Judge Dismisses Suit: HHS Mandate No Threat to Religious Freedom

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I like that they included so much of the ruling so we can see what the argument is going to be. This is precedent-setting, very possibly:
Jackson wrote: “The challenged regulations do not demand that plaintiffs alter their behavior in a manner that will directly and inevitably prevent plaintiffs from acting in accordance with their religious beliefs. Frank O’Brien is not prevented from keeping the Sabbath, from providing a religious upbringing for his children, or from participating in a religious ritual such as communion. Instead, plaintiffs remain free to exercise their religion, by not using contraceptives and by discouraging employees from using contraceptives. The burden of which plaintiffs complain is that funds, which plaintiffs will contribute to a group health plan, might, after a series of independent decisions by health care providers and patients covered by OIH’s plan, subsidize someone else’s participation in an activity that is condemned by plaintiffs’ religion. This Court rejects the proposition that requiring indirect financial support of a practice, from which plaintiff himself abstains according to his religious principles, constitutes a substantial burden on plaintiff’s religious exercise.”
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“[T]he health care plan will offend plaintiffs’ religious beliefs only if an OIH employee (or covered family member) makes an independent decision to use the plan to cover counseling related to or the purchase of contraceptives. Already, OIH and Frank O’Brien pay salaries to their employees—money the employees may use to purchase contraceptives or to contribute to a religious organization. By comparison, the contribution to a health care plan has no more than a de minimus impact on the plaintiff’s religious beliefs than paying salaries and other benefits to employees,” Jackson added.
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I swear, the judges are either blind, stupid, or anti-Christian… it’s the only possible explanation.

The mandate forces us to violate our conscience and act against our religious values… how could they possibly construe that as NOT violating our religious freedoms?

I vote we buy an island and abandon this cesspool of a nation.
 
Good afternoon, all,

If I was Frank O’Brien, I’d liquidate my business, retire early and tell the judge to shove his ruling where the sun don’t shine.

God loves all of you, lurkers, too,
Don
 
That actually doesn’t sound like a bad idea.
ProdglArchitect said:
I swear, the judges are either blind, stupid, or anti-Christian… it’s the only possible explanation.

The mandate forces us to violate our conscience and act against our religious values… how could they possibly construe that as NOT violating our religious freedoms?

I vote we buy an island and abandon this cesspool of a nation.
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I suspect things like this are always going to be an issue in a liberal society (no, not liberal as in the opposite of conservative, the older meaning). No society can have 100% religious freedom. Where do we draw the line? Why?
 
donsnow said:
Good afternoon, Jeffery and ProdigalArchitect,

But, would our island have a Dairy Queen? 😛

God loves ya’ll,
Don
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I’ll open the Dairy Queen! I’d even introduce a few new blizzard flavors. Now, about that island…
 
donsnow said:
Good afternoon, Jeffery and ProdigalArchitect,

But, would our island have a Dairy Queen? 😛

God loves ya’ll,
Don
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… maybe… sadly, we would not be able to have Braums, so Dairy Queen would have to do. No McDonald’s though; the McFlurries have tempted me one too many times 😛

It would be nice though, to be able to abandon this country for one with some actual morals.
 
Jackson wrote: “The challenged regulations do not demand that plaintiffs alter their behavior in a manner that will directly and inevitably prevent plaintiffs from acting in accordance with their religious beliefs. Frank O’Brien is not prevented from keeping the Sabbath, from providing a religious upbringing for his children, or from participating in a religious ritual such as communion. Instead, plaintiffs remain free to exercise their religion, by not using contraceptives and by discouraging employees from using contraceptives. The burden of which plaintiffs complain is that funds, which plaintiffs will contribute to a group health plan, might, after a series of independent decisions by health care providers and patients covered by OIH’s plan, subsidize someone else’s participation in an activity that is condemned by plaintiffs’ religion. This Court rejects the proposition that requiring indirect financial support of a practice, from which plaintiff himself abstains according to his religious principles, constitutes a substantial burden on plaintiff’s religious exercise.”
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So then aiding an abetting from a legal perspective is now ok so long as its only indirect participation ? Sure its immoral and illegal to do XYZ but I didn’t do it directly I just donated the $$ to Billy so he could buy the gun, lock picks, whatever to commit the act.

May God Have Mercy On Us All.

Pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.
 
Julia_Mae said:
I like that they included so much of the ruling so we can see what the argument is going to be. This is precedent-setting, very possibly:
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Do no see how this is any more than a precedent than the judge granting Hercules Industries a temporary injunction
 
Francis J. Manion, a pro-life attorney with the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), provides details to LifeNews about one of the cases:
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Late Friday afternoon, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri granted the Obama Administration’s Motion to Dismiss the case we filed against the HHS contraception/abortifacient mandate back in March of this year. In that case, we represent Frank O’Brien, Jr., a St. Louis businessman whose Catholic religious principles forbid him from paying for services such as contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs as part of his employee health plan. O’Brien is one of about 80 individuals, businesses and institutions that have sued the federal government on the grounds that the Mandate represents an unprecedented infringement upon our most cherished liberty, the right to the free exercise of religion.
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In a legally and logically flawed opinion dismissing O’Brien’s Amended Complaint, the Court held that being forced to pay for services that are directly contrary to someone’s religious beliefs was not a “substantial burden” on that person’s right to religious liberty. The court saw no difference between paying the salary of an employee who might use that salary to go out and buy things the boss objects to, and having the boss buy the objectionable things directly and hand them to the employee. Put another way, the court saw no difference between an employee cashing his paycheck and (unbeknownst to his boss) buying a gun, and shooting his neighbor, and a government mandate requiring the boss to set aside a specific amount of the employee’s paycheck each week in an expressly designated “gun buying/neighbor shooting fund” to be tapped into by the employee if and when the employee feels the need. In the court’s view, the government would not be placing a “substantial burden” on the religious liberty of any employer who might have religious scruples about the shooting of neighbors, since the employer wouldn’t be the one doing the shooting and he could never be sure if any of his employees would ever access the fund to actually shoot their neighbors.
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**Far from ending the case, Friday’s ruling was just the end of Round One. Cases of great constitutional import – like this one – are never decided at the District Court level. The losing side almost always appeals to the Circuit Court of Appeals and, after that, asks the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. And so in this case, the ACLJ, on O’Brien’s behalf, has already filed the necessary papers to bring the case before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. We expect that court to hear the matter within a matter of months.
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We are confident that Court of Appeals will reverse the decision of the district court**. One of the ironies of the district court’s ruling is that the basis of the court’s decision, i.e., that the HHS Mandate does not impose a substantial burden on the exercise of religion, is a position that the DOJ, in defending the Mandate, hardly mentioned in its briefs. There are two reasons for this: first, as shown above, it defies logic, common sense and applicable law; and, second, the government itself has acknowledged that the HHS Mandate does, in fact, impose a substantial burden on religious believers. After all, that’s why the Mandate as currently written already contains a “religious employer exemption,” albeit a weak and limited one. The Obama Administration recognizes the burden imposed by the Mandate. The fight has been over whether and in which cases that burden is outweighed by the other interests the Mandate seeks to advance. Nobody involved in this prolonged public controversy has seriously contended that that the Mandate does not burden religious believers. Until now.
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To paraphrase Churchill; with Friday’s ruling by the District Court, this is not the end. Nor is it the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning. The case moves on. The challenge continues. The ACLJ remains fully committed to seeing this struggle through to a successful end, whether at the U.S. Court of Appeals or, if necessary, at the Supreme Court of the United States.
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my emphases
 
_Abyssinia said:
Do no see how this is any more than a precedent than the judge granting Hercules Industries a temporary injunction
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It’s not precdedent setting. She based her ruling on the exemption in the mandate itself. That doesn’t really address the issue of whether the mandate fails to protect religious freedom. Also, she erroneously listed rights that fall under freedom of relious worship and not freedom of religion.

“Frank O’Brien is not prevented from keeping the Sabbath, from providing a religious upbringing for his children, or from participating in a religious ritual such as communion. Instead, plaintiffs remain free to exercise their religion”

(only they don’t remain free.)
 
_Abyssinia said:
Do no see how this is any more than a precedent than the judge granting Hercules Industries a temporary injunction
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Because it was a temporary injunction which means the court wants to hear arguments. In this case the judge dismissed with prejudice, made the argument in Constitutional terms, which closes the case. Now, this case can be cited by the government in the Colorado case, and others, as a precedent.
 
Julia_Mae said:
Because it was a temporary injunction which means the court wants to hear arguments. In this case the judge dismissed with prejudice, made the argument in Constitutional terms, which closes the case. Now, this case can be cited by the government in the Colorado case, and others, as a precedent.
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This case is far from closed. Court of appeals will reverse the decision made by the district court
 
_Abyssinia said:
This case is far from closed. Court of appeals will reverse the decision made by the district court
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The case is closed in the District Court. It can certainly be appealed to a higher court, which may or may not reverse or alter the decision. But until that happens, which can take a while, the District Court ruling can still be cited in other cases.
 
Dawnia said:
But it’s not binding precedents. No other court has to accept the district courts ruling.
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I didn’t say they would. Judges are politicians, too. In cases where they want to rule in a way that might look bad, they often rely on the rulings in other cases to justify what they want to do, anyway. They can also ignore one side’s precedent and invoke the opposition’s. In Colorado, the opposition doesn’t have any, afaik.
 
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