From Breitbart

The Department of Justice has responded to a lawsuit brought against the Obama administration by Hobby Lobby Stores, a Christian-owned, self-insured business that has argued that ObamaCare’s HHS mandate forces it “to violate their deeply held religious beliefs under threat of heavy fines, penalties, and lawsuits.”

In its brief, the DOJ responds that businesspersons have no constitutional rights to freedom of religion. From the brief:

Hobby Lobby is a for-profit, secular employer, and a secular entity by definition does not exercise religion. Even if a secular entity could exercise religion within the meaning of [Religious Freedom Restoration Act] RFRA, the preventive services coverage regulations still do not substantially burden the company’s or its owners’ exercise of religion for an independent reason: any burden caused by the regulations is simply too attenuated to qualify as a substantial burden.

Notice that the administration goes beyond its argument that businesses have no religious freedom rights. The DOJ says that even if a business did have rights to religious freedom, the HHS mandate is not really a “substantial” ethical dilemma, and, in a sense, the government can decide what is a “substantial burden” and what is not.

Read more here.

From LifeNews.com

The nation’s Catholic bishops said Vice President Joe Biden misrepresented the pro-abortion HHS mandate in Thursday night’s debate with Paul Ryan.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement responding to what it called an “inaccurate statement of fact on the HHS mandate” on Biden’s part. The full text of the statement the USCCB provided to LifeNews appears below:

Last night, the following statement was made during the Vice Presidential debate regarding the decision of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to force virtually all employers to include sterilization and contraception, including drugs that may cause abortion, in the health insurance coverage they provide their employees:

“With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear. No religious institution—Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital—none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact. That is a fact.”

This is not a fact. The HHS mandate contains a narrow, four-part exemption for certain “religious employers.” That exemption was made final in February and does not extend to “Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital,” or any other religious charity that offers its services to all, regardless of the faith of those served.

Read more here.

The teenagers who speak in this video belong to http://www.im2moro.org. These young people realize that if they don’t stand up and speak out for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness today, they will be living in a very different America tomorrow.

From Breitbart

Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Paul Ryan has created a video message directed at fellow Catholics, reminding them that religious freedom will be a central issue in the Romney-Ryan administration.

The video particularly targets the ObamaCare HHS mandate that requires all employers to provide contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients, free of charge, through their employee health insurance plans. Minor children also have access to free coverage of these items and procedures under their parents’ health insurance plans and, in some states, can access them without parental permission.

Tyndale House Publishers, a Christian Bible publishing company, has become the latest of nearly 100 plaintiffs to file a lawsuit against the mandate on grounds that it violates religious liberty.

“The mandate adopts a particular theological view of what is acceptable moral behavior with respect to provision of abortifacient coverage and imposes that view upon all adherents of religion who must either conform their consciences or suffer penalty,” the lawsuit argues.

Read more here.

From LifeSite News

“Which of you, desiring to build a tower,” asks Jesus in Luke 14, “does not first sit down and count the cost…?” He spoke these words about becoming a disciple. But those in authority who seek to force God’s people into disobeying their consciences would be wise to take this advice as well.

I’m reminded of King Darius the Persian, who—flattered by a proposition to deify himself—passed a ridiculous law decreeing that everyone in the kingdom would worship only him, on pain of death by lions. Effectively, he abolished religious freedom for his subjects. And although we’re not sure how others reacted, we know that one worshipper of Yahweh ignored this law, and continued hitting his knees before the True God every day. Now, Daniel was the apple of the king’s eye—an administrator whom Darius planned to make second in command. When Daniel was caught and reported, the king had no choice but to carry out his own orders.

You know the rest of the story. (It ends happily, even for the lions). Daniel refused to dishonor God or his conscience. He had his priorities straight and was willing to pay the price for civil disobedience. Ironically, it was King Darius, not Daniel, who lost sleep that night. His fear of losing one of his trusted advisors was greater than Daniel’s fear of losing his life. Daniel had counted the cost. Darius had not.

Well, our own government doesn’t seem to have counted the cost of its decrees either. The HHS mandate is a law that requires people of faith to violate their most basic beliefs about the sacredness of human life and sexuality. In very blunt terms, it demands that Christian employers take part in what they believe is the destruction of innocent human life through abortion-inducing drugs. This they should not do.

