Blog: Rep. DeSantis Statement on Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius

Statement

"I assure you very explicitly, that in my opinion the conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness; and it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be as extensively accommodated to them, as a due regard to the protection and essential interests of the nation may justify and permit."

--President George Washington, Letter to the Annual Meeting of Quakers (1789)

The Supreme Court heard arguments today in Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius, which presents the issue of whether it violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act for the government to force the owners of a family-run business to violate their religious beliefs by making them pay for abortifacients for their employees, or else face severe monetary fines.

The administration has granted exemptions from *statutory* mandates affecting employer-provided insurance writ large, enumerating minimal benefit requirements, and forcing individuals to buy government-directed insurance. The HHS mandate is an executive branch regulation which, unlike the above, can actually be lawfully amended by the administration to accommodate religious freedom. Yet, the Obama administration is even litigating against the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of Catholic nuns who care for the sick and elderly. How can the administration grant exemptions to powerful interests as a matter of course but refuse to accommodate the religious freedom of the Little Sisters or Hobby Lobby?

This case does not concern the availability or legality of contraceptives, and individuals can obtain and use these as they see fit. The question is simply whether the government can force the owners of Hobby Lobby to pay for abortifacients in violation of their faith.

Religious freedom is our first freedom which founders such as George Washington knew that government had a duty to preserve. I wish the Obama administration was willing to heed Washington's admonition about the need to "extensively accommodate" religious liberty.

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