Family-Run Business Tells Supreme Court: Stop Obama’s HHS Mandate

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 10, 2014   |   2:44PM   |   Washington, DC

A family-run business filed papers with the Supreme Court today telling the high court that it must stop the “unjust” Obamcare mandate that requires companies to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees.

This is the companion case to the legal challenge the Supreme Court accepted from Hobby Lobby.

Alliance Defending Freedom and allied attorneys representing a Pennsylvania Mennonite family and its woodworking business filed their opening brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Friday in one of two major legal challenges to the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate that the high court agreed in November to hear.

“Unjust laws are not valid laws. The government shouldn’t be allowed to punish Americans for exercising their constitutionally protected freedoms,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel David Cortman. “The administration has no business whatsoever forcing citizens to choose between making a living and living free.”

“Job creators don’t give up their fundamental freedoms when they get a business license,” added Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “Every American has a right to fully and freely participate in every area of public life.”

The Hahns are Mennonite Christians in Pennsylvania who asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review their case, Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled 2-1 against them. The decision conflicts with most other circuits and with the vast majority of rulings on the mandate so far.

The brief filed Friday explains that the Obama administration’s “argument is inconsistent with the reality of religious activity in Americans’ daily lives. There is no separating the Hahns’ faith from their business or its actions. The members of the Hahn family, as Mennonite Christians, practice their faith in everything they do, including the running of their business…. The Mandate…forces them to choose between violating their religious convictions and incurring ruinous fines and lawsuits. No compelling interest justifies imposing such a Hobson’s choice, particularly given the government’s exclusion of thousands of other employers from the Mandate’s scope.”

“If the government can force Americans to violate their deepest, most heartfelt convictions, there’s no stopping what government can do. If freedom of conscience isn’t preserved, then all of our freedoms are in jeopardy,” said co-counsel Randall Wenger, chief counsel of the Independence Law Center.

The mandate could cost the family $95,000 per day if it doesn’t agree to live contrary to its Christian convictions, according to 3rd Circuit Judge Kent Jordan’s dissent in the case. The mandate forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy financial penalties if the mandate’s requirements aren’t met.

The Supreme Court has set the date for oral arguments for Hobby Lobby’s challenge to the Obama HHS mandate. The nation’s highest court will hear debate from attorneys representing the Christian-owned business and the Obama administration on Tuesday, March 25 at 10 a.m.

The Obama administration is attempting to make it comply with the HHS mandate that compels religious companies to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees. However, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a landmark case addressing the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of business owners to operate their family companies without violating their deeply held religious convictions. This is good news to the Green family, who own the store.

“This is a major step for the Greens and their family businesses in an important fight for Americans’ religious liberty,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and lead lawyer for Hobby Lobby. “We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will clarify once and for all that religious freedom in our country should be protected for family business owners like the Greens.”

The Obama administration says it is confident it will prevail, saying, “We believe this requirement is lawful…and are confident the Supreme Court will agree.”

A December 2013 Rasmussen Reports poll shows Americans disagree with forcing companies like Hobby Lobby to obey the mandate.

“Half of voters now oppose a government requirement that employers provide health insurance with free contraceptives for their female employees,” Rasmussen reports.

The poll found: “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 38% of Likely U.S. Voters still believe businesses should be required by law to provide health insurance that covers all government-approved contraceptives for women without co-payments or other charges to the patient.

Fifty-one percent (51%) disagree and say employers should not be required to provide health insurance with this type of coverage. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.”

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Another recent poll found 59 percent of Americans disagree with the mandate.

Conestoga Wood Specialties owners Norman Hahn, Elizabeth Hahn, Norman Lemar Hahn, Anthony H. Hahn, and Kevin Hahn desire to run their company, a wholesale manufacturer of custom wood cabinet parts, in a manner that reflects their Christian beliefs, including their belief that God requires respect for the sanctity of human life.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys are lead counsel in the case together with co-counsel Wenger of the Independence Law Center and Charles Proctor III of the Pennsylvania firm Proctor, Lindsay & Dixon. They are two of nearly 2,300 attorneys allied with Alliance Defending Freedom.