High Court Strikes Down Abortion Clinic Buffer Zones - CBNNews.com Thursday, June 26, 2014

High Court Strikes Down Abortion Clinic Buffer Zones 

CBNNews.com Thursday, June 26, 2014

The Supreme Court handed a victory to pro-lifers Thursday.

The justices unanimously struck down a 2007 Massachusetts law that created a 35-foot protest-free zone outside abortion clinics in Massachusetts.

The high court ruled a buffer zone 35 feet from the entrances of clinics violates the First Amendment rights of protesters.

Chief Justice John Roberts says authorities can deal with problems outside abortion clinics in less intrusive ways.

"Americans have the freedom to talk to whomever they please on public sidewalks," said Mark Rienzi, an allied attorney of Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization that filed the lawsuit in McCullen v. Coakley.

"That includes peaceful pro-lifers like Eleanor McCullen, who just wants to offer information and help to women who would like it," he continued. "The Supreme Court has affirmed a critical freedom that has been an essential part of American life since the nation's founding."

Attorneys at Americans United for Life filed amicus curiae briefs twice in the Supreme Court. They argued the law, which was enforceable through criminal sanctions, was unconstitutional.

"In a brazen affront to the First Amendment, Massachusetts government officials had sought to use the threat of arrest and criminal conviction to silence those offering women life-affirming alternatives to abortion," AUL president and CEO Charmaine Yoest charged.

"The Supreme Court rightly rejected this unlawful attempt to deny pro-life Americans their First Amendment rights," Yoest said.

Ministries File Class Action Suit over HHS Mandate

CBNNews.com

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

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The Southern Baptist Convention's GuideStone health plan and two other non-profit religious groups are suing the Obama administration over its contraception coverage mandate.

That Obamacare mandate forces all employers to provide birth control coverage to employees, including drugs that may cause abortions.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is suing the Obama administration on behalf of GuideStone, the Oklahoma-based Reaching Souls International, and Truett-McConnell College in Georgia.

Their class-action lawsuit actually includes more than 100 ministries that participate in GuideStone's health benefits plan.

"The very purpose of the GuideStone plan is to provide ministry organizations with employee health benefits according to biblical principles," said O.S. Hawkins, GuideStone's President and CEO. "The government shouldn't prohibit us from continuing in that ministry."

The three organizations argue the contraception mandate is "an assault on biblical convictions and an attack on religious liberty."

The Obama administration has said churches and a narrowly defined category of religious organizations are exempt. But the administration is still threatening devastating penalties to many other ministry organizations, like Christian colleges, missions organizations, and family ministries.
 
"The government's refusal to treat these ministries as 'religious employers' is senseless," Mark Rienzi, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said in a written statement.

"These people spend their lives teaching and preaching their religious faith - if they do not qualify as 'religious employers,' the government needs to get a new definition," Rienzi said.

For more: CBN News