WASHINGTON, D.C., March 9, 2015The U.S. Supreme Court threw out a lower court decision that originally favored the federal government today. This action revives the University of Notre Dame’s religious objection to the requirement for contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
“The Supreme Court took a big step in the direction of liberty and justice, said Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Conventions Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, commenting on Notre Dame v. Burwell. I pray that the present Administration will stop its reckless disregard of soul freedom and liberty of conscience.”
The justices asked the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision against the Roman Catholic university in light of the June 2014 Supreme Court ruling that allowed certain privately owned corporations to seek exemptions from the provision. The ERLC filed a “friend-of-the-court brief”:https://erlc.com/documents/pdf/20140128-amicus-hobbylobby-conestoga.pdf in January 2014 in that case, calling for the Supreme Court to rule in favor of Hobby Lobby and other family-owned businesses that have conscientious objections to a regulation that requires employers to provide abortion-causing drugs for their employees.
The Southern Baptist Convention is Americas largest Protestant denomination with more than 15.8 million members in over 46,000 churches nationwide. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is the SBCs ethics, religious liberty and public policy agency with offices in Nashville, Tenn., and Washington, D.C.
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