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A federal judge granted an injunction this weekend that prevents the government from enforcing the ObamaCare mandate requiring religious groups across the country to provide insurance that includes access to the morning-after pill and other contraceptives. The preliminary injunction, issued in an Oklahoma City federal court, is based on a class-action lawsuit filed in October by 187 ministries. The court order Friday came just days before ObamaCare coverage begins January 1, which could have resulted in the ministries facing thousands of dollars a day in tax penalties.

Health Reform: In yet another legal blow to the president's signature law, a federal judge rules that its contraceptive mandate does not trump Catholic groups' right to exercise their religious liberty and conscience. Religious liberty advocates and First Amendment defenders are cheering the stunning decision by U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan in New York that promises to speed up the unraveling of ObamaCare. Cogan not only found that the Health and Human Services (HHS) regulation that requires health insurance to include contraceptive coverage was constitutionally questionable, he actually forbade HHS from enforcing it. As the New York Post details, in...

Meltdown: A health care scholar estimates that if ObamaCare is fully implemented, including the employer mandate, 129 million people will not be able to keep their plans. The train wreck has become a nuclear meltdown. The never-ending and ever-changing story line emanating from the damage control room at the White House has morphed from you can keep your plan, period, to we said you could keep the plan you liked at the rates agreed upon only if we decide it's not substandard. That, we were told, would only apply to some 5% of Americans. They would get a better plan...

Following on yesterday’s 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Hobby Lobby can continue its lawsuit against the Obama administration’s contraception mandate on religious grounds, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma ruled today that the federal government must halt all enforcement of the mandate (and related financial penalties) against the Christian-based company. Hobby Lobby and sister company Mardel are suing the Department of Health and Human Services and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, arguing that to force the company to pay for health insurance that must offer abortion-inducing drugs, as well as sterilization and contraception, is a violation...

The White House ruled Friday that employees of religious-affiliated, nonprofit institutions would receive insurance coverage for birth control under Obamacare, ensuring more legal challenges to the rule. "[Friday's] announcement reinforces our commitment to respect the concerns of houses of worship and other nonprofit religious organizations that object to contraceptive coverage, while helping to ensure that women get the care they need, regardless of where they work," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Early last year, the Obama administration said that universities, hospitals, and other employers with a religious affiliation could avoid paying directly for contraceptives. Under that Obamacare...

A federal appeals court in Denver has reversed a lower court's decision to deny Hobby Lobby Stores Inc.'s quest for an injunction against part of the Affordable Care Act that requires it to cover the cost of emergency contraceptives for some of its employees. In a 168-page ruling issued Thursday, the appellate court sent Hobby Lobby case back to a lower court for further review. The panel of nine appellate court judges who heard arguments in the case in May ruled unanimously that Hobby Lobby and its affiliated Christian bookstore chain Mardel have the right to sue over the Affordable...

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(AP) Judge: US can't make Monaghan offer contraceptives DETROIT A judge has blocked the federal government from requiring the founder of Domino's Pizza to provide mandatory contraception coverage to his employees under the health care law. U.S. District Judge Lawrence Zatkoff on Thursday granted a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the contraception provision of the law against Tom Monaghan and Domino's Farms Corp. near Ann Arbor, Mich.

In the olden days miners brought canaries into mines because canaries were very sensitive to toxic fumes and would keel over quickly, giving the miners time to escape before they were rendered unconscious. The HHS mandate is serving a similar function in modern American culture. It's making it clear that liberals believe in an all-powerful government, not the government empowered by the people that is enshrined in the Constitution. Historically in America, the government has rarely collided with the religious beliefs of even extreme groups. A few exceptions, such as Mormon polygamy, were based on common values shared by the...

Actually, the answer is no, and it wasn’t intended to do so either, as I write in a new column for The Fiscal Times. The Obama administration was under a court order to modify the mandate regulation after a legal representation to a federal court that HHS never intended to enforce the mandate in its then-current form. The court ruled that a binding commitment and ordered HHS to submit a new regulation for their review by March 31st. Yesterday’s release of the new regulation is intended to win the court’s approval in dismissing a lawsuit brought by Belmont Abbey College...