In fact, as Cardinal Francis George of Chicago promised in a letter to parishioners in his archdiocese, the Catholic Church would shut down its hospitals, schools and charities before it will violate its teaching on life.

Read more here.

From CNS News

Thanks to an Obamacare regulation that took effect on Aug. 1, health care plans in Oregon will now be required to provide free sterilizations to 15- year-old girls even if the parents of those girls do not consent to the procedure.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finalized the regulation earlier this year.

It says that all health care plans in the United States–except those provided by actual houses of worship organized under the section of the Internal Revenue Code reserved for churches per se–must provide coverage, without cost-sharing, for sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives to “all women with reproductive capacity.”

In practical terms, “all women with reproductive capacity” means girls as young as about 12. That, according to the National Institutes of Health, is when girls usually start menstruating.

Read more here.

From the Cardinal Newman Society

August 1, 2012, marks the formal beginning of the persecution of Catholic colleges and universities that wish to remain faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

As of today, the Obama administration is forcing Catholic colleges to help students and employees obtain no-cost sterilizations, abortion-causing drugs and contraceptives, and also “counseling” promoting these practices.

And who are the first victims of the Obama administration’s new Sexual Revolution? Catholic colleges and the parents of Catholic college students!

One year ago, when the Obama administration shocked the nation with “interim final” regulations for its HHS mandate, it publicly admitted that it had rushed the rules to ensure that college students get “contraceptive services” in the 2012-2013 school year. Many student insurance plans renew in August.

Read more here.

From the Daily Caller

A coalition of civil rights group has persuaded a Denver, Colo. judge that Obamacare’s preventive care coverage provides a “substantial burden” on a Colorado company’s free exercise of religion.

Judge John Kane, who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, granted a “preliminary injunction” barring enforcement of the law against the company, pending a full trial.

“This is the very first ruling on whether Obamacare can violate religious freedom and the judge said no,” said Matt Bowman, a lawyer for legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund.

Read more here.

From Daily Caller

August 1 is the first day businesses will be mandated to provide insurance including contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. Regulated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) the mandate presents a devastating choice for many business owners — to either violate their conscience by subsidizing behavior they find objectionable — or to face penalties that would cripple even the most well managed entities.

Kathryn Jean Lopez conducted an interesting interview on the topic with Matthew Bowman, a lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom. I’m not going to rehash what she wrote — it’s well done, so go read it.

The subject business of the interview, Hercules Industries, is a heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning business in Colorado. Here is what they face if they decide not to comply with the HHS mandate:

If businesses like the Newlands’ try to simply flout the Sebelius regulation and continue providing insurance to their workers that does not cover the sterilization-contraception-abortifacient benefits that the Obama administration demands, they will be hit with confiscatory financial penalties.

“PPACA also imposes monetary penalties if Hercules were to continue to offer its self-insured plan but continued omitting abortifacients, contraceptive and sterilizations,” said the Newlands’ complaint. “The exact magnitude of these penalties may vary according to the complicated provisions of PPACA, but the fine is approximately $100 per day per employee, with minimum amounts applying in different circumstances.

With 265 employees, a business like the Newlands’ would need to pay the government $26,500 per day if they decided not to comply with Sebelius’s regulation and insured their employees anyway. Over 365 days that would amount to $9,672,500.

That’s a business killer, all because the Obama administration feels businesses should be forced to operate as secular entities.

Read more here.

From LifeSiteNews

In a reversal that deals a significant blow to the HHS contraception mandate, the major Catholic hospital association that once provided crucial political steam for President Obama’s health care legislation has now backed off supporting the mandate, saying that the president’s “accommodation” of religious groups is inadequate.

The Catholic Health Association (CHA) on Friday issued a letter to an official with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services under the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department, stating that the government’s proposed rule forcing religious employers to provide birth control insurance to employees left them “deeply concerned.”

CHA noted that it was changing its initial position welcoming the White House’s “accommodation” to religious groups in February, whereby President Obama claimed insurance companies would offer the birth control for free, rather than having religious institutions directly pay for it.

Read more here.