Becerra Tells Congress He 'Never Sued Any Nuns' Despite California's Little Sisters Of The Poor Lawsuit.  Xavier Becerra, President Biden's nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, testified to Congress during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday that he has "never sued any nuns," despite California's lawsuit against the Little Sisters of the Poor.  "I have never sued any nuns," Becerra, who serves as California's attorney general, told the Senate Finance Committee.  "I have taken on the federal government, but I've never sued any affiliation of nuns, and my actions have always been directed at the federal agencies because they have been trying to do things contrary to the law in California," Becerra continued.  In 2017, Becerra filed a lawsuit on behalf of California against the Trump administration to reimpose the federal Obamacare mandate forcing health insurers to provide contraception coverage.  Former President Obama's HHS had imposed the contraception mandate on nearly all health insurers in 2011, including the Little Sisters of the Poor, who objected to it on religious grounds, opening themselves up to crippling government fines.

Obama lauds abortion decision from Supreme Court.  President Obama on Monday [6/27/2016] lauded the Supreme Court's decision to block Texas from enforcing one of the strictest abortion laws in the country.  "I am pleased to see the Supreme Court protect women's rights and health today," Obama said in a statement.  "These restrictions harm women's health and place an unconstitutional obstacle in the path of a woman's reproductive freedom."  The 5-3 ruling of the court was celebrated by Democrats and women's rights groups who argued the Texas law would make it virtually impossible for women in the Lone Star State to obtain an abortion.

When Obama speaks about ethics and morality here's what I would ask.  [Scroll down]  President Obama may be the most pro-abortion president America has ever had.  He has done little to reduce their number, which near 60 million in the U.S. since 1973.  By what standard is his position "moral"?  The president used to be against same-sex marriage, now he's for it.  Was he moral when he opposed it, or is he moral now that he supports it?  And what is his standard, because these positions are contradictory?

Little Sisters of the Poor Case Heads to Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this week in a group of cases challenging the Obamacare requirement that nonprofit employers offer their employees health care coverage that includes Plan B, ella, and other potentially life-ending drugs and devices, contraception, and sterilization.  The challengers in the consolidated cases, captioned Zubik v. Burwell, include the Little Sisters of the Poor; Priests for Life; East Texas Baptist University; Southern Nazarene University; Geneva College; the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.; and other religious charities.

Update:
The Little Sisters of the Poor will be missed.  They came to Richmond in 1874.  For 145 years, they have cared for our elderly poor.  They moved to their current location, St. Joseph's Home, in Henrico County in 1976.  They have continued to serve the Lord by showing love, dignity and grace to the old, the ill and the poor of every race, color and creed.  But now they are leaving us.  Their numbers have grown too small to continue their mission.  "It's not because we don't love them [the residents]," Sister Jeanne Mary told the RTD [Richmond Times-Dispatch].  "It's very sad to see such a mission which is so needed today is diminishing because there are very few to follow us."

Follow the law, or follow your faith: Obama's outrageous order.  Long before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — a/k/a ObamaCare — became law on March 23, 2010, pro-life advocates, myself included, recognized that it could lead to serious moral clashes between faith and law, particularly in the areas of abortion and contraception.  And we were right.  The law empowered the Department of Health and Human Services to compel employers to provide contraception and abortion-inducing drugs and devices to their employees through their health-insurance plans.  The case of Priests for Life vs. HHS, one of seven cases comprising Zubik vs. Burwell, now challenges that mandate in the Supreme Court, with oral arguments on March 23.

Obama Celebrates 'Women's History Month' With Pelosi and Planned Parenthood President.  At a White House reception Wednesday [3/16/2016] honoring Women's History Month, President Barack Obama paid tribute to Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Obama Touts Religious Liberty to Pope While Litigating to Force 15 Dioceses to Cooperate in Abortion.  "So we stand with you in defense of religious freedom and interfaith dialogue, knowing that people everywhere must be able to live out their faith free from fear and free from intimidation."  That is part of what President Barack Obama said — in touting his administration's commitment to religious liberty — when he greeted Pope Francis at the White House today [9/23/2015].  At the same time, according to a count maintained by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Obama's Justice Department is actively fighting 56 separate federal court cases aimed at forcing 140 religious ministries and institutions to cooperate with an Obamacare regulation that requires virtually all health care plans in the United States to cover contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs and devices.

Obama Justice Dept. backs Planned Parenthood against La. Gov. Jindal.  The Obama administration has sided with Planned Parenthood in its effort to keep its contract with Louisiana, arguing in a court filing that the state's decision to defund the organization may be in violation of the federal Medicaid Act.  The Justice Department filed a "statement of interest" late Monday in favor of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, arguing that "thus far, Louisiana has not proffered sufficient reasons to terminate Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast Inc. ("PPGC") from its Medicaid program."

Federal judge shields March for Life from Obamacare birth-control rules.  The March for Life, the pro-life group that holds a massive rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court every January, does not have to abide by Obamacare's birth control mandate, a federal judge ruled Monday, saying the organization deserves the same protections as churches.  In a strongly worded opinion, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said the Health and Human Services Department practiced "regulatory favoritism" by exempting houses of worship on grounds its employees are less likely to want the contraceptives, while rejecting pleas from March for Life, a secular group that says its employees don't want them, either.

Court Orders HHS to Exempt Pro-Lifers From Abortion Drug Mandate.  A federal judge granted March for Life an exemption from the Obamacare birth control mandate on Monday [8/31/2015], citing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as well as the Fifth Amendment.  March for Life sponsors an annual rally attended by tens of thousands of abortion opponents.  The organization and Alliance Defending Freedom sued the Department of Health and Human Services after the agency refused to exempt it from sponsoring insurance plans that featured contraception that can in some cases induce abortions after conception.  Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said the religious employer exemption should apply to the organization.

Obama Administration Threatens States Attempting to Defund Planned Parenthood.  The Obama administration is threatening states attempting to defund Planned Parenthood — those trying to stop the flow of their Medicaid funds to the abortion provider — with potential violation of federal law and, ultimately, the cutting off of Medicaid funds to those states.

Our Suddenly Silent President.  Then there is the silence of an ordinarily glib politician who suddenly has nothing to say about an event in the news.  As when the Hon. Barack Obama has no comment about those revealing videos featuring doctors with Planned Parenthood, who are caught talking about the fetal parts they're selling.  The rest of the country may be repelled by those tapes, but our president remains ... silent.  How strange.  Here is a president who's always had a lot of to say about a lot of things — usually very smoothly.  Whether the news of the day was the arrest of a black professor at his house near Harvard Square or the rash of black suspects shot down by white cops under suspicious circumstances, and the rioting that tends to follow.  Newspaper types could always count on this president for a quote about such matters.

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama has painted himself into a moral corner:  He claims to be a Christian, or at least his supporters make that claim for him, yet he cannot utter a word to condemn the gruesome techniques used by the abortion industry, because the Democratic Party and the abortionists are permanently co-dependent.

On Planned Parenthood, The White House Defends The Indefensible.  For an institution that might argue that it doesn't have a dog in this fight, the White House sure has stepped into the Planned Parenthood baby-parts selling scandal on the side of the flesh-peddlers.  Sounding a little surreal, White House press secretary Josh Earnest firmly stood up for Planned Parenthood on behalf of the Obama administration following the release of four undercover videos from the Center for Medical Progress showing the family-planning agency's leaders' callous disregard for human life and its grotesque efforts to reap commercial benefit for itself.

White House: Defunding Planned Parenthood Would 'Draw Presidential Veto'.  During the White House press briefing today, press secretary Josh Earnest suggested that any congressional budget rider that would defund Planned Parenthood would "draw a presidential veto" from President Obama.  Earnest has stopped short of issuing an official veto threat for any legislation defunding Planned Parenthood from the podium until now.

White House questions 'authenticity' of Planned Parenthood videos.  The White House dismissed the need for a federal investigation of Planned Parenthood Friday [7/31/2015], citing the opinions of three liberal newspapers as evidence that "impartial observers" are raising questions about the authenticity of a pro-life group's undercover videos on the sale of fetal tissue.  White House press secretary Josh Earnest also suggested that the pro-life group, the Center for Medical Progress, is an "extremist" organization.  And he said for the first time that President Obama would veto any effort by Congress to defund Planned Parenthood.

Judge blocks release of recordings by anti-abortion group.  A federal judge on Friday [7/31/2015] blocked the release of any recordings made at meetings of an abortion providers' association by an anti-abortion group that previously revealed secretly recorded videos of a Planned Parenthood leader.

Obama Appointee And Bundler Blocks More Video Releases By Group Behind Planned Parenthood Sting.  A federal judge late Friday [7/31/2015] granted a temporary restraining order against the release of recordings made at an annual meeting of abortion providers.  The injunction is against the Center for Medical Progress, the group that has unveiled Planned Parenthood's participation in the sale of organs harvested from aborted children.  Judge William H. Orrick, III, granted the injunction just hours after the order was requested by the National Abortion Federation.  Orrick was nominated to his position by hardline abortion supporter President Barack Obama.  He was also a major donor to and bundler for President Obama's presidential campaign.  He raised at least $200,000 for Obama and donated $30,800 to committees supporting him, according to Public Citizen.

White House assails move to defund Planned Parenthood.  President Obama opposes Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood in the wake of damaging videos exposing its fetal tissue donation program.  White House press secretary Josh Earnest stopped short of issuing a formal veto threat against the legislation, but he said "on balance, the president would not be supportive of such congressional action."  "This is a tactic we have seen used before," Earnest said of the GOP legislation.  "The president obviously does not support that ongoing effort."

Planned Parenthood President Made 39 Visits To Obama's White House Since 2009.  Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, head of the taxpayer-subsidized abortion giant currently facing a firestorm for allegedly selling body parts harvested from aborted babies, has made personal visits to the White House 39 times since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, White House records show.  According to online records on the White House website, Richards first visited the White House on Jan. 20, 2009 — the same day Obama first took office.  Since then, Richards has met with Obama alone at least three times and First Lady Michelle Obama at least twice.  She also met with [the] president and his wife together another four times.

White House Says Planned Parenthood Videos Are Fake, Cites Planned Parenthood.  The White House expressed its firm belief Thursday [7/30/2015] that recently-released videos attacking Planned Parenthood are "fraudulent."  Their source:  Planned Parenthood.  Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, was speaking with reporters when they raised the matter of the videos released by the Center for Medical Progress which appear to show Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of fetal organs for profit, a violation of federal law.  He claimed the videos were released in a "fraudulent way" with "not a lot of evidence" behind them.

White House threatens to veto bill blocking Planned Parenthood's funding.  The White House on Friday [7/31/2015] threatened a veto on any bill that defunds Planned Parenthood.  A budget measure that strips funding from the organization "is certainly something that would draw a presidential veto," press secretary Josh Earnest said.  "We have routinely opposed the inclusion of ideologically driven riders" in budget bills, Earnest added.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest Admits To 'Merely Repeating' Planned Parenthood Talking Points.  White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest admitted that the administration's response to the damning Planned Parenthood videos that have been released over the last few weeks has come from the organization's public comments, not from any investigation on the part of the White House.  Earnest was asked by Breitbart's Charlie Spiering where he was getting his information that the videos were fraudulent and distorted:  ["]I'm merely repeating what I've seen that they've [Planned Parenthood] said, and has been reported publicly about what they've said.["]

WH Backs Planned Parenthood And Their 'High Ethical Standard'.  White House Spokesperson Josh Earnest says he suspects somebody in the Obama Administration has seen a series of videos on Planned Parenthood's role in harvesting the organs of babies, but the administration is basing its position that the videos are edited unfairly on the comments of Planned Parenthood and "the high ethical standard they live up to."  During a White House press briefing Thursday [7/30/2015] Earnest was asked if anyone at the White House has watched the series of videos about Planned Parenthood.  "I suspect somebody has," Earnest replied.

Josh Earnest: 'Not a Lot of Evidence' Planned Parenthood Acted Unethically.  During Thursday's [7/30/2015] White House briefing, press secretary Josh Earnest said that because the Planned Parenthood sting videos were obtained "fraudulently," they couldn't be used to draw conclusions about the organization's ethical standards.  "Has the White House had any communication with Planned Parenthood about standardizing procedures for fetal tissue research?  Has the White House had any concerns about illegalities in this realm?  Have you had any sort of investigation, or are you considering one?" asked Fox News' Doug McKelway.  "Not that I'm aware of," Earnest responded.  "I think Planned Parenthood has been quite specific about the policies and procedures that they have in place, and I know they have described those policies and procedures as living up to the highest ethical standards."

Female middle school teacher forced to resign after telling students that President Obama is a 'Muslim baby killer'.  A veteran Georgia middle school teacher has been removed from the classroom after she gave students her highly critical personal opinion of President Barack Obama and some parents complained.  Nancy Perry will no longer teach students at Dublin Middle School and will retire at the end of the year, city schools superintendent Chuck Ledbetter announced on Tuesday [4/28/2015].

Obama Admits That Unborn Babies Have Feet That Kick.  In a speech yesterday about working families — while trying to explain why he thinks too many women face "being reprimanded or fired for taking too many bathroom breaks when you're pregnant" — President Obama let it slip that he knows unborn babies have feet that kick.  "Too many women face unnecessary difficulties on the job, like the difficulty of being paid less than a man for doing the same work," said Obama.  "That's a difficulty.  Or being reprimanded or fired for taking too many bathroom breaks when you're pregnant.  Clearly that's a man making that decision because they don't have five pounds of kicks pressing down on their bladder.

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama's entire job is to read a teleprompter.  President Valerie Jarrett takes care of the rest.  Mr. Obama probably didn't even know what he said, right after he said it.

Freedom of and from Religion.  President Obama tells religious people that he supports "the right to practice our faith how we choose."  But Obamacare functionaries ordered Christian groups to fund employees' purchase of birth control and the morning-after abortion pill.  Some religious people believe both pills are a form of murder.  Would their president force them to pay for what they consider murder?  You betcha.

Barack Obama and the 'Supergirls'.  First of all, Obama chatting and then giving a group hug to a bunch of kids — the abortions of whom he wouldn't have had a problem with six years earlier — is sort like Paul Bunyan being a guest of honor at an Arbor Day event.  Still, the giggly group had a few questions for the guy who would have applauded their pre-born demise.  Right after the child-loving/pro-abortion president told them he was "thrilled to have them," the girls asked him, "Have you ever had a brainstorming session yourself?"

[Image courtesy NBC News.]

HHS Will Require Caretakers of Unaccompanied Children to Provide Abortion-Inducing Drugs.  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is advancing federal regulations that require federally funded organization caring for illegal alien minors who are in the United States without their parents (Unaccompanied Children or UC) and who may have been sexually abused access to "emergency contraception" services.  "Emergency contraception" includes abortion-inducing drugs.  These care providers currently include Catholic and other faith-based organizations that oppose abortion, according to the Center for Family and Human Rights or C-FAM, a Catholic advocacy group.

Congressman: 'Obama is the Abortion President'.  Thursday marked 42 years since the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that declared abortion a constitutional right.  House Republicans were initially planning to pass the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which bans almost all abortions before the unborn child reaches the 20-week stage.  Those plans were scrapped by Republican leaders after Reps. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., and Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., withdrew as co-sponsors of the bill.  Their main concern was that an exception for rape victims required law enforcement documentation of a rape complaint around the time of conception.  Ellmers also worried the vote could turn off young women from the GOP in the opening weeks of the new Congress.  Enough GOP members were getting wobbly on the issue that leaders decided to pull the resolution from the floor after debate had started.

Obama marks Roe v. Wade with abortion rights defense.  President Obama said Thursday [1/22/2015] he is "deeply committed to protecting" abortion rights after House Republicans approved a bill prohibiting taxpayer funding for abortion.  Obama blasted the legislative efforts by Republicans, saying the bill would "intrude on women's reproductive freedom and access to healthcare and unnecessarily restrict the private insurance choices that consumers have today."

Obama's 'Religious Freedom Ambassador' Doesn't Support Religious Freedom.  The Hobby Lobby case turned on whether owners of closely held corporations can object to government forcing them provide four drugs deemed to cause abortions, against their religious beliefs.  [Rabbi David Nathan] Sapperstein believes that the government does have that right and can force family business owners to have to choose between their livelihoods and their faith.

