Yesterday,
Judge Brian Cogan of the United States District Court for the Eastern District
of New York, not only struck down Obamacare's contraception
mandate as applied to religious non-profit organizations, but also sent a
strong signal that federal courts were losing patience with President Obama's
many stitches of executive power.
Previous
courts had ruled against President Obama's contraception mandate as applied to
for-profit entities (see Sebelius v Hobby Lobby), but this was the
first court to hold that participating in Obama's scheme to provide free birth
control is a substantial burden on the free practice of religion (specifically
the Catholic Archdiocese of New York and its affiliate organizations).
The contraception
mandate "directly compels plaintiffs, through the threat of onerous
penalties, to undertake actions that their religion forbids," Cogan wrote.
"There is no way that a court can, or should, determine that a coerced
violation of conscience is of insufficient quantum to merit constitutional
protection."
Cogan
forcefully rejected three key Obama defenses of the mandate. First, on the
government's claim that there was a compelling interest in uniform enforcement
of the contraception mandate, Cogan wrote:....To Read More....
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