If you have not been paying attention to the lawsuits being filed by Christian-owned-and-operated universities, hospitals, and businesses against the HHS abortion mandate, you need to start now. Your right to publicly practice your faith — whatever faith you practice — is on the line. Eventually your right to free religious speech will be denied as well.
I’ll be writing more about this in the days to come. For now, I’ll start with what Denny Burk wrote on his blog yesterday:
Here’s the bad news from The Beckett Fund website:
Today, a federal court denied a request to halt enforcement of the abortion pill mandate which forces the Christian-owned-and-operated Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., to provide the “morning after pill” and “week after pill” in their health insurance plan, or face crippling fines up to $1.3 million dollars per day…
Hobby Lobby is the largest and first non-Catholic-owned business to file a lawsuit against the HHS mandate. The Green family has no moral objection to the use of preventive contraceptives and will continue covering preventive contraceptives for its employees. However, the Green family’s religious convictions prohibit them from providing or paying for the abortion-inducing drugs, the “morning after” and “week after” pills, which would violate their most deeply held religious belief that life begins at conception.
You read that right. The United States Government is forcing these Christian business owners to pay for abortion-inducing drugs in their employees’ insurance plans. It doesn’t matter that the law violates their religious liberty to conduct business in a way that is consistent with their conscience. Obamacare mandates that these Christians comply or face fines that would put them out of business.
When the controversy over the abortion mandate erupted earlier this year, the American public by and large got the impression that this was about conservatives who wanted to ban contraception. Nothing could be further from the truth. No one wants to outlaw contraception. This controversy is about the fact that the government is forcing pro-life business owners to pay for chemical abortions. It is perhaps the most egregious violation of religious liberty in the history of the United States, yet I’m wondering if anyone is paying attention. Wisdom is crying in the streets. Can anyone hear her?
This cannot stand. This must not stand. This fight is not over. Not by a longshot.
———
You can take a stand for your faith freedom by learning more from the ERLC or the Manhattan Declaration website, signing a petition, donating to a religious liberty organization like The Becket Fund, and contacting the White House, Health and Human Services, and your Congressman.
kainos 
Pingback: It’s your freedom at stake here «
Should the religious beliefs of a company owner prevent company employees nationwide from enjoying the benefits of broader health care coverage? The Greens have every right to their convictions, but we must consider whether we are a nation of 300 million individuals or whether there are some points at which each of us subjugate individual rights for the good of the whole.
I think the answer is yes, for two reasons. First, the issue isn’t providing broader health care coverage; it’s paying for toxic chemicals that kill a human embryo. That’s not health care; it’s abortion. Using the words ‘health care’ and ‘contraception’ to describe this is dishonest. It keeps most people from opposing the requirement, and most people do oppose abortion as birth control. Second, and more importantly, the First Amendment plainly forbids Congress passing laws that prevent citizens from freely exercising their religion. There’s no basis in the Constitution for requiring citizens to operate their businesses in a manner that violates religious conscience.
We certainly must subjugate our individual rights for the good of the whole at some points. The Greens are a great example of business owners who have restrained the base tendency toward greed and their right to keep the profit of their business to provide better lives for their employees. They should be held up as an example for others, not punished for opposing chemical abortion. I think a better place to start would be requiring businesses to provide basic health care coverage for all employees who work more than a certain number of ours a week. The “need” for chemical abortion is nothing compared to the need for annual physicals and catastrophic health care coverage.