The Pope Was Right All Along by Russell Shaw on January 11, 2013 ·  The disruptive results for individuals and society spawned by the revolution in attitudes and behavior regarding sex, marriage, family, and childbearing that erupted a half-century ago have become too obvious to ignore. These things were predictable–in fact, some people actually predicted them from the start–but by now their impact has grown so painfully apparent that even secular voices are being raised in alarm.The problems are increasingly visible in the United States. They include an aging population with fewer young workers to support the elderly, along...

Okay here's an idea. Forget about paying for the contraceptives for those brash, "busy",child-bearing years, whiny 50 and under, female crowd. Hire the workplace experienced, life-experienced, in-need-of-employment over 50 crowd. We are, after all, the ones that need our social security paid for. We might need more time off due to arthritis and aches and pains, but at least the medication for those discomforts aren't against the consciences of businesses. Males young and old would be a good choice, too. Haven't heard them whining about having to pay for "birth" control.

The numbers are in, and they are grim. TIME Magazine has given us “Four Ways Women Won the 2012 Election.” They begin by exulting that Obama got 55% of the female vote; 67% of single women voted for him. Number four on TIME‘s list is this: “Republican men with extreme views on abortion lost their elections.” After – of course – using Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin and Richard “God Intended” Mourdock as representative examples of pro-life candidates, they went on to add: In rebuking such candidates, “voters sent a clear message last night that they’re tired of a backwards-looking agenda...

More than 40 percent of adolescent girls, ages 15 to 19, are sexually active, according to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. And some 750,000 teen girls get pregnant every year. So what did ACOG recommend this week to prevent teen pregnancies? Offer under-age girls “long-acting reversible contraception” – intrauterine devices (IUDs) and contraceptive implants. “I absolutely think that teens should be using these methods as first line,” Dr. Lisa Perriera, an ACOG member, an OB/GYN at CaseMedicalCenter in Cleveland, told ABC News. “The important thing for teens to know,” she said, “is that these devices are an on/off...

A Christian-owned chain of hobby shops is facing a bitter backlash after suing the Obama administration over new requirements to provide insured employees with contraceptive and abortion coverage. .....

It’s been quite a year for Georgetown University Law graduate Sandra Fluke, who fell into the spotlight after conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh called her a “slut” in February. The 31-year-old also spoke at the DNC this week, and Rep. Joe Walsh is not impressed. The Republican politician said during a Saturday campaign stop that Fluke needs to just “get a job” already. --snip-- “So at the Democratic Convention Wednesday night their first prime time speaker was Sandra Fluke, whatever her name is. Think about this, a 31-32 year old law student who has been a student for life, who gets...

August 1, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Christianity Today, the flagship magazine of Evangelical Protestantism in the United States, has published a spate of articles questioning the practice of contraception in recent months, accentuating a trend against birth control among Evangelicals that has been accelerating during the last half-decade. The publication’s latest installment on the topic is a review of “Adam and Eve and the Pill,” by Catholic writer Mary Eberstadt, which defends her thesis that contraception, and particularly the contraceptive pill, is the “Pandora’s box” of the sexual revolution. “As Eberstadt sees it, the contraceptive pill has launched us into a...

I’ve been reflecting on some of the comments on my most recent post. Again and again, gay marriage advocates come to the debate insisting that marriage is a fundamental civil right, which begs the question. This assumption would not be possible if certain logical fallacies did not already commonly exist.First, there is the false notion that marriage is a right. Marriage is not a right — not for anyone — it is a license. The difference between freedom and license no longer being widely understood, an easy way to distinguish a right from a license is that in the case...

August 16, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In July, LifeSiteNews broke the story of Catholic Relief Services, “the official overseas relief and development agency of the USCCB,” granting $5.3 million to CARE, a pro-contraception and pro-abortion organization. Since then, numerous blogs have picked up the story—and investigated further. “Red State” has reported on CRS as a dues-paying member of both the pro-conraception CORE Group and the pro-abortion group MEDiCAM. “Societas Restituo Catholicam” has the evidence on MEDiCAM in a detailed post showing visual proof of the company’s “firm commitment to expanding abortion” since 2005. In a press release, CRS said their...

I often keep the Catholic network EWTN on in the background as I do housework. This afternoon featured live programming from the 130th Supreme Convention of the Catholic fraternal and charitable organization the Knights of Columbus from Anaheim, California. It's estimated that around 2,000 members of the Knights of Columbus will attend the convention. The theme of this year's convention is Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land. At the opening session of the convention the Knights announced they had letters of greeting from leaders of several of the nations with large representations at the meeting. The first one read was...