Obama and the Culture of Death.  Obama loves the cessation of life.  He is the most pro-abortion president to date.  He voted not once, not twice, but three times not to save babies who survived attempts to abort them.  Not surprisingly, he lied about his voting record on this issue.

Pro-Abortion President Proclaims 'Every Child Should Have Every Chance in Life'.  President Barack Obama — the first sitting president to address Planned Parenthood Federation of America — issued a proclamation on Monday marking National Child Abuse Prevention Month.  "In the United States of America, every child should have every chance in life, every chance at happiness, and every chance at success," Obama said in the proclamation.  In March 2003, then-Illinois' State Senator Obama chaired the committee that considered the Born-Alive Infants Protection bill (SB 1082), which he voted to kill.  According to the National Right to Life Committee, the state legislation that Obama voted against is almost identical to the federal legislation that protects children who survive an abortion that became law in 2002.

Obama at Prayer Breakfast: 'Killing the Innocent' Is 'Ultimate Betrayal of God's Will'.  At the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. on Thursday [2/6/2014], President Barack Obama said that "killing the innocent" is the "ultimate betrayal of God's will."  But the president was talking about terrorism, not abortionv

War on Contraception? No, an Attack on Religion.  What's actually new here is the Obama administration's 2012 regulation requiring almost all employers to cover contraception, sterilization and drugs that may cause abortion.  It issued that regulation under authority given in the Obamacare legislation.  The regulation runs afoul of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a Clinton-era law.  That act says that the government may impose a substantial burden on the exercise of religious belief only if it's the least restrictive way to advance a compelling governmental interest.  The act further says that no later law should be read to trump this protection unless it explicitly says it's doing that.  The Affordable Care Act has no such language.

Abortion in the Obamacare Exchanges.  December 1 has come and gone with fresh assurances from the Obama administration that the federal exchange website, HealthCare.gov, will work for approximately 80 percent of its visitors.  A review of the website, and the state of the health-care plans offered via the state exchanges, suggests that the problem of absent or incomplete information regarding plans that exclude coverage of elective abortions and abortion-inducing drugs and devices is far from fixed.

Obama's Racial Eugenics Award?  Margaret Sanger longed for a more enlightened time when birth control would be (as she put it) "part of the regular welfare service of the government." [...] Sanger could not have known it, but she was speaking of Barack Obama's America, where birth control is being thrust upon us as a basic "human right" and form of "health care" with no obstacles in its way.  In fact, it's even easier than Sanger could have imagined:  Not only do contemporary progressives want no obstacles, but Obama wants all Americans to forcibly pay for birth control.  He is even forcing the religious to do so via his HHS mandate.  He and his progressive cohorts are rolling right over any "legal restrictions" or "religious condemnation."  If you as a religious believer disagree, they will see you in court.  You will be penalized and demonized.  Under Obama, we have arrived at Sanger's new world, where birth control is a regular service of the federal government.

Gloria Steinem Gets Medal of Freedom for Abortion Advocacy.  How fitting that abortion zealot and self-proclaimed Marxist Gloria Steinem received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Wednesday [11/20/2013] from Barack Hussein Obama.  The male-bashing, anti-family, anti-American Steinem beamed as the guy who voted three times against a partial-birth abortion ban while in the Illinois state Senate placed the medal around her neck.  What exactly is the meritorious contribution Steinem has made to our national interests that would warrant such an honor?

Forcing Christians to Eat Pork.  [Scroll down]  This brings us to a similar situation in our time:  King Obama's contraception mandate.  The issue was ginned up during the 2012 campaign to rally Democrat support, but that battle has been won and is water under the bridge.  Nonetheless and quite bizarrely, Obama insists on trying to force religious employers to fund contraception for their employees, despite the fact that offering such individuals an exemption would cost him nothing politically and would accord with the American tradition of respecting deeply held religious convictions.

Can Christians Live Freely in Obama's America?  Last Friday, the Obama administration finalized a regulation that orders Americans to buy health insurance policies that cover — without fees or co-pay — sterilizations, artificial contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs. [...] The "accommodation" given to religious nonprofits — such as Catholic hospitals, universities and charities — in fact orders such organizations, if they insure their employees, to patronize insurers or third-party administrators (for self-insurance plans) who are themselves willing to pay for abortion-inducing drugs for the nonprofit's employees and their dependents.

Religious coalition rejects Obama contraceptive compromise.  A diverse group of religious leaders is pressing the Obama administration to exempt any American who objects to the contraception mandate in the federal health care law.  Catholics, Mormons, Southern Baptists and dozens more issued an "Open Letter to all Americans" on Tuesday [7/2/2013] that decries the birth control coverage requirement as a departure from the country's founding principles of religious freedom.

Obama Again Proves His Loyal Support for Abortion and Infanticide.  As the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act moves to the floor of the House for a vote, President Obama is already taking cues from feminist groups to veto the legislation and is again letting his true pro-abortion, pro-infanticide stances show.

Court Kills Obamacare Lawsuit Against Bible Publisher.  This marks the first wholesale legal loss for the Obama administration in its quest to force religious Americans to pay for services that violate their religious precepts.

Obama: 'All of Us Have the Freedom to Pray and Exercise Our Faiths Openly'.  "All of us have the freedom to pray and exercise our faiths openly," Pres. Obama declared while proclaiming today a National Day of Prayer — just as news that the Pentagon may court martial soldiers who share their faith is making headlines.  In declaring May 2, 2013 a National Day of Prayer, Obama affirmed that "all of us" have the legal right to "practice our faith as we see fit" — even "in fellowship". [...] Meanwhile, the Obama administration is mired in a lawsuit charging its health care law ("Obamacare") is violating Americans' right to religious freedom.

When He Talks Abortion, President Obama Pretends to Be a Libertarian.  It's no secret that Obama supports a woman's right to choose, in consultation with her doctor, whether getting an abortion is appropriate.  Contrary to his rhetoric, however, Obama doesn't believe that American women should alone be empowered to decide what's best for their health as a general matter.  However emphatically he proclaims the opposite, Obama verily believes that politicians like him ought to interfere in myriad decisions about personal medical care.  It is illegitimate for him to invoke the language of liberty to score points on this set of issues.

Videos fuel surging debate on abortion.  New undercover videos of abortion professionals explaining late-term abortions, coupled with states passing strict abortion laws and a horror-show abortion criminal case, are keeping abortion at the top of the news — an unexpected development after the nation re-elected its most vocal pro-choice president.

How Abortion Has Changed America.  Let's be clear that pro-aborts and pro-lifers differ on far more than technicalities about when life begins.  They differ about what life is.  In the state of Pennsylvania, where Gosnell was doing his dirty business, abortion is legal until the developing child is 24 weeks — 6 months — old.  Among Gosnell's many transgressions was performing abortions after 24 weeks.  But Planned Parenthood, and their guest speaker, our president, oppose that 24-week limit.  They believe abortion should be legal until the child is born.

Barack Obama's misplaced, blind faith in abortion doctors.  President Obama is well known to have voted against the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA) four times between 2001 and 2003, when he was an Illinois state senator.  One of the two companion bills to BAIPA, which Obama also opposed, required that abortionists provide "reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice" to abortion survivors, and further, that abortionists try to anticipate botches and plan to have a second physician present if there was a "reasonable likelihood" that the abortion would result "in a live born child."  Obama was the sole Illinois state senator to speak against Senate Bill 1663 on the Illinois Senate floor on April 4, 2002.

Obamacare will eventually invade every private transaction, and the nanny state will have its way.
Food co-op ObamaCare fight.  Members of Brooklyn's Greene Hill Food Co-op want to ban Eden Foods' soy milk because its CEO is suing the Obama administration over a mandate forcing companies to cover employee-birth control.

President Obama's Symbiotic Relationship With the Abortion Industry.  Obama declined to comment on Gosnell for the same reason the liberal media have consciously blacked out the story.  When Obama was asked, he didn't just beg off because "it's an active trial"; he offered up the obligatory disingenuous liberal talking point:  "I think President Clinton said it pretty well when he said abortion should be safe, legal and rare."  This formulation has always bothered me because it is fundamentally dishonest — and particularly so in Obama's case.  If an unborn baby is not a human life — an evil sophistry that has been responsible for millions of murders in this nation — then why in the world would it be important to make it rare?

Eden Foods tries to opt out of Obamacare birth-control coverage.  Last week, Salon.com reported that Eden Foods — which makes Edensoy soy milk and other "pure and purifying foods" — had filed a lawsuit over an "Obamacare" provision requiring employers to offer workers insurance that includes birth control.

'Pro-Choice' Only Goes so Far.  [Scroll down]  Planned Parenthood, too, is yet another progressive outlet that waxes on about the virtues of "choice," but their commitment to choice magically disappears when it's convenient to do so.  After the Department of Health and Human Services decided to force employers to provide birth control to their employees regardless of religious objections, Planned Parenthood cheered:  "This policy makes it clear that your boss does not get to decide whether you can have birth control."  So a religious employer's beliefs and decisions, it seems, are second-rate when it comes to things Planned Parenthood likes.

Obama and Infanticide.  During Obama's presidential campaign, pro-lifers argued that so extreme was his devotion to abortion that he was willing to support a right to infanticide.  This charge is absolutely true.  He believed that certain infants — those at an early stage of development — should not have legal protection, and he believed it because he thought it would undermine the right to abortion.

St. Joseph company receives injunction from provisions in Care Act.  Greg Hall is safe from government fines — for now.  The Catholic deacon who owns American Manufacturing Company in St. Joseph has received a preliminary injunction protecting him from provisions in the Affordable Care Act.  The injunction was issued Tuesday in the 8th Circuit of the federal district courts by U.S. District Court Judge John R. Tunheim.  In short, he won't have to start providing insurance that covers contraception, sterilization or abortifacient drugs to his employees.

Dominos Pizza Founder Wins Court Order Stopping HHS Abortion Mandate.  Though the Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate forcing employers to violate their conscience by providing birth control and pills that cause abortions has been temporarily stopped today [3/14/2013] in a Federal District Court, there is no question the Obama Administration will appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court.  This is the fight of our time.  Either this country will stand for religious freedom, or it won't.

Feds can't force Domino's founder to offer contraceptives, judge says.  A judge on Thursday [3/14/2013] blocked the federal government from requiring the founder of Domino's Pizza to provide mandatory contraception coverage to his employees under the health care law.

Barack Obama: The Man Behind the Mask.  [Scroll down]  Another personality trait common to despots is a disregard for life and an unrelenting willingness to use and discard people.  While a member of the Illinois Senate, Barack Obama was not only in favor of unfettered abortion rights, he introduced a bill that would make legal the murder of newly born children that miraculously survived an abortion.

Abortion clinic promoted by Obama campaign profiled in Socialist Party magazine.  A feminist abortion clinic that hosted a "Women for Obama" event where Obama volunteers helped with groundskeeping in a show of support for reproductive rights is profiled in the current issue of The Socialist, the official publication of the Socialist Party USA, in which a clinic official urges feminist socialists to "influence policy" and quotes a famous socialist writer.

Boehner Plans to Permit and Fund Obama's Attack on Religious Freedom.  When the Obama administration finalized its regulation requiring health care plans to provide cost-free coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs, House Speaker John Boehner — as this column noted last year — was one of those who correctly argued that the regulation was an attack on religious freedom and that Congress must not let it stand.  On Wednesday [3/6/2013], in craven contradiction to that position, Boehner plans to [...]

The Tyranny of ObamaCare Continues to Unfold .  According to a lawyer for the Obama Regime, the federal government has the authority to compel you to commit the most appalling crimes against your conscience — even to murder children — regardless of how grievously this would betray your religious beliefs.

DOJ to Federal Judge: We Can Force Your Wife to Violate Her Religion.  While presenting an oral argument in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last fall, a lawyer for the U.S. Justice Department told a federal judge that the Obama administration believed it could force the judge's own wife — a physician — to act against her religious faith in the conduct of her medical practice.  The assertion came in the case of Tyndale House Publishers v. Sebelius, a challenge to the Obama administration's regulation requiring health-care plans to cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.

Obama Defiles Reagan Stagecraft.  [Scroll down]  President Obama lost all credibility when he decided to use children as props.  Again, despite the melodrama, this man does not care one iota about child safety.  Barack Obama believes in partial birth abortion and gladly provides unlimited government funding to terminate as many unborn children as Planned Parenthood can possibly snuff out.  Yet, while unveiling his executive actions the president said, "This is our first task as a society, keeping our children safe.  This is how we will be judged."

The Canary in the Culture.  It may seem that asking Catholics and others who believe that abortion-inducing chemicals are tools of murder and as such something they cannot directly pay for is not that big of a deal.  That's precisely why the HHS mandate is the canary.  It's true that the HHS mandate is not on the same level as China's forced abortion policy.  But the core philosophical assumption that powers the HHS mandate, even in its latest revision, would allow the government to institute a forced abortion policy or reinstitute slavery.

New Obama rule would spare churches but not believers.  On the one hand, the new rule improves on the old in that it applies to more employers than just a few monastic orders.  It would exempt many nonprofit religious employers — such as dioceses, charities and universities — that have moral objections to the practice of sterilizing human beings and to the use of contraceptive and abortifacient drugs to frustrate one of the chief purposes of marriage, which they hold dear as a sacrament.  Even so, there are still legitimate doubts about whether the revised mandate exempts these institutions in a meaningful way, or whether it merely obscures in several layers of bureaucracy exactly who is paying for what.

Obamacare Alchemy.  The Obama administration has found the policy equivalent of alchemy.  Employees of religious organizations will receive contraception coverage.  And neither the individuals nor the groups will have to pay for it.  It's magic.

Obama Administration: We Will Still Force Christians to Act Against Their Faith.  The Department of Health and Human Services on Friday [2/1/2013] set the stage for a massive showdown between the federal government of the United States and American Christians who believe the government has no right to force them to act against their faith by mandating that they buy, provide or facilitate health-care coverage that includes sterilizations, contraception, or abortion-inducing drugs.

Obama Proclaims Support for Religious Freedom — Amid HHS Mandate Litigation.  In the midst of 44 lawsuits challenging the Obama administration's mandate that every employer cover the cost of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception, President Barack Obama issued a religious freedom proclamation on Wednesday.  The proclamation begins by saying, "Foremost among the rights Americans hold sacred is the freedom to worship as we choose."  But it does not talk about the free practice of religion, which plaintiffs are fighting to defend in litigation across the country.

Obama the Children Savior, Champion of Partial Birth Abortion.  The White House spokesman Jay Carney-identified "little kids", filling in as props at Barack Hussein Obama's gun proposal presser today, have more respect for human life than the president does.  Young as they are, those with baby brothers and sisters at home, would be absolutely traumatized to know that as a senator Obama championed partial birth abortion, the brutal slaughter of babies who make it through abortion.

Judge says Mennonite owners must abide by health care law.  A judge on Friday [1/11/2013] rejected claims by the Mennonite owners of a Lancaster County furniture maker that new federal health-care mandates violate their free-speech and religion rights by making them pay for employees' contraceptive services.

The Regulatory Landscape in America — A Morass Of Red Tape.  The Department of Health and Human Services on February 15 finalized its mandate that all health insurance plans include coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization procedures, and contraceptives.  To date, 42 cases with more than 110 plaintiffs are challenging this restriction on religious liberty.

Fred Barnes Almost Figures Out Who Barack Obama Really Is.  They're entirely law-abiding citizens who have built businesses through hard work, offering great service and quality merchandise that people want to buy.  Their crime is that they do not believe they should be forced to pay for something that violates their religious beliefs, but which is otherwise widely available if their employees want to buy those things for themselves.  That's their crime.  The Obama government is trying to put them under its jackboot.

Obama Administration: We Can and Will Force Christians to Act Against Their Faith.  Because federal judges — including Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor — have refused to grant an injunction protecting the owners of Hobby Lobby from being forced to act against their Christian faith, those owners will be subject to federal fines of up to $1.3 million per day starting Tuesday [1/1/2013] for refusing to include abortion-inducing drugs in their employee health plan.

Judge halts contraceptive mandate for Mich. firm.  U.S. District Judge Lawrence Zatkoff ruled Sunday [12/30/2012] in favor of Tom Monaghan and his Domino's Farms Corp., near Ann Arbor.  Monaghan, a devout Roman Catholic, says contraception isn't health care but a "gravely immoral" practice.

