The Nuns Fought the Law (and the Nuns Won)

[Valin]

Breakpoint:

Eric Metaxas

May 18, 2016

 

Audio

 

Lots of bad news out there lately. But not today. Today we’ll talk about a big win for religious freedom.

 

On May 15th, the Supreme Court handed a big victory to the Little Sisters of the Poor and other Christian organizations that refused to go along with the HHS contraceptive mandate.

 

Not that you would know this if all you had to go on was the reaction of the mainstream media. When they weren’t downplaying the impact of the court’s three-page ruling remanding the cases to the lower courts, they were all-but-ignoring the story.

 

For instance, at the time this commentary is being written, there is no—that would be zero, zip, nada—mention of the story at the Washington Post’s homepage. There’s room for a story about a remake of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” that has some LGBT activists upset, and a story about a food truck owner who sacrificed his family’s pet poodle in the backyard barbecue, but nothing about a ruling about the first freedom, freedom of religion. Are you shocked?

 

(Snip)

[Draggingtree]

When You Have Property Rights, You Don’t Need Religious Freedom

12 HOURS AGO Ryan McMaken

This week, the Little Sisters of the Poor were granted a reprieve by the US Supreme Court from the Federal Government’s Obamacare health care mandates.

 

To summarize the case in two sentences: the Little Sisters didn’t like Obamacare’s mandates that employers pay for abortions. This meant the Little Sisters had to either pay for abortion services through their employee-provided health care plan, or they had to pay substantial fines.

 

On Monday, the Supreme Court told the lower courts to figure it out without violating the Little Sister’s religious views.

 

This is being hailed by many observers as a victory for religious freedom. And yet, court rulings and statutes protecting religious freedom were not at all necessary to preserve their religious freedom. The Sisters would have been far better protected by a respect for ordinary property rights.

 

After all, in a legislative environment that does not force people to pay for things they find immoral — based on any religious or secular ideology — the Little Sisters would have never been put in this position in the first place.

 

If the state respected the Little Sister’s right to contract freely with others, and to dispose of their lawfully-obtained property as they wished, then there is no question as to whether or not they should be forced to pay for someone else’s abortions. The answer is obviously that the Little Sisters should simply be left alone. Anyone who doesn’t agree with the Little Sisters’ health care plan for employees, need not work for the Little Sisters.

https://mises.org/blog/when-you-have-property-rights-you-don%E2%80%99t-need-religious-freedom

[Draggingtree]

The Right to Religious Freedom

The Little Sisters of the Poor face a dire threat to their religious freedom in the United States. Find out more about what the Catholic Church teaches on religious freedom, including the groundbreaking Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae) from the Second Vatican Council.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpPh6ymIhjg