WASHINGTON, D.C., March 25, 2014As oral arguments begin today for the consolidated religious liberty cases Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius, Russell D. Moore, president of the The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, offered a statement of support for the plaintiffs.
Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Wood and other family-owned businesses have conscientious objections to a federal regulation that requires employers to provide abortion-causing drugs for their employees under the Affordable Care Act.
Moore reacts to todays oral arguments:
The government doesnt grant us religious liberty; God does. The government is to recognize that God-given natural right for all persons to freely exercise their religious convictions. This case will determine the next 100 years of church/state jurisprudence. Whats at stake is the heritage our forefathers bought with their blood. More than that, whats at stake is the truth that God alone, and not Caesar, is Lord of the conscience.
The ERLC filed a friend-of-the-court “brief”:https://erlc.com/documents/pdf/20140128-amicus-hobbylobby-conestoga.pdf Oct. 21, 2013, urging the Supreme Court to review lower rulings on the Obama administrations abortion/contraception mandate for the purpose of striking down the controversial rule. Douglas Laycock, a recognized leading authority on religious-liberty law and University of Virginia School of Law professor, drafted the amici brief.
For-profit companies are not currently exempt from the HHS Mandate. The Supreme Court will issue its decision before the end of the Summer 2014 term.
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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