Obamacare and the Forfeiting of Religious Liberty

This is predictable, but chilling nonetheless.  CNS News reports that a Colorado family that has owned a business since 1962 and employs over 250 people is being told by the government that a private businesses cannot opt out of Obamacare mandates for religious reasons.  Apparently the Justice Department asserts that since an HVAC business is not a religious enterprise, the owners of that business have no right to exercise religious freedom in what medical procedures are included in policies offered to employees.

At issue are a mandate to cover procedures that include sterilization and abortifacient contraceptives.  The owners, the Newland family, are Catholic and those particular procedures go against their faith based ethical beliefs. 

In essence, the solution the Justice Department suggests is this:

If you have a religious objection to Obamacare then don't own a business.  

(More)

In a filing before the District Court of Colorado, the justice department argued: 

“Here, plaintiffs have not sufficiently alleged that the preventive services coverage regulations substantially burden their religious exercise,” the Justice Department told the court. “Hercules Industries, Inc., is not a religious employer; it is ‘an HVAC manufacturer.'”

“The First Amendment Complaint does not allege that the company is affiliated with a formally religious entity such as a church,” the Justice Department told the federal court. “Nor does it allege that the company employs persons of a particular faith. In short, Hercules Industries is plainly a for-profit, secular employer.”

“By definition,” the Justice Department claimed, “a secular employer does not engage in any ‘exercise of religion.’”

“Hercules Industries has ‘made no showing of a religious belief which requires that [it] engage in the [HVAC] business,” DOJ told the court. “Any burden is therefore caused by the company’s choice to enter into a commercial activity.”

So in other words, you are free to believe a certain way but not free to run a business according to your beliefs - you must toe the line.  One may believe a certain way as long as one does not let those beliefs have bearing on one's ethical decisions. 

The key line from our government is this: 

“The government argues that the Newlands forfeited their right to religious liberty as soon as they endeavored to earn their living by running a corporation”

Read that again.  The Obama administration is arguing that as soon as one owns an incorporated business, one forfeits the right to religious liberty.

The Company, Hercules Industries, has since won a temporary injunction gaining a reprieve from the legal ramifications of Obamacare.   The fact that it was necessary to even argue the case is cause for concern.  Conspiracy theories aside, the actions of the Obama administration and our Democratically controlled congress who passed the Health Care Law "so we could find out what's in it" (in the infamous words of Nancy Pelosi) indicate an elitist attitude that legitimately raises the question of tyranny.   I'm not sure why the Administration would argue that the US Constitution indicates business owners forfeit religious liberty, but that is their contention - at which point one wonders, just what does religious liberty mean?