Outrageous Assault on the Constitution
September 7th, 2017The Trump Administration must take swift action to protect religious liberty in America.
Churches in the Great State of California are being forced to pay for abortions as part of the health insurance plans they are required to provide employees. This gross assault on religious liberty rights began in 2014 when the California Department of Managed Health Care issued an edict declaring abortion to be a “basic health service”. Because of ObamaCare, that bureaucratic edict has the force of law.
And now a federal district court in California has apparently issued a ruling declaring that this ObamaCare rule wipes out the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Several churches in California filed a lawsuit against the State of California begging for relief from the courts. They argued that not only does the California rule violate the right to the free exercise of religion, it also violates federal law in the form of the Weldon Amendment designed to prevent the use of federal tax dollars to pay for abortions.
The federal judge dismissed the lawsuit brought by three churches last week, relying upon a ruling by the Obama Administration’s Justice Department that California’s mandate does not violate the Weldon Amendment.
Pro-Life members of Congress have already been working on the Trump Administration to fix this situation. According to LifeNews, a delegation recently met with Health & Human Services Secretary Tom Price, asking for a fresh review of the outrage in California and the application of the Weldon Amendment to policies sold in California.
It is difficult to understand how a federal judge is free to ignore the clear language of the Constitution, or the various Supreme Court rulings applying the First Amendment to this whole ObamaCare/Abortion Mandate controversy.
Ultimately, it is up to the Congress to destroy the monster which is ObamaCare. Let us pray that, after yet another vacation, Republicans in Congress return to work with a fresh sense of vigor to provide the leadership and relief they have promised.