A Christian-owned business suing the government over a mandate requiring most businesses to offer potential abortion-inducing drugs is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case.
Conestoga Wood Specialties, in Lancaster, Pa., filed the suit last year. Its owners, a Mennonite family, want to run the company according to their faith.
"The religious liberty of Americans is not something that should be withheld or dispensed by the government as it arbitrarily sees fit," said Charles W. Proctor III, lead counsel of the Independence Law Center (ILC), representing the Hahn family, along with Alliance Defending Freedom.
Earlier this month, the full 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to review an earlier three-judge-panel decision supporting the mandate.
The Obama administration required for-profits to comply with the Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate by August 2012. Nonprofits get a "safe harbor" until January 2014.
"Americans should be free to live out their faith in all areas of life — including the way they run their business," said ILC Chief Counsel Randall Wenger.
He's hopeful the Supreme Court will understand this and the "heart-wrenching violation of conscience that it would be to the Hahns to deny them that right."
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Contact: Bethany Monk, Source: CitizenLink
