The Battle-Lines Are Being Established: The Affordable Care Act vs. Religious Conscience

In my previous blog, I wrote of the Christian-owned company (Hobby Lobby) who won a federal court victory over the requirement to purchase health insurance (i.e., Obamacare) for their employees that provides abortion-inducing drugs … or face crippling fines. 

 

Now another Christian-owned company – Conestoga Wood Specialties Corporation – has received a different ruling.  This Mennonite-owned company sued the federal government over the mandate to provide health insurance coverage for birth control such as the "morning-after" pill.  The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision against the company.

 

Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Matt Bowman tells OneNewsNow.com the ruling is the opposite of those obtained by Hobby Lobby and other companies.  “In fact, of the 32 companies that have sought injunctions to protect them from this Obamacare mandate for abortion pills, 25 of those have gotten injunctions,” he says.  In effect, what the court said is that the owners must leave their faith behind when they walk through the doors of the company.

 

Conestoga operates five manufacturing facilities across the United States – three in Pennsylvania and one each in North Carolina and Washington – according to the company website.  The website states the company was started in 1964; but there is no mention of its Mennonite background.  The business is owned by the Hahn family, which calls it “sinful and immoral” for the company to provide health insurance coverage for Plan B (the morning-after pill).

 

Attorney Bowman says ADF will pursue legal options, including the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.  “If the opinion of this court of appeals stands then, yes, the U.S. Supreme Court has to resolve this issue and we are going to fight to protect the religious freedom of this family,” Bowman says.

 

Yet, again, we have another case of Christians exercising their 1st amendment rights of religious conscience as they seek to distinguish rendering to Caesar [the government] verse rendering to God. 

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel