WASHINGTON-A federal judge Friday issued a preliminary injunction stopping enforcement of the Obama administration’s mandate against a Bible publisher represented by Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys. The administration argued that Tyndale House Publisher isn’t religious enough for an exemption from the mandate, a component of ObamaCare that forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for sterilization and contraception under threat of heavy penalties.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ‘s order is the third nationwide against the mandate and the second obtained by Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys. The parties will return to Walton’s court for arguments on whether to issue a permanent injunction, but Walton did not set a specific date for those proceedings.
Walton’s order applies only to Tyndale House Publisher’s, which is the world’s largest privately held Christian publisher of books, Bibles, and digital media. The company directs 96.5 percent of its profits to religious non-profit causes worldwide.
“Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” said Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman, who argued before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Nov. 9. “The court has done the right thing in halting the mandate while our lawsuit moves forward. For the government to say that a Bible publisher is not religious is startling. It demonstrates how clearly the Obama administration is willing to disregard the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom to achieve certain political purposes.”
In his opinion accompanying a preliminary injunction order in the case of “Tyndale House Publishers v. Sebelius,” Judge Walton wrote that “the beliefs of Tyndale and its owners are indistinguishable…. Christian principles, prayer, and activities are pervasive at Tyndale, and the company’s ownership structure is designed to ensure that it never strays from its faith-oriented mission. The Court has no reason to doubt, moreover, that Tyndale’s religious objection to providing insurance coverage for certain contraceptives reflects the beliefs of Tyndale’s owners.
“Nor is there any dispute that Tyndale’s primary owner, the Foundation, can ‘exercise religion’ in its own right, given that it is a non-profit religious organization; indeed, the case law is replete with examples of such organizations asserting cognizable free exercise and RFRA [Religious Freedom Restoration Act] challenges.”
Walton noted that the government has broad, compelling interests in promoting public health and ensuring that women have equal access to health care. However he wrote that the question “is whether the government has shown that the application of the contraceptive coverage mandate to the plaintiffs furthers those compelling interests,” underlying “to the plaintiffs” in the text. Walton said that the government hasn’t offered any proof that mandatory insurance for the specific types of contraceptives that Tyndale objects to furthers the government’s compelling interests.