Hobby Lobby, the Christian-owned company that provides hobby, arts and crafts supplies to tens of millions of customers across America, will defy the Obamacare mandate that health insurance for its employees cover “abortion-inducing drugs.”
The confirmation is from a statement released by an attorney, Kyle Duncan, who said in a website statement that, “The company will continue to provide health insurance to all qualified employees. To remain true to their faith, it is not their intention, as a company, to pay for abortion-inducing drugs.”
The conflict is the latest firefight in the battle against Obama’s mandate that employers pay for abortifacients no matter their religious beliefs. The administration has argued in many of the dozens of lawsuit that have erupted over the conflict that religious people who own corporations must give up their rights to religious freedom.
Hobby Lobby’s case against the mandate remains pending in a lower court, but the statement from the attorney, who is with the Becket Fund, was released after an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was rejected.
Officials estimate the company could face $1.3 million in daily fines for refusing to pay for abortifacients as Obama demands.
Sonya Sotomayor, who responds to emergency actions to the Supreme Court from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, simply told the company that officials could pay up for the abortifacients or face crushing penalties while its case continues in the lower courts.
Duncan’s statement confirmed those appeal efforts will continue.
“The Supreme Court merely decided not to get involved in the case at this time. It left open the possibility of review after their appeal is completed in the 10th Circuit,” he wrote.
Sotomayor wrote in her rejection of the appeal for recognition of the Constitution’s requirement for freedom of religion that the company didn’t meet the legal standard for blocking enforcement of the Obama demand.
While the judges at the 10th Circuit had rejected the company’s request, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier handed Christians a major victory against Obama, who previously has supported extreme abortion – to the point of advocating that babies who survive abortions be left to die.
“The government … represented to the court that it would never enforce [the mandate] in its current form against the appellants or those similarly situated as regards contraceptive services,” said an order released by U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
That three-judge panel said the government promised there would be “a different rule for entities like the appellants … and we take that as a binding commitment.”
“The government further represented that it would publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the new rule in the first quarter of 2013 and would issue a new Final Rule before August 2013.”
The judges continued: “We take the government at its word and will hold it to it.”
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed on behalf of Christian business owners, religious colleges and others. Several judges, including those at one appellate bench, have ordered the government not to enforce the mandate for now.
The decision from the federal appeals court in Washington comes in a case brought by Wheaton College of Illinois and Belmont Abbey College.
The lower courts had dismissed the cases as premature. Now the appeals judges have reinstated the cases and have ordered the Obama administration to report back every 60 days, starting in February, until its promise for a new rule that protects the colleges’ religious freedoms is in effect.
“The D.C. Circuit has now made it clear that government promises and press conferences are not enough to protect religious freedom,” said Duncan. “The court is not going to let the government slide by on non-binding promises to fix the problem down the road.”
The judges said that based “expressly upon the understanding that the government will not deviate from its considered representations to this court, we conclude that the cases are not fit for review at this time because ‘if we do not decide [the merits of appellants' challenge to the current rule] now, we may never need to.’”
“The colleges argue that the government’s promise not to enforce the mandate still leaves them exposed to liability from ERISA claims brought by employees and other beneficiaries,” they continued.
“Although the parties disagree over the likelihood of that happening, we see nothing about the bringing of those claims that alters our conclusion that the petitioners’ lawsuits should be held in abeyance pending the new rule that the government has promised will be issued soon.”
The judges said the government must file “regular status reports … every 60 days from the date of this order.”
Duncan called the decision a win not just for Belmont Abbey and Wheaton, but for all religious non-profits challenging the mandate.
“The government has now been forced to promise that it will never enforce the current mandate against religious employers like Wheaton and Belmont Abbey and a federal appellate court will hold the government to its word,” he said.
But other victories have been earned by corporations seeking protection from a presidential mandate to pay for killing the unborn. Another previous decision by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set the tone for the developing arguments.
That court agreed with three U.S. district judges and blocked the enforcement of the Obamacare mandate that would have forced a Missouri company to pay for health insurance, including abortifacients in violation of the religious beliefs of the owners.
According to the American Center for Law and Justice, the order put on hold the White House-promoted requirement in the case involving Frank R. O’Brien and O’Brien Industrial Holdings, a St. Louis, Mo., company that runs a number of businesses that explore, mine and process refractory and ceramic raw materials.
“By granting our motion, the appeals court blocks the implementation of the HHS mandate and clears the way for our lawsuit to continue – a significant victory for our client,” said Francis Manion, senior counsel of the ACLJ. “The order sends a message that the religious beliefs of employers must be respected by the government. We have argued from the beginning that employers like Frank O’Brien must be able to operate their business in a manner consistent with their moral values, not the values of the government. We look forward to this case moving forward and securing the constitutional rights of our client.”
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Hobby Lobby to defy Obamacare mandate