DOJ Loses Again -- for the Umpteenth Time

As reported here, the Catholic Benefits Association (“CBA”), has obtained a preliminary injunction against the HHS Mandate -- the federal regulation requiring non-exempt health plans to include abortion-inducing drugs and contraception.  With this decision, a total of 59 preliminary injunctions, for both for-profit and non-profit entities, have been entered against the Mandate and only 8 requests for an injunction have been denied.  

The CBA was organized last year to assist Catholic employers in providing health benefits to their respective employees in a manner consistent with Catholic beliefs.  In order to provide stop-loss insurance to its members in a manner consistent with those beliefs, the CBA created the Catholic Insurance Company.  Similar to mutual funds that do not invest in companies with values or products antithetical to Scriptural and religious teachings (such as the Timothy Plan and Ave Maria Mutual Funds), the Catholic Insurance Company is a great step forward in allowing people of faith to make choices based on that faith; here, in helping both for-profit and non-profit organizations obtain insurance coverage for their employees in accordance with Catholic values.

We are especially pleased with the decision of the Oklahoma federal court because CBA member, Good Will Publishers, is included in the preliminary injunction.  Robert and Jacquelyn Gallagher, owners of Good Will Publishers, joined two amicus briefs the ACLJ filed with the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the HHS Mandate: a brief in support of Autocam, a Catholic and family owned business, and a brief in support of the challengers in Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood.

As we explained in our Hobby Lobby brief, for the Gallaghers -- like the other nineteen family business owners that joined our brief -- operating a business is not just about making a profit, “it is an important part of how they carry out and fulfill their personal and religious vocations and of how they serve God and others”:

Amici Robert and Jacquelyn Gallagher are owners of Good Will Publishers, Inc., which publishes Bibles and works of Catholic spirituality and instruction through its St. Benedict Press.  While the business could always earn extra profits by publishing any number of books, the Gallaghers have limited the company, and thus its profits, to publishing only books the Gallaghers believe are consistent with the Catholic faith.  To print or publish anything else, even if it meant a substantial increase in profits, would undercut a purpose and mission of the company that cannot be reduced to dollars and cents.  Thus, for the Gallaghers, Good Will Publishers and St. Benedict Press are not only profit-making endeavors, they are a religious undertaking.

As we further explained to the Court, for business owners like the Gallaghers, “wealth obtained at the expense of [religious] commitments is not true or authentic prosperity at all, but a spiritual poverty for which no amount of profit-making can substitute. These employers adhere to the words of Jesus, who asked, ‘For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?’”  Because of the financial penalties that result with failing to comply with the Mandate, the government has forced a stark choice on employers who oppose it: abandon their beliefs in order to stay in business, or abandon their businesses in order to stay true to their beliefs.

Thanks to the preliminary injunction now in place, the CBA and our friends at Good Will Publishers are protected in running their operations without having to violate their religious commitments.  Whether that injunction will become a permanent one depends squarely on what the Supreme Court does in the Hobby Lobby case.  And this holds true not just with the CBA and Good Will Publishers, but with the seven preliminary injunctions secured by the ACLJ, and with all other employers who have taken a courageous stand against the Mandate.

A decision in Hobby Lobby is expected sometime within the next three weeks.  There is no doubt about it -- it will be one of the most important religious liberty decisions ever handed down by the high court.  We will keep you posted.