Kerby Anderson

Earlier this month a federal judge struck down a government regulation that protected the Little Sisters of the Poor. Once again, they will have to go to court. The case has been going on for more than a decade. When we discussed it recently, one of my guests said she first heard about it and studied it while in law school.

When the Obama administration crafted the Affordable Care Act, they required that employer-sponsored insurance cover the cost of contraception. The nuns asked for an accommodation under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The case was only resolved near the end of the first term of the Trump Administration, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the sisters 7-2.

That should have been the end of the case, but two state attorneys general (Pennsylvania and New Jersey) were joined by other blue state attorneys general who focused on one part of the Supreme Court’s argument. They were eventually able to convince the federal judge to rule against the Little Sisters of the Poor.

This story illustrates how far liberals and progressives will go to force people to adopt their social and political views and subordinate their religious convictions. These nuns do not need contraception (which can also include abortifacients), but the persistence of these attorneys general and other Democratic leaders who are forcing this issue should be a warning to what might be coming. They aren’t just trying to win the battle of ideas. These politicians have continued to keep this case alive and to attack the nuns who have already been through more than a decade of litigation.

In one sense, this case with the Little Sisters of the Poor is a preview of coming attractions. The leaders in these blue states have demonstrated that they will demand complete obedience to whatever authoritarian rules they enact once they are in power.