Hospitals’ religious liberty & the Supreme Court

December 8, 2016, Baptist Press

Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said the lawyers involved in challenging the health-care systems “are like Robin Hood in reverse: stealing from hospitals who serve the poor in order to line their own pockets.”

“What’s worse is that they want the Court to declare that Christian hospital ministries aren’t actually part of the church,” Rassbach said in in a written release. “We hope the Court will reject their crabbed view of Christian charity.”

Greens, Abedini to be honored at SBC meeting

Baptist Press, June 6, 2014

More than 300 parties –- some non-profit organizations and some for-profit corporations — have combined to file 97 lawsuits against HHS, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has led a diverse effort challenging the mandate. Conestoga Wood Specialties, owned by a pro-life Amish family in Pennsylvania, is a party with Hobby Lobby in the Supreme Court case, which deals only with for-profit companies. The cases involving non-profits have yet to work their way up to the high court.

GuideStone sues HHS on Obamacare abortion mandate

Baptist Press, October 14, 2013

“The government’s refusal to treat these ministries as ‘religious employers’ is senseless,” said Mark Rienzi, senior counsel for the Becket Fund, in a written release. “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.”

High court may be near HHS mandate review

Baptist Press, July 30, 2013

Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, told Baptist Press, “That split is likely to deepen as other courts of appeals weigh in. It seems to us that the Supreme Court needs to resolve the issue. The split’s only going to get deeper.”

German homeschoolers face harassment, jail

Baptist Press, April 23, 2013

Eric Rassbach of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty agrees. Rassbach co-wrote a Becket Fund amicus brief in favor of the Romeikes. He says the German law not only contradicts an American sense of religious liberty, “I don’t think it fits with the overall idea of human rights.”