Domino's founder sues feds over health care law.  The founder of Domino's Pizza is suing the federal government over mandatory contraception coverage in the health care law.

Appeals Court Oral Arguments Signal Trouble for Obamacare HHS Mandate.  After repeated assurances that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would not mandate abortion or people of faith violating their religious beliefs, the Obama administration issued a mandate requiring both, when Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a rule from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) saying that a vague provision in the ACA requiring employers provide "preventive care" means that employer healthcare policies must cover birth control, abortion-related, and sterilization services.

"...I've got two daughters.  9 years old and 6 years old.  I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals.  But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."

— Senator Barack Obama,    
March 29, 2008.    

Catholic Bishop: Obama Is 'Proponent' of What is Shameful and Criminal in the Eyes of Almighty God'.  Nicholas DiMarzio, the Catholic bishop of the diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y., says that in his zealous support for abortion, President Barack Obama has used his position not to help mothers and children in difficult circumstances but instead has been an advocate for that which "is shameful and criminal in the eyes of Almighty God."

Update:
Supreme Court Revives Notre Dame's Appeal In Contraception Case.  Last February, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago backed a lower court's ruling that dismissed Notre Dame's request for an injunction against the rule.  But on Monday [3/9/2015], the Supreme Court said it's sending the case back to the 7th Circuit, "for further consideration in light of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc." — last summer's Supreme Court ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby.  The Roman Catholic school had sued the Obama administration over the requirement, saying a compromise that was meant to put insurance companies instead of religious institutions in charge of contraception coverage was not acceptable.

Re-elected, Obama takes aim at religious liberty.  As an old saw has it, "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose."  The Obama administration says your right to live as a Christian ends if you go into business.  Democrats are crowing about a second Obama term, and the Left's culture-war troops are emboldened by their trouncing of social conservatives.  Religious conservatives need to plant their spears and brace for the coming federal assault on religious liberty.

Catholic bishops pledge defiance on HHS mandate.  If the Obama administration hoped that the election results and the narrow split in Barack Obama's favor among Catholic voters would force the US Conference of Catholic Bishops into retreat on the HHS contraception mandate, the USCCB's unity yesterday [11/13/2012] had to be a bit disappointing.

Conference of Catholic Bishops on HHS Mandate: We Will 'Not Obey What We Consider to Be Immoral'.  Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, says the Roman Catholic Church will continue to resist the Obama administration requirement that religiously affiliated hospitals, charities and colleges provide health insurance covering sterilization, contraception and abortifacients.

Disobey The Mandate.  The requirement of the Health & Human Services mandate to force employers to provide insurance coverage for birth control and abortions — without question — violates the conscience and deeply held beliefs of committed Christians and pro-life voters.  The administration, assuming they have a "mandate," believe now is the time to enforce THE mandate.  Never mind that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops felt so assaulted by the requirement that they hauled the Obama administration into court.  Never mind that dozens of additional faith-based institutions have joined the cause.  Never mind that President Obama's most loyal base — African American church goers — violently disagree with the plank, the administration presses ahead.

White House Thanksgiving ceremony:
Barack Obama's open mockery of the Sign of the Cross.  Obama, who is left-handed, made the sign of the cross with his left hand, which out of respect for the centuries-long Christian practice, no one ever does. [...] Obama departed from the usual "presidential pardon" granting the turkey a "special dispensation" in words as he twice made his left-handed Sign of the Cross.  There were lots of giggles from the two Obama daughters and lots of gobbling from the turkey recorded during the ceremony now on YouTube.

Dividing Catholics from their church.  "Catholicism teaches that it is a sin to use, provide, or otherwise support contraception."  These words are not from the Catholic Catechism or a sermon by a Catholic bishop.  They are excerpted from the preliminary injunction U.S. District Judge Robert H. Cleland issued last month. [...] The judge stated the Catholic teaching on contraception as an undisputed fact of the case Weingartz v. Sebelius.  The Obama administration is not arguing that the Catholic Church does not actually teach this, but rather that the administration has the authority to tell Americans they can no longer practice Catholicism.

New York Judge Slaps Down Obama Justice Department.  The Obama administration has been consistently arguing, since announcing a year's grace period for some religious organizations to figure out how to violate their consciences and obey the HHS mandate, that the controversy over religious freedom and the mandate is over and the Catholics are happy.  That, as has been pointed out here before, ignores all the lawsuits pending.  And that they are not just from Catholics.

Obamacare could drive Little Sisters of the Poor out of the US.  A religious order of nuns is concerned about its future presence in the United States because of Obamacare's impact on its charitable operations.  The Little Sisters of the Poor told The Daily Caller that it may not qualify for a long-term exemption from Obamacare's healthcare mandate.  The law requires the order to provide government-approved health insurance to its 300 sisters who tend to the elderly in 30 U.S. cities.

Can Little Sisters Be Saved From ObamaCare?  A federal appeals court has reinstated lawsuits from two religious colleges against the HHS contraception mandate, saying promises to rework it aren't enough.  Can a group of nuns helping the poor be protected?

Bishops won't be Obama's pawn.  Good for the Catholic bishops.  About a week ago, with much fanfare, Team Obama announced a "compromise" to the contraceptive mandate it aims to impose on employers.  Thursday [2/7/2013], the bishops said they've seen the offer and it doesn't amount to much:  The administration's highly restrictive view of what qualifies as a religious ministry still puts Catholic universities, charities and hospitals at risk.

Bishops to Administration: You Can't Force Lay Catholics to Act Against Faith.  Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement on Thursday [2/7/2013] signaling to the Obama Administration that the bishops will not make a separate deal to exempt Catholic institutions from an Obamacare mandate that requires health-care plans to cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs that leaves lay Catholic business owners and individual employees still subject to the mandate.

Catholic Bishops To Obama — See Ya In Court.  Catholic bishops reject the Obamacare iteration on forced contraceptive coverage.

America's new government-imposed religion.  Catholic adoption agencies have been forced to close their doors in Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., because their religious beliefs about marriage were deemed unacceptable by their jurisdictions.  A graduate student in Michigan was expelled from a counseling program because her religious beliefs about marriage were deemed unacceptable by school officials.  Christian pharmacists in Illinois were told to find other professions because their religious beliefs regarding when life begins were deemed unacceptable by the state.

Pro-Abort Biden on Election of Pope: 'Catholic Church Plays an Essential Role in My Life'.  After the election of Pope Francis I on Wednesday [3/13/2013], Vice President Joe Biden issued a statement talking about the importance of Catholicism to him personally and how much he is looking forward to working with the pope.  As vice president, Biden has advanced causes directly contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church — favoring, for example, the legalized killing of children in the womb and legalized same-sex marriage.

Outsourcing the Poor.  [Scroll down]  Meanwhile, secular liberals, opinion leaders, and the news media want to remove the Catholic Church as a moral obstacle to abortion, homosexual marriage, and other liberal goals.  They embrace Islam, although Muslims also oppose abortion, homosexuality and homosexual marriage.  They oppose the Catholic Church because Catholics oppose abortion, homosexuality, and homosexual marriage.  Thinking things through has never been a liberal strength.

Catholic Bishops to GOP House: Repeal Obamacare Reg in CR or Other 'Must-Pass' Bill.  The Catholic bishops of the United States are asking the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to do something concrete and effective — rather than merely symbolic — to repeal a regulation the administration has issued under Obamacare that will force Catholics and other Christians to act against their faith in purchasing or providing health-care plans that cover sterilizations, contraceptives, and abortion-inducing drugs.

Somewhat related:
State Dept. 'Would Take Very Seriously' Request to Monitor Papal Elections.  The State Department said on Friday [3/15/2013] that the U.S. government "would take very seriously" a request from the Organization for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) that it monitor the papal election in the Vatican.  Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said she did some "digging" on this issue following Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee's question on Thursday regarding whether the Obama administration believed that the election of Pope Francis had met international standards.

An Extreme Position on Extremism.  The Defense Department came under fire Thursday [4/4/2013] for a U.S. Army Reserve presentation that classified Catholics and Evangelical Protestants as "extremist" religious groups alongside al Qaeda and the Ku Klux Klan.  The presentation detailed a number of extremist threats within the U.S. military, including white supremacist groups, street gangs, and religious sects.

Army Labeled Evangelicals as Religious Extremists.  A U.S. Army training instructor listed Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of religious extremism along with Al Qaeda and Hamas during a briefing with an Army Reserve unit based in Pennsylvania, Fox News has learned.  "We find this offensive to have Evangelical Christians and the Catholic Church to be listed among known terrorist groups," said Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty.  "It is dishonorable for any U.S. military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterization."

White House fights Catholic Church subpoena on birth control.  The Obama administration has gone to court to try to block a subpoena from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York seeking White House documents about the government's requirement of insurance coverage for birth control.

Don't Fire Until You See The Whites of Their Cassocks.  When I first saw the headline, I assumed it must all be a little less obviously bone-crushingly stupid or at any rate more nuanced once you got into the story.  But I invite you to look at the accompanying poster for the Equal Opportunity training brief issued by the Army Reserve in Pennsylvania.  It lists "extremist" groups, starting with "Evangelical Christianity" at Number One, "Al Quaeda" (misspelled under any Roman rendering of Arabic) at Number Five, "Hamas" at Six, and "Catholicism" rounding out the Top Ten.

Somewhat related:
Thou Shalt Not be Catholic.  It was prescience, not paranoia, that prompted some social commentators to predict that gay activism would become the principle threat to religious freedoms in America.  A recent incident at George Washington University provides the latest confirmation.  In 2010, the University of Illinois fired a Catholic professor who taught courses on Catholicism in the school's religion department after a student accused him of hate speech because the professor affirmed what the Catholic Church taught about homosexual practice.

German home-schooling family fights to stay in US.  While the White House and many lawmakers push to grant legal status to immigrants who crossed the border illegally, the Romeike family thought they followed the rules — but now face deportation.  They are devout Catholics who emigrated from Germany in 2008 to home school their six children in Tennessee.  As Uwe Romeike told Fox News, it is illegal to do that in Germany.

The Editor says...
The government allows millions of unwelcome people to sneak across the Mexican border, then rewards them with food stamps.  The Romeike family came to America seeking freedom, and Barack H. Obama and his evil minions want to throw them back over the fence.  This is just one more anti-Catholic decision Obama has made, and there will be many more.

Noted Catholic Scholar Claims IRS Audit Triggered by Criticism of Obama.  Anne Hendershott, an eloquent opponent of the Obama administration, states that she has reason to believe she was targeted by the IRS for an audit following publications that were critical of President Obama and Catholics who supported him.

More about the use of the IRS as a weapon.

Obama remarks about Catholic schools spark new fight with church.  President Obama's remarks on Catholic schools during his trip to Northern Ireland this week have sparked an unexpected uproar, with critics accusing him of diminishing religious education.  The backlash, which has grown steadily since Mr. Obama made the comments Monday, once again has put the commander in chief at odds with the Roman Catholic Church, which is fighting a provision in the president's health care law that requires religious institutions to provide free birth control for their employees.

Catholics, Southern Baptists unite against Obamacare contraception mandate.  America's Catholic bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention joined forces on Friday [6/21/2013], calling on Congress to pass bills that would exempt companies and nonprofits from the contraception insurance coverage mandate in President Obama's health care law.

Obama Divides, Not Catholic Education.  According to the President of the United States of America — a nation which was founded on the principle of religious liberty — religious schools encourage division, fear, and resentment. [...] As is often the case, Obama begins his process of undermining faith, the Constitution — whatever — by speaking to young people, hoping to divide them from those who will hand down the traditions and the culture to them.  In truth, it is Obama — not faith or the Church — who is the Great Divider, the promoter of class warfare, envy, racism, etc.

Obama Catholic schools flap: Did he really call for end of religious schools?  Some critics say that remarks President Obama made on a visit to Northern Ireland this week amount to an assault on schools run by religious sects.  But Obama also has defenders on this one — including some within the Roman Catholic Church.

Feds to 'redesign' public schools as Obama attacks Catholic education.  To all conservative Common Core supporters who claim the initiative is state-led, please pay attention.  And to all liberals who support parochial schools, you might want to pay attention, too.  On June 7, the federal Department of Education announced its plan to "redesign" all government high schools in America.

Obama's Final Word: Catholics Must Buy/Provide Coverage for Abortion Drugs.  The Department of Health and Human Services today released the final text of the final adjustments to the Obamacare regulation that requires virtually all health-care plans to provide cost-free coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.  Catholics and Evangelical Christians have objected to the regulation, arguing that it violates their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.  The Catholic Church teaches that sterilization, contraception and abortion are all intrinsically immoral.  Evangelical Christians believe that abortion takes an innocent human life and is thus wrong.

Obamacare Regulation Effectively Bars Catholics from Owning Health Insurance Companies.  The final version of Obamacare's "preventive services" regulation that the Department of Health and Human Services published on Friday discriminates against faithful members of the Roman Catholic Church by effectively barring them from owning and operating health-insurance companies.

Rhode Island Bishop Switches Voter Registration from Dem to GOP.  After more than 40 years as a Democrat, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence told a group of students that he has changed his party affiliation in light of the state and national Democratic party's recent policies.  "I just said I can't be associated structurally with that group, in terms of abortion and NARAL and Planned Parenthood and [the] same-sex-marriage agenda and cultural destruction I saw going on," Bishop Thomas Tobin said at a state Young Republicans meeting on Tuesday night [8/13/2013].  "I just couldn't do it anymore."

The President's Disdain for His Oath.  Straying from the Constitution will lead only to national decline.  Have we begun that decline already?  Not yet.  But today, we must defend the Constitution from all-out attacks by courts, legislators and regulators.  Just ask Holy Cross Hospital, which will be forced by Obamacare to hire an insurer that will provide tubal litigation and abortifacients to their employees, in clear violation of their constitutionally protected freedom of religion.

ObamaCare's Mandate To Shut Down Little Sisters Of The Poor.  A group of nuns dedicated to caring for the elderly poor is suing to prevent an uncaring administration from shutting down their compassionate order over their refusal to obey the contraception mandate.  There is no clearer or sadder example of the Obama administration's war on the First Amendment's guarantee of religious liberty than the demand by the Department of Health and Human Services to violate their religious consciences or pay heavy fines.

Obama Prohibits Practice of Catholicism in U.S.  Beginning now, with the opening of government-run health-insurance exchanges, President Barack Obama will be prohibiting American Catholics from practicing their faith in the way they live their daily lives.  This is an act of tyranny.  Yet, many Americans in positions of public authority and influence have greeted it with silence and inaction.  I do not use the word tyranny lightly here.  Obama is abusing his power as president to unilaterally impose on Catholics — and millions of other Americans who share the Catholic moral view on certain matters — a regulation that forces them to act against their moral convictions and the teachings of their faith.

Some Catholic Priests Risk Arrest If They Offer Mass on Military Bases During Shutdown.  Some Catholic priests under contract or GS (general schedule) to the military are not allowed to offer the Catholic sacraments — including saying Mass, consecrating marriages, or performing baptisms — on military property during the government shutdown, and if they do, even on a volunteer basis, they risk being arrested, according to the general counsel for the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA.  About 25% of the U.S. military is Catholic, some 275,000 service members, but there are only 234 active-duty priests.

In Obama's America Priests Can Be Arrested for Saying Mass.  The general counsel of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, an independent archdiocese established by Pope John Paul II in 1985, has advised that if priests under government contract offer Mass or perform weddings, baptisms and other religious functions on military bases during the government shutdown, they could be arrested.  They aren't even allowed to openly practice their religion.  They can't even volunteer.

Ignoring the Constitution.  There are only 234 active-duty commissioned military chaplains to care for 275,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who profess the Catholic faith.  It's not nearly enough, so the military services employ priests on contract to perform Sunday services, weddings and baptisms on base.  No federal funds are used, and these priests would gladly perform these duties voluntarily during the government shutdown, but they are prohibited from doing so.

Military chapel closed in Georgia: 'Shutdown: No Catholic service till further notice'.  Father Ray Leonard, a Catholic priest who serves a Georgia military base, was not allowed to celebrate mass at the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay this weekend.  "Shutdown: No Catholic service till further notice," a sign posted on the chapel said.

