Here's the opening:
Last Friday, capping off a week filled with disturbing revelations of bureaucratic incompetence and presidential mendacity concerning Obamacare, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the “reform” law’s notorious contraception mandate. On behalf of the majority, Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote that the mandate would force the plaintiffs in Gilardi v. HHS to choose between bankruptcy and violating their religious beliefs: “They can either abide by the sacred tenets of their faith, pay a penalty of over $14 million and cripple the companies they have spent a lifetime building, or they become complicit in a grave moral wrong.”This looks like it will be headed to the US Supreme Court. Read the full text for more.
This, the court ruled, violates the constitutional rights of plaintiffs Francis and Philip Gilardi. The Gilardi brothers own Freshway Foods as well as Freshway logistics and provide health insurance for their 400 employees through a third-party administrator. They also oppose contraception, sterilization, and abortion. Thus, Freshway’s employee health plan excludes coverage of products and services related to those practices. Believing that the contraception mandate violates their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment, the Gilardis filed a lawsuit against the government last January...
