“What right do they have to do this, to take away our freedoms?” Mary Anne Yep, co-founder and vice president of Triune Health Group in Chicago, recently asked of the  Obama administration regarding the HHS Mandate. On Monday when the official comment period closed, thousands of individuals swamped the Department of Health and Human Services with concerns about the HHS Mandate and the effect it would have on religious liberty in the United States. The Heritage Foundation recently posted an update about HHS and the people against it:

After more than a year of public outrage, over 50 lawsuits against the anti-conscience mandate, and a federal judge’s demand that HHS fix its coercive mandate, the Administration published a “notice of proposed rule making” (NPRM) on February 6. That proposed rule neither changes the underlying mandate finalized in law and currently in effect nor provides any workable or adequate solutions to the mandate’s trampling on religious liberty.

Several organizations have published statements on the NPRM and HHS Mandate in general.  Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the Catholic bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty released a statement on Monday regarding the mandate: Read more on The Continued Fight Against the HHS Mandate…

Has there ever, in the history of America, been a presidential administration as dismissive of religious liberties as the Obama Administration?

The Administration seems to truly believe that when religious beliefs come into conflict with one of the President’s pet policies—such as employers being forced to pay for contraceptives and abortifacients—that religious liberties must be set aside. A prime example is the Administration’s idea that by forming a business entity intended to limit liability, a person loses their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

As CNSNews reports, during an oral argument in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last fall, a lawyer for the U.S. Justice Department told a federal judge that the Obama administration believed it could force the judge’s own wife—a physician—to act against her religious faith in the conduct of her medical practice.

Here is the exchange, from the official court transcript, between this Obama administration lawyer and Judge Walton:
Read more on Obama Administration to Federal Judge: We Can Force Your Wife to Violate Her Religion…

A quick news and analysis digest here on the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruling by the Supreme Court yesterday. Congratulations and thank you to the Becket Fund. To watch a two-hour Federalist Society panel discussion recorded in November on what is informally known as the Ministerial Exception case, visit YouTube.

Read more on Roundup: Supreme Court Rules on the Ministerial Exception Case…