Obama Administration Prohibits Kennedy Family from Practicing Catholicism.  A year ago, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a "preventive services" regulation under Obamacare.  This regulation requires almost all health care plans to cover, without fees or co-pay, sterilizations, artificial contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.  The U.S. Catholic bishops unanimously condemned this regulation as a "violation of personal civil rights" and an "illegal and unjust mandate."  Many Catholic bishops declared: "We cannot — we will not — obey this unjust law."

Obama To Catholic Troops During Shutdown: No Mass!  Federal closure threatens to bar priests not on active duty from conducting services on military installations or from ministering on base, and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so. [...] Catholic soldiers killed in battle might not even have a priest available to give the last rites of their church as even the religious freedoms they fought to protect are sacrificed by a petulant president who has the power to set priorities with the stroke of an executive order pen but refuses to do so.

Catholic priest sues over access denial at military base because of shutdown.  Father Ray Leonard filed a lawsuit Monday [10/14/2013] in federal district court in Washington, saying he "wishes to continue practicing his faith and ministering to his faith community free of charge... but has been told that he is subject to arrest if he does so."

Lawsuit: Gov't Engaged in 'Conscious Political Strategy to Marginalize and Delegitimize' Catholic 'Religious Views'.  The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., is arguing in a new lawsuit that the Obama administration is engaged in a "conscious political strategy to marginalize and delegitimize" Catholic "religious views on contraception by holding them up for ridicule on the national stage."

Alabama joins EWTN in new lawsuit against Obamacare contraception mandate.  EWTN Global Catholic Network filed a new lawsuit Monday, Oct. 28, in federal court against the Department of Health & Human Services, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and other federal agencies, seeking to stop the government from imposing the HHS contraception mandate, which it says is unconstitutional.

Michelle Obama: 'We Want to Honor and Embrace All... Faith Traditions'.  At a White House Diwali celebration on Tuesday afternoon [11/5/2013], First Lady Michelle Obama said that she and her husband wanted to celebrate all the faith and culture traditions 'that make us who we are as Americans."  Even as she was saying this, there were 200 plaintiffs pursuing 77 lawsuits asking federal courts to protect their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion from a regulation issued by the administration under Obamacare that requires health insurance plans to cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion inducing drugs and devices.

Federal Appeals Court Delivers 'Significant Victory' for Catholics Fighting HHS Mandate.  In a 2-1 ruling on Friday [11/8/2013], a federal appeals court in Chicago upheld the rights of both individuals and companies to challenge Obamacare's contraception-abortifacient-sterilization mandate.  It is the first decision of its kind in the ongoing litigation against the requirement that all employers — despite their deeply held religious beliefs — must arrange and pay for employee health insurance that covers no-cost contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization, under penalty of fine.

U.S. Pulls Embassy Out of the Vatican.  Citing security concerns without naming a specific threat, the U.S. State Department is planning to shutter its embassy to the Holy See inside the lush Villa Domiziana overlooking the Circus Maximus and Palatine Hill in central Rome.  The embassy, which has been in operation since 1984 when Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II signed an accord, will essentially be swallowed up by the larger, more influential U.S. embassy to Italy.

ACLU sues US bishops over Catholic hospital ethics.  The American Civil Liberties Union is taking aim at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and its ethical guidelines for Catholic hospitals.  The ACLU filed a lawsuit in federal court in Michigan accusing the bishops of being negligent for barring certain treatments or the mention of the treatments such as abortion.

Another Victory Against HHS Mandate "Accommodation".  In a carefully reasoned opinion issued today, federal district judge Brian M. Cogan of the Eastern District of New York ruled that various Catholic nonprofit institutions that were the supposed beneficiaries of the Obama administration's phony accommodation on the HHS contraception mandate are entitled to permanent injunctive relief against enforcement of the HHS mandate.  (The case is styled Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York v. Sebelius.)

Obamacare smackdown.  Yet another federal jurist has determined the White House unlawfully infringed on religious freedom with its blinkered insistence that Obamacare health insurance policies must be identical, no matter what.  Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan rebuked the administration for ordering two New York Catholic high schools — Cardinal Spellman in the Bronx and Monsignor Farrell on Staten Island — to provide contraception and sterilization coverage to employees.  Standing for American tradition, Cogan also neatly exposed as a sham the Obama administration's scheme to pretend the government was not compelling faith-based organizations, such as the high schools, to violate their core beliefs.

Religious Liberty Triumphs Over ObamaCare.  The Obama administration's effort to force religious organizations and employers to pay for services that violate their beliefs largely provided the basis for the presidential reelection campaign's faux "war on women" talking point. [...] But the legal battle over the fate of the Health and Human Services Department mandate in the courts is not going quite so well for the president.  Yesterday, the administration received its sternest judicial rebuke yet as the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, New York granted a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the mandate against four nonprofits operated by the Catholic Diocese of New York.

FW SB Catholic Diocese gets relief from contraception mandate.  A federal judge in South Bend has provided some last minute relief to a host of Catholic entities across northern Indiana.  A preliminary injunction blocks enforcement of the so-called "contraceptive mandate" in the federal government's Affordable Care Act.  As a result, the University of St. Francis in Fort Wayne now has what the University of Notre Dame was denied:  Court ordered protection for employees from the contraception mandate due to take effect January 1st.

Why some Catholics think Obama is master of deception.  Lest people forget, passage of the Affordable Care Act happened in part because Obama struck a deal with a single Catholic holdout:  Bart Stupak, D-Michigan. Stupak agreed to vote for the bill in exchange for an executive order protecting conscience rights and preserving the Hyde Amendment's ban on the use of federal funds for abortion.  Stupak had insisted on an amendment.  Instead, he took the President's word.  The President turned around and stuck in the knife:  He used the ACA to mandate that all employers, regardless of religious objection, pay for and provide what many of us in the anti-abortion movement consider abortion drugs in their health care plans.

Priests for Life on Staten Island gains temporary reprieve from Obamacare mandate.  An emergency injunction granted on New Year's Eve in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C., circuit means that Priests for Life in New Dorp need not obey the Obamacare contraception mandate during the appeals process.  Priests for Life will not have to cancel health insurance for its employees, as the Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, had threatened.  Father Pavone expressed gratitude that his organization does not face steep fines for the mandate which went into effect on Wednesday as part of the Affordable Care Act.

Adminstration says Colo. nuns do not need injunction against health law provision.  The Obama administration told the Supreme Court on Friday [1/3/2014] that a group of Colorado nuns does not need protection from the new health-care law's provision providing contraceptive coverage for employees because the group can easily exempt itself from the requirement.  The government asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor to lift the temporary injunction she issued New Year's Eve for the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Colorado nonprofit organization that provides services to the elderly.

Administration to high court: Don't exempt Catholic groups from contraception mandate.  The Obama administration on Friday [1/3/2014] asked the Supreme Court not to exempt Catholic groups from an ObamaCare requirement to offer contraceptive coverage, after the high court gave them a temporary reprieve earlier this week.  The court filing comes in response to a surprise order — issued shortly before coverage under the law went into effect — by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.  The justice issued a stay late Tuesday preventing the government from enforcing the so-called contraceptive mandate against the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged.

Obama: Yes to Terrorism Abetter, No to Little Sisters of the Poor.  After five years of an increasingly radical presidency, it comes to this:  the Obama administration has released Lynne Stewart, convicted of abetting a notorious terrorist, but is litigating in order to coerce a group of nuns who embody compassion.  Isn't this what Communists used to do when they came to power — release the "political prisoners" and harass the deeply religious?  President Obama's supporters say he's not out to get the Little Sisters of the Poor.  To escape federal punishment that threatens to end to their charitable work they need only sign a piece of paper.  But that's also how it worked in Communist states.  There too, the persecuted could sometimes get the government off of their back by signing away their principles.

Little Sisters of the Government.  This week Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued an unusual injunction merely hours before the Affordable Care Act's birth-control mandate was supposed to apply to an order of Catholic nuns.  The Justice Department replied on Friday [1/3/2014], and the Administration's disdain for religious conscience still retains the power to shock.

DOJ: Nuns have 'no legal basis' to contest birth control mandate.  The Justice Department on Friday [1/3/2014] urged Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to stop blocking the Obamacare mandate forcing organizations to provide insurance plans that include contraceptives, arguing that a religious group contesting the law did not have a complaint.  Just before Jan. 1, Sotomayor issued an injunction on behalf of Catholic nuns in Colorado who objected to the birth control mandate in the Affordable Care Act, claiming it violates their religious beliefs.  Her decision at least temporarily exempts the Colorado group from the mandate in lieu of a more far-reaching Supreme Court decision on the contraception rules.

Dump the Contraception Mandate (and the Rest of Obamacare).  The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) mandates not only that employers provide comprehensive medical insurance to their full-time employees, but also that the coverage include contraceptives — at no cost to employees.  Because contraceptives are not found free in nature and insurance companies are for-profit businesses, not charitable foundations, this means that the explicit expense must be borne by employers.

Establishing a U.S. State Religion.  Government enforcement of the religion of statism, which includes the belief in the supreme higher power and authority of an absolute State, is nowhere more apparent than in the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor.  Whatever the eventual fate of the sisters, their case is an example of our administration trying to force state religion down the throats of Christians. [...] But now the quiet sisters have taken a stand, refusing to obey the Affordable Health Care mandate to include abortioninducing drugs as part of the insurance policies offered to the orders' employees.

Whose Conscience Should the Government Violate Next?  U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor recently granted the Little Sisters of the Poor a temporary injunction, so they do not have to violate their religious beliefs by offering health insurance that covers contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs.  The Obama Administration, however, is asking the Supreme Court to force the nuns to obey the contraception mandate.

Obamacare overreach tramples Little Sisters: Our view.  When the Obama administration picked a fight with Catholics and other religious groups over free birth control coverage for employees, sooner or later it was bound to end up doing battle with a group like the Little Sisters of the Poor.  And sure enough, the administration is now stuck arguing that it is justified in compelling nuns who care for the elderly poor to assist in offering health insurance that they say conflicts with their religious beliefs.

Little Sisters of the Poor vs. Obama — free exercise of religion is under attack.  When the Framers were putting together the Constitution in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, they knew the states would not adopt it without written guarantees that the new central government would respect natural rights.  The supporters of the Constitution promised political leaders in the states that the written guarantees would soon be added as amendments, and they were.  By late 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified and added to the new Constitution.  The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to assure all in America that their natural rights — areas of human choices for which a permission slip from the government cannot be required and in which the government cannot coerce compliance with its wishes — would not be impaired by the federal government.

Supreme Court Extends Injunction for Catholic Nuns Against Obamacare Contraceptive Mandate.  The U.S. Supreme Court today issued an injunction protecting the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of Catholic nuns who help the elderly and infirm, from having to comply with the Obamacare mandate on contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs until their case is fully heard at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.  The injunction was issued by the entire Supreme Court although Justice Sonia Sotomayor is mentioned by name because she is the point person for emergency requests from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Supreme Court sides with religious group in Obamacare appeal.  A U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Friday will enable a religious-affiliated non-profit and other groups like it to remain temporarily exempt from Obamacare requirements to cover birth control and other reproductive health they oppose on moral grounds.  The justices extended an injunction first granted on an emergency basis just before the New Year for a Catholic charity for the elderly run by nuns, the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The Little Sisters of the Poor have had their prayers answered.  Today, and every day since December 31, the Little Sisters of the Poor have prayed that the Supreme Court would save them from the choice of violating their faith or exposing their ministry to decimation by IRS penalties.  Today their prayers were answered.  The Little Sisters of the Poor received an injunction from the Supreme Court protecting them from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) controversial mandate while they have their day in court.

Court: Notre Dame must adhere to ObamaCare birth control mandate.  The University of Notre Dame must provide birth control to employees and students after a federal appeals court ruled Friday [2/21/2014], a move the school says will force it to violate its religious beliefs.  In a blow to religious colleges and universities across the country, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago denied Notre Dame's request for an injunction to the ObamaCare birth control mandate that requires the school to provide coverage for contraception.

Big Brother vs. Little Sisters.  Despite straight-facedly promising that he would protect the religious liberties of people and groups and would not violate their conscience rights by forcing them to provide or support contraceptive or abortion services, President Obama has vigorously engaged in a scorched-earth campaign to do just the opposite.  It's not enough that Obama has imposed a mandate on a formerly free America to compel people to purchase health insurance under his woefully inferior new health care scheme.  He is insistent on gratuitously forcing it on those whose faith-driven consciences object to the mandate, even when exempting them surely wouldn't impair the workings of his already chaotic law.

Pro-life Catholics sue over 'abortion fee mandate'.  As pro-life Catholics, Barth and Abbie Bracy don't want to pay for health insurance that covers elective abortion, but under the Affordable Care Act, they don't have much choice.  The Bracys' health-insurance plan is set to expire in November, and all policies currently offered by Access Health CT, Connecticut's health care exchange, include coverage for elective abortions.

Judge Grants Injunction Against Contraception-Abortifacient Mandate.  Yesterday [6/4/2014], a federal judge in Oklahoma granted a temporary health care mandate injunction to approximately 200 Catholic employers.  According to the Preliminary Injunction, the employers do not have to provide coverage for contraceptives, including those that cause abortions, and are exempt from all fines and penalties.

Obamacare Anti-Conscience Mandate: Court Says Being Complicit in Sin Isn't a Sin.  Last week, in Michigan Catholic Conference v. Burwell, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected the appeal of Catholic nonprofit groups in their challenge to the Obamacare anti-conscience mandate.  The court got it wrong by second-guessing the religious beliefs of these groups.  Formal houses of worship and their integrated auxiliaries (e.g., church-run soup kitchens) are exempt from this mandate — which requires employers to pay for employee health insurance coverage that includes contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs — and other nonprofit religious employers are eligible for an "accommodation."

Alabama judge rejects Catholic broadcaster's claim against ObamaCare mandate.  A federal judge in Alabama has dismissed a Catholic broadcaster's legal claim that requiring employers to include contraception in their health care coverage is unconstitutional.

How the Left Will Repay the Catholic Church on Immigration.  [Scroll down]  More than a few people with whom I spoke discerned a pecuniary motive in the Church's position.  They argued that the Church needed to recruit new Hispanic troops to help pay for the cathedral and for the legal costs stemming from sundry sex scandals, real and imagined.  Motives, however, are rarely as simple as money.  On the question of the church's motives, one local Catholic explained how the noisy "peace and justice" cliques within the church seized a new opportunity to lure the Church leftward.

The Editor says...
If Barack H. Obama had any sense at all, he would leave the Catholics alone.  It appears that the Catholic Church is about to become another symbiotic arm of the Democratic Party.  It's all about membership numbers, political clout and money.

It's Open Season On Catholics.  When my phone flickered with the news that the Supreme Court had found in favor of Hobby Lobby on Monday, I knew exactly what the result would be.  It was perfectly clear that the religion of the five Justices who found in favor of Hobby Lobby would be brought into question.  It has happened before, both in the distant and recent past.

Sen. Cruz: 'Mr. President, When Did the Democratic Party Declare War on the Catholic Church?'  Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) criticized Senate Democrats and their legislation to circumvent the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision by explaining that their bill would impose "faith fines" on groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, who refuse to subsidize abortion-inducing drugs, and asked, "Mr. President, when did the Democratic Party declare war on the Catholic Church?"  "The bill that is being voted on this floor, if it were adopted, would fine the Little Sisters of the Poor millions of dollars unless these Catholic nuns are willing to pay for abortion-producing drugs for others," said Sen. Cruz in remarks on the Senate floor on Wednesday [7/16/2014].

Catholic League slams Obama: 'Do Christian lives mean so little to you?'  The head of the Catholic League issued a scathing criticism at President Obama, posting on his group's website an essay that pointed to all the Christians being beheaded by Muslim terrorists and asking:  Doesn't that matter to you?  "Christians are being beheaded all over the Middle East because they are Christians, and those carrying out this mass murder are doing so in the name of Islam," Bill Donohue wrote on his group's website, Newsmax reported.  "Yet you continue to say and do absolutely nothing about these unspeakable crimes.  Do Christians mean so little to you?"

Obama Administration Marches on With Their War on Nuns.  Nearly a year ago, a group of Catholic women religious filed suit against the Obama administration due to the HHS Mandate.  Today, the administration announced that their court case against the Little Sisters of the Poor will continue, in spite of the Hobby Lobby court decision last June.

