We praise God that, this past week, the Seventh Circuit ruled that owners of two closely held corporations (one in Indiana, the other in Illinois) could assert religious freedom rights against nationalized healthcare's contraception mandate. The Seventh Circuit entered preliminary injunctions against the federal government imposing any enforcement penalties against these two companies.
Quoting from...
the opinion:
...there are many ways to increase access to free contraception without doing damage to the religious-liberty rights of conscientious objectors. The plaintiffs have identified a few: The government can provide a “public option” for contraception insurance; it can give tax incentives to contraception suppliers to provide these medications and services at no cost to consumers; it can give tax incentives to consumers of contraception and sterilization services. No doubt there are other options.
The government has no real response to this argument. It has not made any effort to explain how the contraception mandate is the least restrictive means of furthering its stated goals of promoting public health and gender equality. (p. 63)
And for fellow pedants, this from Judge Rovner's dissent:
The Department of Labor potentially might fair better at the next, strict-scrutiny phase of the analysis. (p. 76)
Tim serves Clearnote Church, Bloomington, Indiana. He and Mary Lee have five children and big lots of grandchildren.
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