ADF, Geneva College to reveal lawsuit against Obama mandate Tuesday

NEWS RELEASE

Alliance Defence  Fund

WHO: ADF Senior Counsel Gregory S. Baylor, Geneva College President Ken Smith

WHAT: Press conference announcing new lawsuit against Obama birth control/abortifacient mandate

WHEN: Tuesday, Feb. 21 at 1:30 p.m. EST

WHERE: Geneva College, 3200 College Ave., Skye Lounge Student Center, Beaver Falls

BEAVER FALLS, Pa. — Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Gregory S. Baylor will join Geneva College President Ken Smith Tuesday at a press conference to announce a new federal lawsuit against the Obama administration’s unconstitutional mandate that religious employers provide abortifacients, sterilization, and contraception to employees regardless of religious or moral objections.

“People of faith shouldn’t be punished by the state for following that faith in making decisions for themselves or their organizations,” said Baylor. “Every American should know that a government with the power to do this to anyone can do this–and worse–to everyone.”

ADF attorney sound bite: Gregory S. Baylor

“At Geneva College, we only have one Lord, and he does not live in Washington, D.C.,” Smith said. “The First Amendment protects Americans from mandates that require us to act against our own convictions. We find the mandate to provide our faculty, staff, and students with insurance that provides pills to abort babies totally abhorrent and unacceptable. The government shouldn’t be able to force anyone to buy or sell insurance that subsidizes morally objectionable treatments.”

The lawsuit, Geneva College v. Sebelius, will be filed in federal court Tuesday.

Geneva College is a comprehensive Christian college of the arts, sciences, and professional studies founded in the tradition of the Reformed Presbyterian faith. According to its website, Geneva provides “an academically rigorous education comprised of distinctive and innovative courses. Geneva offers over 40 undergraduate majors and seven master’s degree programs.”


ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

Legal challenges to resist federal health care law being prepared in 47 states

Members of legislatures in at least 47 U.S. states are preparing a variety of legislative measures to “limit, alter or oppose” the implementation of the federal Affordable Care Act.  Many states have already passed laws or constitutional revisions for this purpose.[National Conference of State Legislatures]

 

Bills in states proposed in reaction to controversial federal birth control mandate

Following a hearing held by a committee of the Idaho legislature, Rep. Carlos Bilbao will revise a bill he has proposed to prevent a federal birth control regulation from forcing objecting employers to provide insurance for surgical sterilization, contraceptives, and embryocidal drugs. [Deseret News]  Senator John Moolenaar has introduced the Religious Liberty and Conscience Protection Act in the Michigan state legislature [Midland Daily News].  It is a broad protection of conscience bill that covers individual health care providers and facilities,both with respect to direct participation and direct or indirect payment for objectionable procedures. Bills have also been proposed in Missouri and Arizona to counter the federal regulation.  If the bills pass, the federal government may go to court to have them struck down in order to enforce the federal law.  [ABC News]

 

Transgender kids get puberty-blocking drugs, sex-changing hormones; MDs say numbers are rising

Washington Post

Associated Press

CHICAGO – A small but growing number of teens and even younger children who think they were born the wrong sex are getting support from parents and from doctors who give them sex-changing treatments, according to reports in the medical journal Pediatrics.

It’s an issue that raises ethical questions, and some experts urge caution in treating children with puberty-blocking drugs and hormones.

An 8-year-old second-grader in Los Angeles is a typical patient. Born a girl, the child announced at 18 months, “I a boy” and has stuck with that belief. The family was shocked but now refers to the child as a boy and is watching for the first signs of puberty to begin treatment, his mother told The Associated Press. . . [Full text]

 

 

UK human rights chairman wants freedom of religion restricted

Trevor Phillips, the chairman of Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, has said that religious believers should not be free to adhere to their own tenets when acting in the public domain.  “Once you start to provide public services that have to be run under public rules, for example child protection, then it has to go with public law,” he said.  He agreed with the court ruling that forced the closure of all Catholic adoption agencies in Britain because they objected to adoption by persons identified as homosexual.  [The Telegraph]