Court Rules in Favor of Ave Maria School of Law Against HHS Mandate.  A federal court has ruled in favor of Ave Maria School of Law in the case Ave Maria School of Law v. Burwell.  This means that as of now the school is not required to comply with the HHS Contraception mandate and distribute contraceptives and abortion-causing drugs to its employees.  Ave Maria School of Law is a Catholic law school and was seeking an injunction to delay implementation of the mandate.

Priests for Life Will Appeal HHS Mandate Court Decision to Supreme Court.  Father Frank Pavone objects to the decision on November 14, written by Obama-appointee Judge Cornelia Pillard, in which the court upheld the Obama administration's most recent "accommodation" for religious employers who object to being forced by the government to provide free contraception, sterilization procedures, and abortion-inducing drugs to employees through health insurance plans.

Obama makes moral case for preserving his healthcare law.  Four words in the law could unravel Obamacare in the Supreme Court.  So President Barack Obama is marshaling his own numbers — and an unusual moral weight — to stress the achievements of his health overhaul law.  Addressing the Catholic Health Association on Tuesday [6/9/2015], Obama spoke about the 100 years it's taken to reform health care in the United States, and the millions of people Obamacare has helped over its five years of implementation.  "This is now part of the fabric of how we care for one another," Obama said.

The Editor says...
It is astonishing that Mr. Obama was invited to speak to a Catholic group, after all he's done in opposition to the Catholics over the last five years.  Or did he invite himself?

Denver court rules against Little Sisters of the Poor contraception coverage case.  A federal appeals court in Denver ruled on Tuesday [7/14/2015] against a group of Colorado nuns who challenged a provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires employers to provide insurance policies covering contraception.  Though religious groups are already exempt from covering contraceptives, the plaintiffs — the Little Sisters of the Poor as well as four Christian colleges in Oklahoma — argued the exemption doesn't go far enough because they must sign away the coverage to another party, making them feel as though they had a hand in providing contraceptives.  The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed.

Obamacare's birth control shell game.  The Obama administration is attempting to tell religious groups what their conscience means.  And in some courts, the attempt is working.  On Tuesday [7/14/2015] the Tenth Circuit court joined five other federal appeals courts in ruling that religious groups, such as Christian colleges from Oklahoma and the Little Sisters of the Poor, must comply with rules implementing Obamacare's abortion pill and contraception mandate.  And just last week the Obama administration published final rules imposing the same regime on religious family businesses.

How does Uncle Sam get to tell nuns what they believe?  If you thought that you decide your own religious views, you haven't been following the plight of the Little Sisters of the Poor.  These Colorado-based nuns have the misfortune to fall under the 10th Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals.  On Tuesday [7/14/2015] the Sisters were dealt an astounding setback in their effort to avoid being co-opted by ObamaCare's birth-control mandate.

Planned Parenthood and the Antithesis of Love.  Planned Parenthood, according to reports, is a leading reason why the White House will not relent and has kept the Little Sisters of the Poor in court fighting the coercive Obamacare insurance mandate for abortion pills, contraception, and female sterilization.  Is there any reason but a blinding ideology why you would want to victimize self-sacrificial women who serve the elderly poor?  And, during his celebration of Planned Parenthood, President Obama took time to criticize the organization's enemies:  "The fact is, after decades of progress, there's [sic] still those who want to turn back the clock to policies more suited to the 1950s than the 21st century.  And they've been involved in an orchestrated and historic effort to roll back basic rights when it comes to women's health."

God, protect our babies from both president and pope.  Unless his intention is to radically change or convert President Barack Obama, when Pope Francis descends on America next month, he will in essence be paying open homage to the world's top champion of partial birth abortion.  The pope will meet with Obama on Sept 23, as part of his first trip to America as the head of the Roman Catholic Church. [...] Will the pontiff and president talk about the continuing sale of aborted baby parts by government funded Planned Parenthood?  It's not on the agenda.  The only time Obama talks about the baby-killing Planned Parenthood it is to promote it.  Obama even wished the organization a rousing "God bless!" in an April 2013 speech to the organization.

Court says Little Sisters can duck birth-control mandate until Supreme Court weighs in.  A federal appeals court that refused to exempt a group of nuns from Obamacare's birth-control rules said Friday [8/21/2015] the sisters can duck the mandate and its hefty fines until the Supreme Court decides whether to take up their appeal.  The Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged is among several nonprofit plaintiffs who've asked the justices to hear them out next term, saying the Obama administration hasn't done enough to absolve them from providing birth control they find sinful, including morning-after pills that Catholic groups equate with abortion.

Is the pope a false prophet?  [Scroll down]  The Church has taught for 400 years that abortion is murder.  Because the victim of an abortion is always innocent, helpless and uniquely under the control of the mother, abortion removes the participants from access to the sacraments.  Until now.  Last week, Pope Francis, without consulting his fellow bishops, ordered that any priest may return those who have killed a baby in a womb to the communion of the faithful.  He said he did this because he was moved by the anguished cries of mothers contemplating the murder of their babies.  I doubt he will defend these decisions before Congress.

White House Defends Obama On Religious Freedom, 'Take The President At His Word'.  "Here in the United States, we cherish religious liberty ... we stand with you in defense of religious freedom and interfaith dialogue, knowing that people everywhere must be able to live out their faith free from fear and free from intimidation," Obama said during his welcoming address to Pope Francis today [9/23/2015] at the White House.  Republican presidential candidate Bobby Jindal was quick to criticize Obama's remarks, pointing out the multiple incidents of Christians being persecuted by the federal government because of their views on marriage, abortion and contraception.

Pope visits U.S. nuns involved in Obamacare contraception lawsuit.  Pope Francis on Wednesday [9/23/2015] made an unscheduled stop to a convent of nuns to show his support for their lawsuit against U.S. President Barack Obama's healthcare law.  Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the visit to the convent of the Little Sisters of the Poor for what he called a "brief but symbolic visit."

SCOTUS Takes Up Little Sisters of Poor Case Against Obama Administration.  The U.S. Supreme Court agreed today to take up the case that the Little Sisters of the Poor — an order of Catholic nuns — has brought against the Obama administration for violating the sisters' right to the free exercise of religion.  "All we ask is that our rights not be taken away," said Sister Loraine Mari Maguire, the Mother Provincial of the order, in a statement released by the Becket Fund, the nonprofit law firm that represents the sisters.

Little Sisters of the Poor nuns will take Obamacare birth control mandate to Supreme Court.  An elder-care charity run by nuns asked the Supreme Court on Monday [1/4/2016] to shield them from Obamacare's birth control mandate, arguing that the government can provide their organizations' female employees with contraceptives if it really wants to but shouldn't force them to facilitate the coverage.  Attorneys for the Little Sisters of the Poor and three Christian colleges say the administration already has exempted a series of employers, undercutting its push to force religiously affiliated groups to formally opt out of the regulations so that a third party can step in and pay for the drugs and services.

Is the Supreme Court Going to Argue that Nuns Misunderstand Their Religion?  The Obama administration's interpretation of religious liberty would devastate free-exercise protections and relegate minority religions to second-class status.  The danger posed by this interpretation has already manifested itself in a lower-court decision.  The administration maintains that courts should reject religious-liberty claims unless a judge determines that "as a matter of law," a plaintiff would suffer a "substantial" theological burden if he did not receive an exemption.  The Supreme Court will rule on that interpretation of religious liberty in an upcoming case: Little Sisters of the Poor v. Burwell.

David And Goliath: Meet The Nine Nuns Taking Obamacare To The Supreme Court.  Obamacare has faced repeated opposition from legislative repeal efforts and court challenges, and now a group of nuns is taking the law to the Supreme Court.  The Little Sisters of the Poor is fighting for an exemption to the Obamacare contraception mandate and released a series of videos introducing the women taking on the president's law.  The nuns have fought a long battle against the healthcare law, and the videos highlight Obamacare's sticky situation, which the nuns say is forcing them to violate their consciences.

Pepsi, Visa, and Chevron are Exempt From HHS Mandate, But Little Sisters of the Poor are Not.  The Obama administration has been unrelenting in its fight to force a group of Catholic nuns to violate their beliefs and pay for abortion-causing drugs and contraception, arguing that they are essential health care services.  On Wednesday [3/23/2016], the U.S. Supreme Court heard an appeal from the Little Sisters of the Poor and 37 other religious groups to stop the Obama administration from forcing them to comply with Obamacare's abortion mandate.  The mandate compels religious groups to pay for birth control, drugs that may cause abortions and sterilization.  Without relief, the Little Sisters would face millions of dollars in IRS fines.

Mercy for the Little Sisters of the Poor in Supreme Court Obamacare battle.  A nation founded on the principle that government will keep its hands off religion cannot be a nation whose government commands Catholic nuns to violate their beliefs.  On Wednesday [3/28/2016], the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about whether the dictates of Obamacare trample the conscience rights of the Little Sisters of the Poor and several other faith-based employers.  The very existence of this case is a shame.

Supreme Court wants more information on birth control case.  The Supreme Court on Tuesday [3/29/2016] asked for more information about how employees of religious nonprofits could get birth control coverage without their employers getting involved at all.  The justices last week heard oral arguments in Zubik v. Burwell, a case in which 37 religious nonprofits such as Little Sisters of the Poor and Notre Dame University are challenging Obamacare's mandate that employers must provide birth control coverage.  The Obama administration has created a workaround in which the insurer pays for the coverage instead of the employer, but the groups say the accommodation violates their religious beliefs against contraception since it's still covered under their plans.

The War on the Little Sisters of the Poor.  [Scroll down]  Of course, this ignores the possibility that the entire point of ObamaCare (and the administration's specific interpretation of same) was to force Catholics and evangelicals to pay for abortion against their will.  As Yuval Levin notes:  "It is a culture war of choice on the part of the Obama White House.  That's the reason this administration is willing to violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in order to punish the The Little Sisters of the Poor.  As Instapundit noted:  "They hate those groups and wanted to punish them."

Breaking: SCOTUS punt on Little Sisters et al ObamaCare contraception mandate case?  The 4-4 split on the Supreme Court may have proven more productive than critics of the GOP's refusal to consider Merrick Garland's nomination have assumed.  After hearing arguments on Zubik v Burwell, a key case in the fight over the ObamaCare contraception mandate and religious liberty, the court has kicked the case back down the chain for reconsideration — and for more compromise from both parties.

Supreme Court sends 'contraceptive mandate' cases back to lower courts.  The Supreme Court decided not to decide Monday [5/16/2016] whether religious objectors must play a role in offering contraceptive coverage to their employees, instead sending seven cases back to federal appeals courts in search of an elusive compromise.  The unanimous ruling appeared to be another example of the eight-member court's inability to settle cases in the wake of Justice Antonin Scalia's death and the impasse between President Obama and Senate Republicans over his replacement.  It left both religious challengers and women's rights groups warily predicting victory.

The Supreme Court called the Obama administration's bluff.  Years of litigation over the Obamacare mandate for coverage of early abortion pills, birth control and sterilization, culminated in seven cases under the title Zubik v. Burwell.  All that time, religious organizations like Christian colleges and nuns told the courts that the government could achieve its goals another way, without forcing them to violate their faith.  The government already provides birth control to low income women through a dozen statutes including Medicaid and Title X.  Obamacare's insurance exchanges now offer plans covering these same items to people whose employers may have stopped offering health insurance.

Supreme Court punts on Little Sisters birth control mandate case.  The Supreme Court declined to rule on a major challenge to Obamacare's birth control mandate Monday, instead punting a series of challenges from nonprofits such as the charity Little Sisters of the Poor back to the lower courts.  The Zubik v.  Burwell decision comes as the court remains short-handed after the February death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.  The case leaves unresolved a major challenge from religious nonprofits that say Obamacare's mandate to provide birth control to all employees is a violation of their religious beliefs.

Media Lies About Court's Contraception Order.  Anyone still naïve enough to rely on the legacy media for unvarnished news will have gone to bed Monday evening [5/16/2016] believing that the Supreme Court evaded its duty regarding Little Sisters of the Poor v.  Burwell.  Countless headlines had declared that the Court decided to "punt," "skirt," or otherwise dodge any meaningful action concerning the challenge to the HHS contraception mandate.  In reality, SCOTUS handed the Little Sisters and the other petitioners with whom the Court consolidated their case a major victory in their protracted battle to defend religious liberties against the depredations of the Obama administration's bureaucrats and lawyers.  In a unanimous opinion, the justices vacated all lower court rulings against the Little Sisters and the other petitioners.  The term "vacated," in this context, means that the Court has rendered those adverse decisions legally void.  And the justices didn't stop there.

Little Sisters of the Poor victory (of sorts) at Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court unanimously pushed the Little Sisters of the Poor contraception case back to the lower courts, meaning they do not face fines if they do not provide contraception coverage.

Why the Little Sisters of the Poor shouldn't settle for a stingy exemption.  The Little Sisters of the Poor won a victory of sorts at the Supreme Court this week.  But I fear it is a temporary one that doesn't truly vindicate the freedom of the Catholic nuns.  Here's the background:  Christian groups like the Little Sisters were initially required under ObamaCare to provide contraceptive services as part of their employee benefits package.  But after they objected on moral and religious grounds, the White House created an "accommodation" that would let them opt out of providing such coverage directly.  The Little Sisters, however, argue that the opt-out process still amounts to an authorization of these services.  On Monday [5/16/2016], the Supreme Court didn't rule on the merits of the case, but vacated lower court rulings that would have made the Sisters comply with the accommodation.

An unconscionable mandate.  The organization I lead, Priests for Life, has been fighting the HHS mandate in court for over four years.  Our lawsuit, Priests for Life vs.  HHS, is one of the seven that were consolidated into the recent Supreme Court case of Zubik vs.  Burwell.  After the Court received supplemental briefs from both sides stating that a solution acceptable to religious groups is "feasible," it sent our case and the others back to the lower appeals courts for resolution.  Right now, we wait for the administration to produce a revised accommodation that respects religious liberty.  If it doesn't, the lawsuits will continue — perhaps all the way back to the Supreme Court.  At the heart of the case is the question of complicity.  Specifically, must religious non-profit groups take part in activities which their faith deems as cooperating in evil?

16 Times Democrats Tried To Prosecute Their Opponents.  [#2] Little Sisters of the Poor:  The Obama administration tried to fine this Catholic organization, which cares for impoverished elderly individuals, for refusing to provide birth control to their employees.  The Little Sisters didn't want to be compelled to hand out contraceptives, as it violates their religious beliefs, but Obama's Health and Human Services took them to court to try to force them to pay $70 million in fines per year, which would have likely bankrupted the organization.

The one act that defined President Barack Obama.  Barack Obama will forever be the president who worked diligently to put the gun of government to the heads of the Little Sisters of the Poor, demanding that they either pay to destroy children in the womb or be crushed.  You can't candy-coat that.  You can't hide it.  You can't pretend it wasn't what it was.  For 177 years, the Little Sisters of the Poor has been a large Roman Catholic religious ministry that takes vows of chastity, poverty, obedience, and hospitality.  Serving the Kingdom of God on earth in over 30 countries, they have one stated mission:  to care for impoverished people as they near the end of their lives.  As Ashley McGuire describes it, "The only fight they go looking for is to make the last days of some very downtrodden people brighter and happier, to send as many people into the next life surrounded by love, not garbage."  Barack Obama knew that, personally.  Regardless, he instructed his administration to rewrite executive regulations nine separate times to ensure these nuns be forced to either violate their conscience by helping distribute abortifacients or be fined $70 million a year and out of existence.  Their beliefs, their ministry, their cause, and even the incredible work that they do were secondary to President Barack Obama's devotion to funding and expanding the destruction of infants with tax dollars.

Liberal Judges Unwittingly Declare ObamaCare Religious Mandate Unconstitutional.  They don't realize it, but liberals have just declared that Obama's HHS mandate — which forced Catholics to cooperate with providing abortion and contraception — is unconstitutional.  The new interpretation of the Establishment Clause espoused by the activist judges who are striking down Trump's EO is that anything that has a disparate impact on a religious group is unconstitutional.  The rulings by activist judges declaring Trump's EO on immigration to be unconstitutional were based on arguments that if the EO/law had a disparate impact on any faith, or that if the person behind the EO/law ever said anything that could be construed to violate the new liberal interpretation of the establishment clause, then the EO/law in question was unconstitutional.

