DOJ to Colorado Family: Give Up Your Religion or Your Business !!

CNS News
July 26, 2012

DOJ to Colorado Family: Give Up Your Religion or Your Business
Owners of a family owned business filed a lawsuit against ObamaCare.

The Newlands’ lawsuit challenges a regulation that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finalized earlier this year that requires virtually all health plans to cover--without cost-sharing--sterilizations and all Food-and-Drug Administration approved contraceptives, including those that induce abortions.

The U.S. Department of Justice is pressing the issue.

(CNSNews.com) - The Justice Department last week presented the Newland family of Colorado--who own Hercules Industries, a heating, ventilation and air-conditioning business--with what amounted to an ultimatum: Give up your religion or your business.

“Hercules Industries has ‘made no showing of a religious belief which requires that [it] engage in the [HVAC] business,” the Justice Department said in a formal filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.

In response to the Justice Department’s argument that the Newlands can either give up practicing their religion or give up owning their business, the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the family, said in a reply brief: "[T]o the extent the government is arguing that its mandate does not really burden the Newlands because they are free to abandon their jobs, their livelihoods, and their property so that others can take over Hercules and comply, this expulsion from business would be an extreme form of government burden.”........

The Nerve !!

BUT .... Not-so-Fast

Fox News -- July 27, 2012

The Catholic family that owns a Colorado-based company won a court victory in their battle to stop the Obama administration from requiring them to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception, a mandate they say violates their religious beliefs and First Amendment rights.

Hercules Industries, a Denver-based heating ventilation and air conditioning manufacturer that employs nearly 300 full-time workers, got an injunction in federal court which stops enforcement of the controversial ObamaCare mandate. The company's lawyers said they needed the injunction immediately because if the mandate is enforced, it must begin immediately making changes to its health plan, which renews on Nov. 1.

The case is similar to ones brought by Catholic-based colleges that have refused to provide employee insurance with such coverage, except this time, it is a secular corporation.

In his order, Colorado District Judge John Kane said that the government’s arguments “are countered, and indeed outweighed, by the public interest in the free exercise of religion."

Catholic business owners score win against ObamaCare mandate

House Speaker John Boehner heralded the court's ruling.

"I join millions of my fellow Americans in welcoming this ruling, which is a major victory in the effort to restore the religious liberty that has been demolished by the Obama administration's actions this year," Boehner said.

The Obama administration had argued in a 76-page response that the Newlands’ challenge “rests largely on the theory” that a for-profit, secular corporation can claim to exercise a religion and avoid laws regulating commercial activity.

background

The 35-page complaint Newland v. Sebelius, was filed in April in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado and U.S. District Judge John Kane is expected to issue an opinion Friday denying or granting the injunction. Defendants named in the lawsuit include Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Department of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

The Newlands argue that the mandate forces them to “violate their deeply held religious beliefs” and unconstitutionally coerces them to violate those Catholic beliefs under threat of fines and penalties, according to court documents.

Nice find, OP.

If there is an exclusion from purchasing insurance because of your practicing religious beliefs in Obamacare (Islam forbids insurance), then these folks should be able to decide not to insure those activities that are contrary to their Christian beliefs. AND, its not like they don't offer their employees insurance! From what I gathered from the reading is they need to know where they stand, because they're renewing their plan in November!.

I mean, enough is enough.

reply to post by PlantGirl


Um what are you babbling about? Did you bother to even look it up yourself?

“Dhimmitude” and the Muslim Exemption

Kathleen Sebelius put it nicely;

Healthcare decisions should be between women and their doctors, not their employers.

A similiar case was dismissed on July 17th in Nebraska.