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Excerpts from
CNS
article Obama Administration: We Can and Will Force Christians to Act Against Their Faith By Terence P. Jeffrey ~ December 30, 2012 |
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(CNSNews.com) - In a legal argument formally presented in federal court in the case of Hobby Lobby v. Kathleen Sebelius, the Obama administration is claiming that the First Amendment—which expressly denies the government the authority to prohibit the “free exercise” of religion—nonetheless allows it to force Christians to directly violate their religious beliefs even on a matter that involves the life and death of innocent human beings.
Because federal judges... have refused to grant an injunction protecting the owners of Hobby Lobby from being forced to act against their Christian faith, those owners will be subject to federal fines of up to $1.3 million per day starting Tuesday for refusing to include abortion-inducing drugs in their employee health plan.
The Obama administration is making a two-fold argument for why it can force Christians to act against their faith in complying with the regulation it has issued under the Obamacare law....
[1] ...Americans lose their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion when they form a corporation and engage in commerce. A person’s Christianity, the administration argues, cannot be carried out through activities he engages in through an incorporated business.....
[In effect] the Washington Post, as a corporation, can use its First Amendment-protected freedom of speech to write editorials in support of the Obama administration imposing its contraception mandate on businesses like Hobby Lobby. But the members of the family that created and owns Hobby Lobby, because they formed Hobby Lobby as a corporation, have no First Amendment freedom of religion that protects them from being forced by the government to act against their religious beliefs in providing abortion-inducing drugs....
[2] Here the administration argues it can force a person to act against his religion so long as the coercion is done under the authority of a law that is neutral and generally applicable—in other words, as long as the law was not written specifically to persecute Christians as Christians, the government can use that law to persecute Christians.
Hobby Lobby is a family business. David Green created it in his garage in Oklahoma City in 1972. ... it now operates 500 stores in 41 states. ... Through Hobby Lobby, the Greens have created more than 13,000 jobs....
The Greens, who are Evangelical Christians, do not suspend their religious beliefs while running their businesses. Instead, they strive to run them fully in accordance with their Christian beliefs. They are unanimous in stating that they have always “sought to run Hobby Lobby in harmony with God’s laws and in a manner which brings glory to God.” They do not have two sets of morals—one for when they are at church or at home and another for when they are working on their businesses. ... For example, they close their business on Sundays, so their employees can spend that day with their families, and they pay their full-time workers a minimum hourly wage of $13, which is far exceeds the federal minimum wage.
They also provide their employees with a generous self-insured health care plan, and they even operate an on-site, cost-free health clinic at their corporate headquarters. But, guided by their Christian faith, the Greens believe that human life begins at conception and that aborting on unborn life is wrong. ...
Will the Obama administration compel Christians to act against their faith? As of now, the answer seems plain: Starting Tuesday, it will.
"Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid nor dismayed before the king of Assyria [a tyrannical ruler], nor before all the multitude that is with him; for there are more with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles.'” 2 Chronicles 32:7
See also Deceit, Delusion and the Destruction of America
Spiritual Warfare, Part 3: Hating Truth and Primed for Deception!
Trusting God as Freedom Fades ~ Why they hate God's Word
Cry, our beloved America: Sliding Down the Communitarian Slope
The Cost of Discipleship & Nazi Religion versus "Religionless" Faith