DOJ Lawyers Still Battling Christians Over Obamacare Contraception Mandate.  Six months into President Trump's administration, Department of Justice attorneys are still battling Christian organizations in court over Obamacare's contraception mandate.  DOJ lawyers have continued to keep alive a slew of cases appealing a 2014 district court ruling that granted an injunction from the mandate to several Catholic organizations.  The Supreme Court vacated an appeals court ruling against The Little Sisters of the Poor and similar organizations in 2016, sending the cases back to the lower courts.  Many religious freedom advocates expected that the Trump administration, which has vowed to protect The Little Sisters and other organizations burdened by the contraceptive mandate, would drop the legal campaign against the religious organizations.  But more than six months into the Trump era, the legal fights are still alive.

Why can't Democrats leave the Little Sisters of the Poor alone?  The Little Sisters of the Poor are heading back to court to defend themselves against the Obama administration's Health and Human Services mandate to provide contraception, yet again.  In an unusual political move, Pennsylvania and California sued the Little Sisters, demanding the same group who won at the Supreme Court in Zubik v.  Burwell provide contraceptives in their state.  In early October, HHS issued a new rule that protects religious non-profits like the Little Sisters of the Poor from providing anything like contraception that would violate their religious beliefs.

Fed appeal panel says Citizens United might end Obamacare's HHS mandate.  Citizens United, the 2010 Supreme Court ruling that bolstered political speech against campaign finance reform limitations, may also mean trouble for Obamacare's contraception coverage mandate, according to the second-highest court in the country.  Attorneys for Francis and Philip Gilardi argued that the Gilardis should not be required to provide contraception to their employees because it violates their religious beliefs.  The Gilardis own Freshway Foods and Freshway Logistics in Ohio and are devout Catholics.  They argued that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act protects them from having to comply with the mandate, promulgated by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Obamacare Birth Control Coverage Mandate Ruled Unconstitutional.  A requirement of President Barack Obama's health-care law that group insurance plans cover contraceptives may violate religious freedom, a U.S. appeals court said, widening a split among the circuits and making it more probable the U.S. Supreme Court will take up the issue.  A three-judge panel in Washington said a lower court was wrong to deny an injunction sought in a lawsuit by two brothers who are Catholic.  The men sued on religious grounds, seeking to exclude contraceptive coverage from health plans provided by their produce-distribution companies.

Court slaps down ObamaCare religious 'exception'.  First it was the HealthCare.gov Web site, whose epic malfunctions have made the ObamaCare portal a punchline for late-night comics.  Now the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with two Catholic Ohio businessmen who claim that obeying the contraceptive mandate would mean violating their religious principles.  In her majority opinion, Judge Janice Rogers Brown took no prisoners.  The mandate, she says, "trammels the right of free exercise."

This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2021 by Andrew K. Dart

Editor's note:
The newest information is at the bottom of this subsection, because it was all added in chronological order.

Justice Ginsburg's Eight Worst Lines on Hobby Lobby.  [#5] "It bears note in this regard that the cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month's full-time pay for workers earning the minimum wage."  Who truly believes that this cost plays any role at all in Ginsburg's analysis?  It's expensive, so she cites it to show that employers have to pay for it; if it were cheap, she'd cite it to show that employers aren't burdened by it.

Some Thoughts on Hobby Lobby.  [Scroll down]  As Justice Alito argued forcefully in his majority opinion, there is no reason why people should be expected to give up their basic rights when they incorporate a business.  And Justice Ginsburg's attempt to distinguish between profit-seeking and nonprofit corporations on this front, made necessary by the fact that the administration did recognize the religious-liberty claims of some corporations and not others in this case, was the very model of a muddle.  (It wasn't as disturbing as her shockingly thin idea of what constitutes religious practice, though, and of what religious institutions are for.)

Supreme Court won't block Obama health law's contraception mandate.  The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to block the Obama administration's contraception mandate from taking effect.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor rejected a request for an emergency injunction that would have shielded employers from the mandate.

Sotomayor says no to Hobby Lobby request to block contraceptive mandate.  Attorneys for the government claim the drugs do not cause abortions and that the United States has a compelling interest in mandating insurance coverage for them.

Supreme Court Refuses Hobby Lobby Contraception Mandate Request.  The U.S. Supreme Court has refused a request by national retailer Hobby Lobby for an emergency injunction to block implementation of the Department of Health and Human Services' contraception mandate, an element of President Obama's notorious Affordable Healthcare Act that requires employers to provide their workers with free access to birth control, including contraceptive drugs known to induce abortion.

Supreme Court denies emergency injunction in contraception case.  The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday [12/26/2012] denied Hobby Lobby's request for an emergency injunction to block the health reform law's contraceptive coverage requirements and said it will not decide the case before lower courts have ruled.

Hobby Lobby faces millions in fines for bucking Obamacare.  Craft store giant Hobby Lobby is bracing for a $1.3 million a day fine beginning January 1 for noncompliance with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare.

Hobby Lobby Defies Obama Administration with Civil Disobedience for Religious Liberty.  Now that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has denied Hobby Lobby's application for an emergency injunction protecting them from Obamacare's HHS Mandate on abortion and birth control, Hobby Lobby has decided to defy the federal government to remain true to their religious beliefs, at enormous risk and financial cost.

Michelle Malkin: We need to support Hobby Lobby for fighting against Obamacare.  Malkin says we should make an effort to support them since they are on the front lines fighting against this illegal Obamacare mandate.

The Seventh Circuit Blocks the HHS Mandate for a Private Business.  Late yesterday afternoon [12/28/2012], the Seventh Circuit granted an emergency injunction against the HHS mandate — preventing its enforcement against an Illinois business and its owners.  My colleagues at the ACLJ represent Korte & Luitjohan Contractors, Inc., a family-owned, full-service construction contractor.  The company is located in Highland, Ill., and employs about 90 workers.  The brief opinion is worth a read in its entirety, but two parts stand out.  First, the court disagreed with the Tenth Circuit's recent decision rejecting Hobby Lobby's request for a similar injunction.

Hobby Lobby and the Loss of America's Soul.  Currently, Hobby Lobby is the largest religiously-owned non-Catholic business to have filed a lawsuit against the HHS birth control directive.  Yet, despite the fact that they've been founded and run on Christian principles, Oklahoma U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton ruled that Hobby Lobby and Mardel are not religious organizations and therefore subject to the federal birth control dictate.

Hobby Lobby CEO open letter: "Honoring God is more important than turning a profit".  It's worth pointing out that the mandate doesn't exempt actual religious organizations either, such as Catholic charities, Presbyterian hospitals, Lutheran schools, and so on.  Why?  That's the crux of the issue:  the Obama administration is attempting to redefine religious expression to only those activities which take place within the four walls of a place of worship, or those activities restricted only to those of a single faith.  That means that Catholic hospitals would qualify only if they refused to treat and employ any non-Catholics, for instance.  Can you imagine those lawsuits?

Hobby Lobby postpones fines despite Supreme Court ruling.  Hobby Lobby executives announced last week they found a temporary reprieve from the fines the company faces for defying the government's mandate to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs.  Despite the Dec. 26 decision by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who ruled the popular arts and crafts retail chain must comply with the requirement or face financial penalties starting Jan. 1, Hobby Lobby will have a few more months to fight for its rights, fine-free.

All but over.  [Scroll down]  Hobby Lobby asked the administration and the courts to delay any fines (estimated at $1.3 million per day) until the appropriate courts could hear its appeal.  But Hobby Lobby's request was immediately and robustly denied.  If all this is not a blatant denial of an American citizen's freedom to exercise his or her deeply held religious beliefs, it's hard to imagine what the federal government might do to be offensive.  The Constitution couldn't be clearer.  It doesn't clutter the landscape with possible exceptions.  It says bluntly and succinctly that neither Obamacare nor any bureaucrat spouting forth an "executive action" may include any provision that restricts the free exercise of someone's religious beliefs.

For-Profit Businesses Have Right to Religious Liberty Too, Lawmakers Tell Court in Hobby Lobby Case.  Republican members of Congress have weighed in on the legal battle being waged over the Obamacare mandate requiring employers to provide contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs to employees.  Eleven senators and congressmen filed an amicus brief, also known as a friend-of-the-court brief, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit on Tuesday [2/19/2013] in support of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a Christian-owned and operated corporation that opposes the mandate based on its owners' religious beliefs.  Hobby Lobby filed suit against Health and Human Services and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

US appeals court grants Hobby Lobby full hearing.  A federal appeals court has granted Hobby Lobby's request for the entire court to hear its challenge of a federal requirement that it provide insurance coverage for the morning-after pill and similar emergency contraceptives.

Hobby Lobby wins appeal on preliminary injunction.  We haven't heard much lately on the court fights over the HHS contraception mandate, but this ruling guarantees we'll be hearing a lot more later.  The 10th Circuit unanimously overturned a district court decision that refused to impose a temporary injunction against enforcement of the mandate on Hobby Lobby, ruling that the plaintiffs met the legal requirements for such relief, at least in part.

Court: Gov't Must Halt Enforcement of Sterilization-Contraception-Abortifacient Mandate Against Hobby Lobby.  Following on yesterday's 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Hobby Lobby can continue its lawsuit against the Obama administration's contraception mandate on religious grounds, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma ruled today [6/28/2013] that the federal government must halt all enforcement of the mandate (and related financial penalties) against the Christian-based company.

The 10th Circuit Takes a Detour to a Win for Hobby Lobby.  The news from the 10th Circuit is good, as far as it goes.  A unanimous eight-judge panel ruled last Thursday that Hobby Lobby should not have to pay $475 million in fines to the extortion racket known as ObamaCare while it challenges the constitutionality of the Health and Human Services abortion pill mandate.  That's good because eight judges instead of three is unusual, and a unanimous decision is more unusual still.

Court Rules for Hobby Lobby in HHS Mandate Case, Supreme Court Next?  Home-retailer Hobby Lobby — owned by the Green family, who are devout Christians — just dealt the Obamacare HHS mandate a devastating one-two punch.  It's likely the Obama administration will have no choice but to now petition the U.S. Supreme Court — where President Barack Obama's signature legislation is in danger of suffering a humiliating defeat.

Hobby Lobby granted exemption in ObamaCare fight.  Hobby Lobby Inc. was given a temporary exemption Friday [7/19/2013] from a requirement in the new federal health care law to offer insurance coverage for the morning-after pill and similar emergency birth control methods or face steep fines.

Hobby Lobby Wins Temporary Restraining Order on Contraception Mandate.  A federal appeals court in Denver reviewing the case of Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius ruled for-profit corporations have religious liberty, granting Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. a temporary restraining order against the federal contraception mandate.  The Department of Health and Human Services and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in implementing Obamacare's essential benefits, ruled companies offering health care coverage must cover most forms of preventive care without copayment, including all methods of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

US wants Supreme Court to take up Hobby Lobby case.  The federal government asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday [9/19/2013] to decide whether Hobby Lobby and a Christian bookstore chain have to provide a wide range of birth control options for workers as part of the federal health care law.

The Truth About Hobby Lobby and the Supreme Court.  Most of the major "news" outlets began their coverage with a rented AP report titled, "US Wants Supreme Court to Take Up Hobby Lobby Case," and followed up with tendentious opinion pieces insinuating that the administration took this step to thwart a dark plot by Hobby Lobby to deny its employees birth control coverage.  In reality, the Obama administration "wants" the Supreme Court involved in this case just about as much as you want a root canal.  It was forced to file an appeal with the high court because, last June, Hobby Lobby dealt the government's lawyers a resounding defeat in a federal appeals court.

Hobby Lobby Takes Argument To Supreme Court.  Craft store Hobby Lobby filed papers with the Supreme Court on Monday [10/21/2013] asking it to look at its case against the Obama administration's mandate that the company pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for employees.  The Health and Human Services mandate, Hobby Lobby argues, violates their religious freedom.

Court Confronts Religious Rights of Corporations.  Hobby Lobby, a corporation, says that forcing it to provide the coverage would violate its religious beliefs.  A federal appeals court agreed, and the Supreme Court is set to decide on Tuesday whether it will hear the Obama administration's appeal from that decision or appeals from one of several related cases.  Legal experts say the court is all but certain to step in, setting the stage for another major decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act two years after a closely divided court sustained its requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance or pay a penalty.

Supreme Court will take up new health law dispute.  The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday [11/26/2013] to consider a new challenge to President Obama's Affordable Care Act and decide whether employers with religious objections may refuse to provide their workers with mandated insurance coverage for contraceptives.  The cases accepted by the court offer complex questions about religious freedom and equality for female workers, along with an issue the court has not yet confronted:  whether secular, for-profit corporations are excepted by the Constitution or federal statute from complying with a law because of their owners' religious beliefs.

Thank You, Hobby Lobby.  Religious liberty is front and center on the nation's Thanksgiving table.  On Tuesday [11/26/2013], the Supreme Court agreed to hear Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc.  The family-owned craft store company is intrepidly challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare's abortion coverage mandate.  Hobby Lobby's faithful owners deserve our thanks and praise as they defend freedom of conscience for all Americans.

Supreme Court to decide Obamacare birth control mandate.  The Supreme Court on Tuesday [11/26/2013] set up another showdown over President Obama's health care law, agreeing to decide whether the government may force for-profit companies to insure birth control as part of their health plans, even if it violates the owners' religious beliefs.  The justices said they will hear appeals of two related cases — one in which the lower court ruled in favor of an employer, and one in which the lower court upheld the Obama administration's contraception mandate.  The conflicting rulings made it an easy decision for the justices to accept the cases.

SCOTUS, Hobby Lobby & Media Malpractice.  The Supreme Court's decision to hear two constitutional challenges to the HHS contraception mandate has frightened Obamacare's media cheerleaders into launching another of their propaganda campaigns designed to protect the "reform" law from itself.  Those Americans still naïve enough to rely on establishment news outlets for information on current events are being told that Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius are part of a sinister conspiracy to restrict access to birth control, endow corporations with religious rights, and escalate the "war on women."  Most of the media malpractice has been directed at Hobby Lobby.

Conestoga Is Silent Party In Obamacare Case, But Convictions Are Clear.  Besides Hobby Lobby, there's another business involved in the the landmark religious-protections case being argued before the Supreme Court this week:  Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp.  But while Hobby Lobby founder David Green has etched a decidedly high profile in his faith-based opposition to the Obamacare mandate over offering the abortion pill in employee health plans, the Mennonites who own Conestoga have been absolutely mum with the national media.

Four Decades Eroding the Foundation of Liberty.  [Scroll down]  Now, the Supreme Court has agreed to take up the Obama administration's appeal in the case of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby.  The question here: Can the administration force the Green family — who own Hobby Lobby, a chain of arts and crafts stores, and Mardel, a chain of Christian bookstores — to act against their Christian faith.  Under Obamacare, the administration has issued a regulation that requires almost all health care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives.  The latter includes both abortion-inducing drugs and intrauterine devices.

Democratic senators to file amicus brief in Hobby Lobby birth control case.  In a brief to be filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, 19 senators are siding with the Obama administration against evangelical Christian businessmen who argue that paying for their employees' birth control, a requirement under Obamacare, violates their company's religious freedom.  The senators — five of them women — argue in their "friend of the court" brief that the owners of the Oklahoma-based crafts store chain Hobby Lobby are not exempt from the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate simply because some forms of birth control offend their religious beliefs.

19 Senate Democrats Join Fight to Force Hobby Lobby to Pay for Abortifacient Drugs.  The Green family were literally minding their own business when the Democrats passed and President Obama signed Obamacare into law.  The Greens own Hobby Lobby, their family business.  Obamacare forces the Green family, who are evangelical Christians, to pay for drugs and services as part of the health insurance plans that they offer their employees, that the family finds objectionable on religious conscience grounds.  Before Obamacare, they had the freedom to contract for, or not contract for, those services that violate their religious beliefs.  They chose not to contract for them, but Obamacare takes that freedom away from them.

Kansas files brief supporting Hobby Lobby.  Kansas has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Hobby Lobby Inc., an Oklahoma-based retail chain challenging the Affordable Care Act's requirement that employers cover emergency contraceptives.  Hobby Lobby founder and CEO David Green, a Christian, has objected to the regulation based on his religious principles.  The Kansas Attorney General's Office said the issue is not contraceptives but religious liberty.

