forces these organizations to act in direct violation of their Catholic beliefs.”

Cardinal Wuerl said in the statement that the mandate forces Catholic institutions “to provide coverage for drugs and procedures that we believe are morally wrong.”

© 2012 Newsmax

Step #1: Count how many of the 14 photos below show babies and how many of the photos show non-babies. Here is the first photo:

 

So, how many babies vs. Non-babies did you see above? Were they 5 babies vs. 9 non-babies? Were they 8 babies vs. 6 non-babies, 11 babies vs. 3 non-babies ... Or were all of them babies?

Abortions, including early abortions and grotesque partial birth abortions, as well as the cold-blooded born alive abortions, all of which President Obama supports, violate clear Bible verses against them.

"If abortion is murder, why do some Christians defend abortion?"
People - Christian or otherwise - who doubt abortion is murder and try to defend it usually do so by redefining murder exceptionally narrowly and/or by claiming that these Bible verses about abortion apply to babies whom they inexplicably declare to be the exceptions to the rule (and self- declaration doesn't necessarily prove a person to be Christian).

The question of whether or not abortion is murder typically leads to asking "when" is abortion murder, which in turn eventually leads to asking what is a baby and what isn't yet a baby, but merely a zygote, an embryo or a fetus.

You most likely have good sense of judgment and perception, so instead of letting other people try to draw conclusions for you, draw your own conclusion on whether or not abortion is murder by using this quick and simple test

Source: God Voter – h/t to George King

Someday, if America and mankind survive, the people of our time will be considered barbarians for allowing abortions to be performed!

 

Technorati Tags: abortion,pro-life,contraception mandate,ObamaCare,partial birth abortions,Catholics sue,Catholic hospitals,abortions

Franciscan University of Steubenville drops student health plan over HHS mandate

by Ben Johnson - Tue May 15, 2012 12:51 EST

STEUBENVILLE, OHIO, May 15, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Catholic religious leaders have warned that religious institutions may be forced to stop providing health care coverage if the Department of Health and Human Services does not change its mandate to provide contraceptives, including abortifacients, as part of their health care plans. Today, the first Catholic university has followed through by dropping its health care plan for students.

The Franciscan University of Steubenville announced it will not furnish students with health care coverage effective this fall, specifically citing the HHS mandate as the reason.

“The Obama Administration has mandated that all health insurance plans must cover ‘women’s health services’ including contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing medications as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA),” a statement posted on its website states. “Up to this time, Franciscan University has specifically excluded these services and products from its student health insurance policy, and we will not participate in a plan that requires us to violate the consistent teachings of the Catholic Church on the sacredness of human life.

“Due to these changes in regulation by the federal government, beginning with the 2012-13 school year, the University 1) will no longer require that all full-time undergraduate students carry health insurance, 2) will no longer offer a student health insurance plan, and 3) will no longer bill those not covered under a parent/guardian plan or personal plan for student health insurance.”

The rising premiums that attend a greater government role in health care were another reason for the cancellation. “Additionally, the PPACA increased the mandated maximum coverage amount for student policies to $100,000 for the 2012-13 school year, which would effectively double your premium cost for the policy in fall 2012, with the expectation of further increases in the future,” the statement said.

The college located in eastern Ohio, which is ranked one of the best private college values by Kiplinger, noted its current student health insurance plan will expire on August 15.

Click “like” if you want to end abortion!

On September 29 the university was one of 18 Catholic colleges to write a letter asking the Obama administration to rewrite the mandate, noting they were “being forced to choose between offering such coverage, paying a fine, or offering no coverage at all.”

An employee of the university, Tom Crowe, wrote his employer’s message was brisk and clear: “We. Will. Not. Comply. And our students are the first one who will feel the pinch.” He added that the university is not self-insuring and would not have been exempt from the mandate, adding such an exemption exists “on paper only.”
Catholics universities are not the only religious institutions poised to take drastic action as a result of the Obama administration’s abortifacient decree.

Chicago’s Francis Cardinal George has warned all Catholic hospitals will close in two years unless the religious exemption is expanded. Together, the nation’s Catholic hospitals account for 13 percent of the nation’s hospitals.

If these hospitals closed it would create a supply shortage, with the likely effect being government programs will be forced to pick up the slack.

South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy said at a House Oversight Hearing on February 16 that closing religious hospitals and schools, or forcing them to end health care coverage, “means government is gonna get bigger, because they’re going to have to fill the void…and maybe that’s what they wanted all along.”

HHS mandate could close 13 percent of the nation’s hospitals

Cardinal George: All Catholic hospitals will close in two years under HHS mandate

Technorati Tags: franciscan university of steubenville,hhs mandate,ObamaCare,religious freedom