Action to Secure our First Amendment Rights

To review: The Obama Administration issued a mandate that all private health insurance plans cover contraceptives and sterilization services (including abortifacients). This meant that all organizations offering health insurance -businesses, charities, universities, non-profits, hospitals and other religious organizations, other than churches - would be forced by the Federal government to offer health coverage of contraceptives to their employees, including those like Plan B or Ella that can destroy human embryos. (see my previous blog)

After severe negative reactions from people of faith who saw the mandate as a violation of their First Amendment rights, President Obama offered an accommodation. His compromise has given the American people a new mandate that forces everyone to subsidize practices that violate their religious and moral beliefs. Religious organizations and people of faith will still be paying for insurance plans who will in turn give free contraceptives to their employees. 

There have been at least a couple of efforts to fight Obama's trampling of the Constitution. Five colleges and universities and the Catholic cable network EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network) have filed suits claiming the federal government is violating their religious freedom.  These organizations are spread across the nation’s appellate court districts, part of a coordinated effort lawyers hope will help put the cases on a fast track to the U.S. Supreme Court. The colleges are Louisiana College, in Pineville, La.; Geneva College, in Beaver Falls, Pa (the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) represents both schools); Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic school in Belmont, N.C.; Colorado Christian University, a nondenominational school in Lakewood, CO; and Ave Maria University, a Catholic school in southwest Florida (the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty represents the schools).   

“The First Amendment protects Americans from mandates that require us to act against our own convictions,” said Kenneth Smith, president of Geneva College, in a news release. “We find the mandate to provide our faculty, staff, and students with insurance that provides pills to abort babies totally abhorrent and unacceptable. The government shouldn’t be able to force anyone to buy or sell insurance that subsidizes morally objectionable treatments.”  Two of the colleges also argue that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as well as the Constitution’s First and Fifth amendments. 

Ave Maria University President Jim Towey said that Ave Maria had no choice but to fight for its rights: “It is a sad day when an American citizen or organization has no choice but to sue its own government in order to exercise religious liberty rights guaranteed by our nation’s Constitution. Allowing a U.S. president of any political party or religious affiliation to force conformance to his or her religious or secular orthodoxy through executive action, is a perilous precedent.”

On another front, members of Congress are attempting to overturn Obama's overreach. Reps. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) and Dan Boren (D-OK) introduced the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act in the House (H.R. 1179), and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) sponsored the companion bill in the Senate (S. 1467). This measure will ensure that those who participate in the health care system “retain the right to provide, purchase, or enroll in health coverage that is consistent with their religious beliefs and moral convictions.”

Congressional action is necessary.  For far too long Congress has let Obama trample on the Constitution. We must insist Congress act on this bill now.