Hobby Lobby Speaks Out.  The president of Hobby Lobby discussed his company's ongoing lawsuit against the Obama administration regarding the contraceptive mandate, which goes before the Supreme Court March 25 for oral arguments.  Steve Green's arts-and-crafts chain is suing the administration over the requirement that the company provide its employees with abortifacient drugs or face fines of $1.3 million per day.  Hobby Lobby objects because its owners, the Green family, believe that their faith prohibits abortion.

Murray: Hobby Lobby Denying Contraception 'Under the Guise of a Religious Exemption'.  Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who led the filing of a brief on behalf of Democratic senators in the Hobby Lobby case, said on the Senate floor yesterday [3/11/2014] that the case is not about freedom.  The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case, which challenges the Department of Health and Human Services' mandate to offer contraceptive coverage, on March 25.  Murray called the case one "where a secular corporation, and its shareholders, are trying to get in between a woman and her health."

Hobby Lobby Hysteria Hits New High.  Next Tuesday [3/25/2014], the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments concerning constitutional challenges to Obamacare's contraception mandate brought by Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties.  The families that own and operate these private corporations believe the mandate violates the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by forcing them to provide employees with health insurance covering abortifacients.  Both families have grave religious objections to the use of such drugs.

Ken Starr: Obamacare shackles religious freedom.  From humble beginnings in the 1970s in their Oklahoma City garage, David and Barbara Green launched what is now the sprawling nationwide commercial enterprise, Hobby Lobby.  Their company — now owned entirely by five members of the Green family — is now at the epicenter of an important legal battle over the breathtaking reach of the Affordable Care Act.  At issue is whether — due to the Greens' deeply held religious objections — the Hobby Lobby owners have an enforceable freedom-of-conscience right not to provide several contraceptive methods (four out of the 20 ACA-required methods) to the crafts company's employees.  The Supreme Court will hear oral argument in this closely watched case on March 25.

Sects and Drugs.  It is likely to be another three months before the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether the government is obliged to grant a religious exemption from ObamaCare's birth-control mandate to companies whose owners object to it on religious grounds.  Tomorrow the justices hear oral arguments in the two cases that raise that question, Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius.  But already some on the left think they've caught Justice Antonin Scalia in a contradiction.  They haven't.

The ACA's Heavy Burden.  Hobby Lobby is owned by a trust controlled by the Green family, observant Christians who make a point of carrying their faith into the marketplace, stocking Christian products and closing their stores on Sundays.  They refuse to comply with parts of the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate, specifically the provision of products that they regard as actual or potential abortifacients, including intrauterine devices and the so-called morning-after pill, both of which can function to prevent an embryo from implanting in the uterus and thus surviving.

The Hobby Lobby case's First Amendment backing.  Two years ago, the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision infuriated conservatives.  A few years before that, its Citizens United opinion outraged liberals.  On Tuesday [3/25/2014], the court will hear a case that combines the two.  The result could be a blockbuster.  In the Hobby Lobby case, several businesses owned by devout Christians are challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare's contraception mandate, which forces employers to provide workers with insurance that covers abortion and contraception.  Because these requirements conflict with the owners' religious beliefs, they filed lawsuits arguing that the law violates federal protections for the free exercise of religion.

Hobby Lobby case: Justices skeptical of White House position.  The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed skepticism of the legality of the Obama administration's refusal to accommodate for-profit companies' religious objections to the Obamacare requirement that most firms provide contraception in their employee health plans.  A majority of the justices seemed particularly doubtful of one of the administration's central legal claims:  the assertion that for-profit companies have no religious rights under federal law.

The War on Hobby Lobby.  Not too long ago, the Greens of Oklahoma City were law-abiding people running an arts-and-crafts chain called Hobby Lobby.  They weren't disturbing the peace, or denying anyone his or her rights.  They were minding their own business — quite successfully and in keeping with their Christian faith.  The roughly 600 Hobby Lobby stores stock Christian products, close on Sundays, and play Christian music.  Then one day Uncle Sam showed up to make an offer that the Greens couldn't refuse — literally.  As part of Obamacare, federal law demands that the chain cover contraceptives that the Greens consider abortifacients.  The family decided it couldn't comply with the law in good conscience, and its case is now before the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court takes up ObamaCare contraceptive mandate in landmark case.  One of the most controversial provisions of ObamaCare — the mandate requiring employers to cover contraception — was debated before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, as activists on both sides of the issue clashed outside the courtroom in Washington.  The justices appeared divided in the case, which is the highest-profile challenge to the health care law since the Supreme Court narrowly upheld the Affordable Care Act in 2012.

ObamaCare v. Religious Liberty.  In 2012 the Health and Human Services Department published a regulation interpreting an ObamaCare provision to require all for-profit employer health plans to cover 20 contraception methods, including four that some religious believers consider abortifacients and sterilization.  The combined cases of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius are challenging the mandate under a 1993 law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Andrea Mitchell Slams Hobby Lobby.  On her 12 p.m. ET hour MSNBC show on Tuesday [3/25/2014], host Andrea Mitchell interrogated attorney Mark Rienzi for representing Hobby Lobby in the Supreme Court case against the ObamaCare contraception mandate:  "What right do they have, again, to interfere with medical decisions by women? [...]"

Slippery slopes before the court.  Most disputes about religious freedom are bilateral — with the government on one side and the individual claiming infringement of religious liberty on the other.  But Tuesday's cases, involving Oklahoma-based crafts store Hobby Lobby and Pennsylvania cabinetmakerConestoga Wood Specialties, implicate a third party — the companies' employees, and their rights under the Affordable Care Act to no-added-cost contraception.  Respecting the religious claims of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood threatens to diminish the rights of their workers.

Hobby Lobby Has Its Day in Court.  One of the reasons Clarence Thomas gives for the studious silence he maintains during Supreme Court hearings is that his fellow justices have shown an increasing tendency to talk too much during oral arguments, thus preventing advocates from presenting their arguments coherently.  Yesterday's Supreme Court hearing in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius suggest that Thomas is right.

The 15 Dumbest Anti-Hobby Lobby Signs at the Supreme Court.  Supporters of an Affordable Care Act mandate that requires religious business people to violate their beliefs were out in full force this morning at the U.S. Supreme Court.  The high court heard arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, which pits Obamacare against small businesses seeking to preserve personal and religious freedom.  Here's a look at some of the most nonsensical and ridiculous signs and participants at Tuesday's rally.

One wonders what the Senator would prefer to replace the Judicial Branch.
Sen. Patty Murray: 'Stunning to Me' That 9 Justices Will Decide Hobby Lobby Case.  "I've worked hard to make sure that women have access to the right kinds of health care, and it's their choice, not their employer's choice," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday [3/25/2014].  "Sitting in that court today, it was stunning to me to recognize that nine people are going to make that decision — and will decide for a long time to come — whether women have to question when they go to work every day what the shareholders of that company's religious views could be."

The Editor says...
I'm impressed that Senator Murray managed to get both the "health care" and "choice" buzzwords into one sentence (although she left out "tea party").  But killing your children is not health care, and homicide is not a legal "choice."

Obama Administration Suffers A Drubbing In Hobby Lobby Arguments.  The arts-and-crafts retailer Hobby Lobby has challenged the mandate, saying it violates the religious beliefs of its controlling shareholders, while the Obama administration argues a federal law that protects such beliefs doesn't apply to shareholder corporations.  One big problem is that many churches are incorporated, undercutting the idea that corporations can't hold religious beliefs.  Another is exceptions the administration has carved into the law for churches and religious non-profits.  An even bigger problem is the sheer contentiousness of contraception, especially morning-after pills and other methods that some say can cause the abortion of fertilized eggs and fetuses.

Six Lies The Leftist Media Tells About The Contraception Mandate Cases.  This week, the Supreme Court will consider whether businesses and their owners must choose between paying millions of dollars in fines and violating their religious beliefs.  [...] The leftist papers do not mention the substantial monetary burden put on religious business owners to violate their consciences.  The papers do not mention that contraception was both inexpensive and widely available before the contraception mandate, and still is.  The papers omit to mention that it isn't the businesses who have radically changed, but the mandates from government.  Quite simply, if you read a newspaper to find out about the contraception mandate cases, you will read lies.

Startling Rift on Supreme Court Springs From Error by Kagan On Text of Obamacare Law.  A startling rift appeared Tuesday [3/25/2014] on the Supreme Court as the three female Justices came out swinging like Brunnhildes — women warriors — for what they erroneously labeled an "entitlement" to employer-provided contraceptives and morning-after pills.  The Justices were hearing oral arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a case hyped by the Democratic Party as a test for women's rights.  Justices Kagan, Ginsberg, and Sotomayor sprang on Hobby Lobby's attorney, interrupting his every sentence and pummeling him with questions taken right out of the Democratic Party's "war on women" playbook.

Did Justice Kagan embarrass herself during the Hobby Lobby oral arguments?  If Betsey McCaughey is correct (and I bet she is, because she has not only read the entire ObamaCare bill, she has written a book about it), Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan publicly humiliated herself during the oral arguments on the Hobby Lobby case, revealing that she either did not read the law, or failed to comprehend it if she did so.  Writing in the New York Sun, McCaughey lays out what is wrong with the Justice's declaration about Obamacare:  she asserted that the statute itself mandates provision of birth control.

First Amendment Freedom Can't Survive 'War On Women' Mobs.  False promises and controversial payoffs enabled the narrow passage of Obamacare, which grants unelected bureaucrats control over 18 percent of the economy, empowering them to impose costly and freedom-infringing regulations.  Perhaps the most liberty-assaulting decree (cunning, too, given its election-year timing) was the unprecedented mandate forcing employers to provide free contraception, including abortion-inducing methods, or face a $100 per day/per employee fine.  The fine could amount to $475 million annually for arts-and-crafts retailer Hobby Lobby, whose devoutly Christian owners, the Green family of Oklahoma City, oppose the mandate with pilgrim-like fervor.  Just because they started a business, the Greens argue, doesn't mean they must leave their religion in the pews.  The First Amendment guarantees their right to live and work by their faith, and they won't give it up without a fight.

How the ACA Could Collapse.  Some time in the coming months, the Supreme Court will hand down its opinion in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby, the case of the retailer that claims that its religious freedom or that of its employees is violated by contraceptive coverage required as part of the Affordable Care Act.  The attitude of the health-care act's supporters toward such cases is irritation.  How dare a little religious case trip up the mighty Affordable Care Act and jeopardize the ACA's establishment as permanent law of the land?  Cases involving religious details, however, do have a way of stopping big social legislation, and not only because they violate the principles of the religious denominations involved.

Hobby Lobby and the Fall Campaigns.  By "rewriting" ObamaCare in NFIB v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court created a strange new twist on federal taxation:  they imposed a surtax on the poor.  The Court did that by redefining the penalty (for not having health insurance) as a tax.  Usually, government levies surtaxes at the other end, on the wealthy, such as in 1993 when Congress levied 3.6 percent surtax on the highest incomes.  But with ObamaCare, an individual who has even the smallest of income tax liabilities and who hasn't purchased health insurance can owe an additional tax as of 2014.

The Four Horsemen of Hobby Lobby.  The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its ruling in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby on June 26, and the closer we get to that date the more frantic liberals become.  Their fear of a decision in favor of the arts and crafts chain, whose owners have challenged the constitutionality of Obamacare's contraception mandate on the grounds that it violates their religious liberty, has reached such a pitch that they are making claims that transcend the merely portentous.  Their warnings concerning the consequences of a high court win for the Green family, the company's owners, have now become downright apocalyptic.

The Age of Mafia Government.  At the heart of every mafia enterprise is a racketeering operation, in which businesses and private citizens are forced to pay the mafia to protect themselves from harm. [...] The analogies to government should be obvious, but one includes the pervasive feelings among business executives that, if they don't donate to political campaigns or "nonprofit organizations" run by ex-government officials or other political cronies, their industry or even specific business is likely to wind up on the wrong side of some business-crushing regulation pretty quickly.  The Hobby Lobby case the Supreme Court is about to decide any day now is yet another example of the Obama administration's demand that people follow its rules or pay crushing extortion fees (preferably both).

5 Major Takeaways From The Hobby Lobby Decision.  The Supreme Court this morning [6/30/2014] issued its ruling in the Hobby Lobby case.  At issue was whether closely held companies like Hobby Lobby could be forced by the government to provide abortifacient coverage to its employees, in defiance of its owners' deeply held religious beliefs.  In a 5-4 ruling written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court ruled that Hobby Lobby and other closely held companies do not have to provide contraceptive coverage that conflicts with the religious beliefs of the companies' owners.

The left loses their minds over Hobby Lobby decision.  It seems that liberal commentators have convinced themselves that, just as was the case in 1911, the courts and the country have deemed women to be of lesser value than their male counterparts.  The distinction between these two eras, of course, is that while that argument could be supported in 1911, it exists only in the heads of progressives in 2014.

Why SCOTUS Ruled in Favor of Hobby Lobby.  This morning's Supreme Court ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby will doubtless precipitate a flood of stories from the establishment "news" media claiming that an entrenched cadre of conservative justices have dealt a grievous blow to the reproductive freedom of women and somehow endowed corporations with religious rights.  These reports should be ignored as so much hysterical nonsense.

Supreme Court Rules Obama Admin Can't Make Hobby Lobby Obey Pro-Abortion HHS Mandate.  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 [6/30/2014] 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.

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.

Supreme Court Rules Some Employers Don't Have to Cover Birth Control.  The U.S. Supreme Court, in a limited decision, ruled Monday [6/30/2014] that closely held, for-profit companies can claim a religious exemption to the Obamacare requirement that they provide health insurance coverage for contraceptives.  For-profit corporations — including Conestoga Wood of Pennsylvania, owned by a family of Mennonite Christians, and Hobby Lobby, a family-owned chain of arts and crafts stores founded on Biblical principles — had challenged a provision of the Affordable Care Act.

Hobby Lobby Ruling Shows Deeper Flaw in US Health Care.  As the United States becomes more and more culturally pluralistic we will see more disagreement in all areas of society — including over what the federal government deems "essential health benefits."  Here, as elsewhere, promoting decentralized and individualized decision-making can tamp down conflict and respect everyone's freedom to live according to their principles.

Hobby Lobby.  Beyond the narrow facts of the decision, the case itself underlines the unpleasantly large scope that government regulation now covers.  Government, to which everything has been referred has enrolled one and all in a zero-sum game.  Now everything A does affects B; and everything B does affects A.  In so doing the giant state has become the mortal foe of diversity.

7 Reasons Conservatives Shouldn't Buy Media's Supreme Court Hype.  Before Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare could mandate that employers purchase health insurance plans for their employees, and that individuals had to buy health insurance plans or face a fine.  That left the door open to complete government control of how Americans receive their health care.  Today, the Supreme Court stepped back from that in the slightest of ways, explaining that "closely-held corporations" could not be forced to purchase health insurance coverage for certain types of contraceptive care.  This was the narrowest possible ruling in this case. [...] For conservatives to celebrate this decision seems overblown.

EWTN Granted Emergency Relief in Wake of Hobby Lobby Ruling.  A woman who would be hailed as a trailblazer for women in the media if she weren't a Catholic religious sister in a full habit is Mother Angelica.  The international media presence she founded, Eternal Word Television Network, filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court and then found itself receiving a temporary injunction from the 11th circuit keeping them from having to be subject to the abortion-drug, contraception, sterilization mandate.

Obama's Hobby.  In the latest stinging First Amendment brushback to President Obama, the Supreme Court on Monday [6/30/2014] held the contraceptive mandate unlawful as applied to companies such as Hobby Lobby.  Mark Rienzi, the Becket Fund lawyer who represented Hobby Lobby:  "The Court confirmed that Americans don't give up their religious freedom when they open a family business."  Contrary to the hysterica (e.g., the White House press secretary's claim the ruling "jeopardizes the health of women") the decision does not limit access to contraceptives.  All it means is that employees cannot demand they be provided — free — by family businesses with religious objections.

Supreme Court issues long-awaited ruling in birth-control dispute.  The administration cannot force closely held private corporations to pay for contraception in their health insurance plans if it violates their religious beliefs, a divided Supreme Court ruled Monday, dealing a political and logistical setback to President Obama's signature law.

RFRA Worked the Way It Was Supposed To in Hobby Lobby.  In today's 5—4 decision, the Supreme Court rejected the Obama administration's argument that forcing these family-owned businesses to provide coverage for potentially life-ending drugs and devices was the least restrictive means to achieve its policy goal.  Women's access to affordable birth control was not in question in this case.  Hyperbolic claims to the contrary notwithstanding, women still have access to the whole range of contraception.  What was at stake was the right of Americans to run a family business consistent with their faith.

Making Pluralism More than a Hobby.  The Supreme Court's decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby is a big win for the Green Family, for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty (who represented Hobby Lobby in court), and for people of faith everywhere.  The majority opinion authored by Justice Alito (joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas) leaves no doubt that closely held family businesses can exercise religion within the meaning of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), that the government's HHS mandate creates a substantial burden on the exercise of religion here, and that the government has alternative less restrictive means of accomplishing its goals.

The ObamaCare! Compendium of Doom.  "Forcing" women to pay a few bucks a month at Walmart or Target for their own birth control seems to me at least to be a small price to pay for protecting our First Amendment religious liberties, but these days freedom's just another word for nothin' left to mandate.

Three Biggest Lies Liberals Spread about the Hobby Lobby Ruling.  It's pretty easy to ignore anguished and angry tweets.  But many liberals on Twitter perpetuated falsehoods about the rulings. They shouldn't be ignored.  They should be countered.  Here are three of them.

The Constitutional Lawyer in the White House Has Lost Unanimously at the Supreme Court 20 Times.  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has argued cases before the United States Supreme Court, successfully.  President Barack Obama has not.  He has never argued a case at the Supreme Court at all.  That didn't stop his spokesmen from playing the constitutional lawyer credential card when reacting to the Hobby Lobby defeat on Monday [6/30/2014].

Fresh Wind of Liberty Blows Across the Land.  Is anyone surprised that the left is hyperventilating and bouncing off the walls over the SCOTUS decision in the Hobby Lobby case? Planned Parenthood and others are decrying the "health risks" women face and the loss of "reproductive rights."  You'd think the decision reversed Griswold v Connecticut and banned the sale of contraceptives completely. [...] All that the Hobby Lobby decision does is to merely allow "closely-held corporations" to not have to pay for four specific chemical abortion pills.  Those businesses will still be required to provide (and the companies did not ask for exemption from these) sixteen other contraceptive pills.

Obama threatens to bypass Hobby Lobby SCOTUS ruling via executive action.  As we reported recently, the left is none too happy that the Supreme Court recognized the fact that the Constitution doesn't give the government the right to force private entities to pay for the abortions of others.  You can include Obama among the people who aren't exactly thrilled.  And while he's not threatening to literally burn down any Hobby Lobbies (like many on the left are), he is threatening something very illegal:  Bypassing the SCOTUS ruling by a dictatorial executive order.

Hillary's Religious Hobby.  The position of Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Woods, and, for that matter, the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious organizations and individuals who don't want to pay for other people's contraception and abortions isn't an imposition at all.  They simply want America as it has always been:  they don't want to be forced to pay for things that violate their conscience.  Has liberalism become so intransigent and so intolerant that liberals can't understand or permit this?

Religious Freedom is Worth More Than $35.  Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. that if you like your God, you can keep your God, even if you run a business.  The Obama administration tried to require that health plans provided at work cover contraception and morning after pills, no matter what an employer's religious convictions.  The Green family, owners of Hobby Lobby craft stores and a chain of Christian bookstores, provide insurance but refuse to cover morning after pills such as Plan B and Ella because these drugs violate their religion.

After Hobby Lobby ruling, Democrats move to amend RFRA.  Liberal groups and congressional Democrats are moving forward with plans to reform the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling Monday in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.  Originally passed in 1993 with overwhelming bipartisan support, the law — on which the case was decided — forbids government from imposing significant burdens on a person's religious convictions, unless that burden is in furtherance of a compelling government interest and pursued by the least restrictive means possible.  Some Democratic lawmakers who supported the bill in 1993 issued statements Monday [6/30/2014] condemning the Supreme Court's interpretation.

Poll: Voters Support Hobby Lobby Decision by 10-Point Margin.  A new Rasmussen poll finds that 49 percent of American voters support a religious exemption to the federal government's contraception mandate, while 39 percent oppose such an exemption.

Religious groups want exemption from hiring LGBT after Hobby Lobby ruling.  Following the recent Hobby Lobby ruling, a group of religious leaders wrote a letter to President Obama on Tuesday [7/1/2014] asking to be exempt from a pending executive order that would prohibit federal contractors from discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in hiring practices, reported The Atlantic.  "We are asking that an extension of protection for one group not come at the expense of faith communities whose religious identity and beliefs motivate them to serve those in need," the letter says, according to The Atlantic.  The letter comes after Monday's Supreme Court ruling, known as Hobby Lobby, that closely held corporations are permitted a religious exemption from providing birth control as stipulated in the Affordable Care Act.

Hillary's disturbed.  Hillary Clinton says she's "deeply disturbed" by the Supreme Court decision this week to uphold Hobby Lobby's rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  Basically, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state is saying the court is letting bosses who oppose contraception impose their religious views on employees.  Of course, it does nothing of the kind.  For one thing, Hobby Lobby has no objection to — and continues to pay for — 16 forms of birth control.  It's just one reason The Washington Post gave Hillary "Two Pinocchios" for her claims.

Can Shameless, Baseless Propaganda Save the Dems?  The comments of Massachusetts congresswoman Niki Tsongas provide a predictable example:  "The ruling by an all-male majority of the Court diminishes the rights of women in the workplace and sets a dangerous precedent that could lead to corporations denying coverage of other health-care services."  This is hysterical nonsense, of course.  No one's rights have been diminished, nor will the Hobby Lobby ruling lead to any woman being denied access to birth control.  But the facts don't matter in this battle.  The Democrats are desperate to hold on to the Senate, at any price, and they are perfectly willing to tell any lie necessary to accomplish that goal.

Gitmo detainees seek religious freedoms, cite Hobby Lobby ruling.  Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees have filed motions asking U.S. courts to stop officials from barring the inmates from participating in communal prayers during Ramadan, claiming their rights are protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and citing the recent Supreme Court Hobby Lobby ruling in their defense, reports Al Jazeera America. [...] Prior to the Hobby Lobby ruling, lawyers say that courts determined those detained in Guantanamo do not have freedom of religion because they were not covered under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

A new low for liberals: Attacking Catholic nuns over Hobby Lobby.  I'm a big fan of absurdity in politics.  But even absurdity has its limits, and the National Organization for Women has surpassed it in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.  As part of its full-throated defense of ObamaCare's contraception mandate, NOW has a list of what it calls "The Dirty 100" — entities that have sued the Department of Health and Human Services and demanded exemptions on the basis of their First Amendment right to religious expression and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

Harry Reid: 'We're going to do something' on Hobby Lobby.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday that Democrats will take up legislation in the "coming weeks" to address last month's Supreme Court decision that allowed some employers with religious objections to opt out of Obamacare's contraception mandate.  Democrats on Capitol Hill have overwhelmingly criticized the high court's ruling in the Hobby Lobby case and are working to craft a response that would restore the coverage, though no specifics have yet been outlined.

Gullible Liberals Misread Birth-Control Ruling.  President Barack Obama's administration has sought to require almost all employers that offer health insurance to cover contraceptives.  The court's majority ruled that Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. and similar companies could refuse to cover contraceptives to which they have religious objections.  Many liberals say that this ruling was flawed because the Religious Freedom Restoration Act — the 1993 law the case turned on — doesn't protect for-profit corporations.  Yet only two of the justices took that view; the other two dissenters refused to endorse it.  And not one of the justices chose to question the relevant beliefs of Hobby Lobby's owners:  that the contraceptives to which they object can cause human embryos to die.

Democrats Draft Bill to Override Contraception Ruling.  Congressional Democrats said Tuesday that they had developed legislation to override the Supreme Court decision on contraceptives.  The bill would ensure that women have access to coverage for birth control even if they work for businesses that have religious objections.  The bill, developed in consultation with the Obama administration, would require for-profit corporations like Hobby Lobby Stores to provide and pay for contraceptive coverage, along with other preventive services, under the Affordable Care Act.  The measure could be on the Senate floor as early as next week, Senate Democrats said.

Who's the Real Hobby Lobby Bully?  Usually in political disputes, it's broadly understood which side is being forced and which side is doing the forcing.  We may argue about how much people should pay in taxes or how harsh incarceration policies should be, but both sides can generally agree on who is being coerced and who is doing the coercing.  Here we have a case in which folks on both sides genuinely believe that they are the ones being imposed upon.  How is it possible that we disagree on something so fundamental and obvious?

Senate Democrats unveil legislation to reverse high court's Hobby Lobby ruling.  Senate Democrats introduced legislation on Wednesday [7/9/2014] to effectively reverse the Supreme Court's decision last week exempting some employers from having to provide insurance coverage for contraception.  The law would bar for-profit corporations from seeking exemptions from the Affordable Care Act's mandate that their health plans cover contraception costs.  Religious institutions would still be able to opt out.  "Our bill simply says that your boss cannot get between you and your own healthcare," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told reporters.  Murray is the bill's chief sponsor.

The Hobby Lobby Backlash Hits Whole Foods.  Whole Foods isn't dropping contraception coverage for employees but nevertheless, it's facing a Hobby Lobby backlash.  By Wednesday afternoon [7/9/2014], more than 7,000 people signed an online petition urging Whole Foods to stop carrying products from Eden Foods, one of the 82 companies trying to opt out of covering contraception in health insurance following the Supreme Court's ruling.  The letter asks Whole Foods, which carries more than 2,000 Eden Foods products, to stand up against companies like Eden who are fighting to deny their employees basic health care.

Schumer to Religious Americans: Pick One — Your Faith or Your Business.  At a press conference Thursday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said people with religious beliefs who disagree with the Obamacare contraception mandate should be given a choice between living by their faith or being allowed to form a corporation to do business.  "You're born with a religion or you adopt a religion.  You have to obey the precepts of that religion and the government gives you a wide penumbra — you don't have to form a corporation," Schumer said.  In the Hobby Lobby case, decided last month, the Supreme Court ruled that a closely-held family-owned corporation could not be forced by the government to violate their Christian beliefs by providing insurance coverage for drugs and devices that can cause abortions. Schumer argues that the court "misapplied" the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

Protesters picket new Hobby Lobby store in Totowa.  For two hours Saturday afternoon [7/12/2014], the protesters in front of the Totowa Hobby Lobby — newly opened as of July 7 — held hand-lettered signs with such slogans as "Family planning is a family value," "Women's values trump corporate dictates," and "My religious freedom has been given to corporations."  They also chanted "Hobby Lobby, hear the news — religious views are for the pews."

Faux Outrage and a Real Threat to Liberty.  In response to the Hobby Lobby decision, Democrats have proposed a bill that would revoke the religious liberty protections of employers that object to the contraceptive and abortiofacient mandate.  The bill would require employers to provide contraceptives without even having an opportunity to present religious objections to a court.  Such a bill is a nonstarter with Republicans, but its sponsors further ensure that it would never become law by filling it and a related press release with inflammatory language accusing religious employers of trying to "interfere in their employees' ... health care decisions" and to "impose their religious beliefs on their employees."  These statements are false and seemingly aimed at heightening the conflict rather than moving toward compromise.

Protecting religious freedom is not just a hobby.  The 5-4 ruling concluded that Hobby Lobby, a regional chain of arts and crafts stores, was permitted to refuse to provide its female employees with insurance coverage for certain forms of contraception because the owners had a religious objection to offering abortifacients as part of the benefit.  This would seem on the face of it to be a blow for freedom.  Protecting the religious conscience of Americans from tyrannical abuse is certainly a large part of what our Founding Fathers envisioned when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and then the Constitution.  But the court's ruling does not in any way protect our individual religious freedom; what it does instead is uphold the right of the government to decide for us what religious freedoms we are allowed to have.

Plan to overturn Hobby Lobby ruling stalls.  The Senate on Wednesday afternoon [7/16/2014] fell short of the 60 votes needed to move forward with the Protect Women's Health From Corporate Interference Act, in a 56-43 vote on bringing the measure to the floor.  The bill would have overruled the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) — the law the Supreme Court cited when it ruled the federal government cannot force a family-owned business to provide contraceptive coverage that goes against its religious beliefs.  The bill also would have required employers to cover all forms of contraception and other healthcare mandated in the Affordable Care Act, regardless of conscience objections.

Satanists Seek Hobby Lobby Exemption from Informed Consent Abortion Laws.  The Satanic Temple announced today [7/29/2014] that it wants its believers to be exempted from reading state-mandated materials and informed consent laws when expectant women try to receive an abortion, and they cited the recent Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision as a basis for their exemption.

United States Supreme Court Upholds Religious Liberty against HHS Abortion Pill Mandate.  Today [6/30/2014], the United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the religious liberty rights of pro-life family business owners, striking down the application of the HHS Abortion Pill Mandate to their businesses.  The Supreme Court held that the Abortion Pill Mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), and that family businesses like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties will not be forced to comply with the Mandate.  "The Supreme Court's decision striking down the Abortion Pill Mandate on people of faith who own and have built family businesses is a tremendous victory for religious liberty," said Peter Breen, vice president and senior counsel of the Thomas More Society.  "This decision ensures broad protection for the rights of business owners across the country to live out their faith in the marketplace."

Administration lawyers argue Hobby Lobby ruling on birth control doesn't apply to religious groups.  The Obama administration says faith-based nonprofits should comply with ObamaCare's birth-control mandate because they have more leeway than the corporations that won a Supreme Court ruling on the issue last year.  Government attorneys made the argument on Thursday [1/15/2015] to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, after pro-life ministry Priests for Life asked the court to reconsider a ruling it made last fall that requires religious nonprofits to object in writing to regulations that require employer health care plans to insure contraceptives, as reported by The Washington Times.

Supreme Court tells another court to reconsider Obamacare mandate for religious groups.  The Supreme Court on Monday [4/27/2015] told yet another lower court to reconsider cases from Catholic groups who object to the part of Obamacare that requires employers to insure birth control as part of their health plans.  Justices told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to revisit its earlier decision in favor of the Obama administration — it wants religious nonprofits to comply with its contraception mandate under a compromise framework — by applying the high court's decision last year in the "Hobby Lobby" case.  In that decision, a divided court said closely held corporations do not have to insure forms of contraception that violate their moral or religious beliefs.

Obamacare Is Here to Prey.  [Scroll down]  Despite the Obama administration's Supreme Court defeat last year in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, bureaucrats from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have continued their attempts to bully obviously exempt entities into obeying the mandate.  The Court havs had to intervene six times since the Hobby Lobby ruling to stop HHS lawyers from behaving as if the ruling had never been issued and forcing organizations to comply with the mandate.

Obama admin makes end-run around Supreme Court's birth-control ruling.  The Obama administration on Friday [7/10/2015] tried to extinguish lingering concerns about Obamacare's birth-control mandate, issuing final rules on how closely held corporations and religious nonprofits can opt out.  Health and Human Services Department officials said it rewrote its rules after the Hobby Lobby crafts chain and other devout business owners successfully challenged the mandate before the Supreme Court last year.

Obama admin's attempt to follow Supreme Court's birth-control ruling pleases few.  The Obama administration on Friday [7/10/2015] tried to extinguish lingering concerns about Obamacare's birth-control mandate, issuing final rules on how closely held corporations and religious nonprofits can opt out.  Health and Human Services Department officials said it rewrote its rules after the Hobby Lobby crafts chain and other devout business owners successfully challenged the mandate before the Supreme Court last year.

President Obama to Abortionists: 'Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you.'.  Planned Parenthood pays no taxes. Under President Obama, made more than $500 million in profits, but they claim to be a "non-profit" organization.  They kill more 800 children every day.  And they have from the earliest days targeted minority women.  They once had a "Negro Ministers" project designed to recruit black pastors to push first birth control and then abortion in minority neighborhoods.  Now, in two startling videos, we have seen Planned Parenthood leaders engaged in a ghoulish traffic in the organs of unborn children whom they have killed.

"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward."

Psalm 127:3