Refusing to respect the Constitution; the Church Amendment, which protects the conscience rights of doctors; or a 2016 court case brought by a religious hospital and more than 20,000 health care professionals, the Biden administration maintains it has sufficient authority to punish groups that don’t perform gender “transition” surgery and abortions. Following a pathway blazed by President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 2016, rejecting conscience objections, the Biden administration breathed new life into the left’s open season on religious hospitals and physicians.
Open season was initially closed because the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty stepped in to swiftly secure a preliminary injunction against the original rule in 2016. After all, the original HHS rule violated the Administrative Procedures Act and likely violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Confirming this analysis, on January 21, 2021, a district court ruled in favor of Catholic groups contesting the HHS rule. Hence, the transgender rule was blocked from taking effect. This decision was upheld on appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on December 10, 2022.
Additional litigation is possible because HHS refuses to take no for an answer. Despite numerous judicial rulings verifying that the federal government lacks the authority to punish objectors, the Biden administration, richly infused with the Authoritarian Personality, has declined to accept several court invitations to stop. Rather than take direction from courts, HHS maintains its policy by rewriting its old rule and then claiming that the new rule is consistent with judicial guidance. Instead of accepting any reduction in its power to compel private individuals and institutions to conform to regulations validating fluid forms of human identity and advancing abortion, the Biden administration argues that the 2016 HHS rule provides a basis to punish those who refuse to submit to its fiat.
Biden’s New Authoritarians Prioritize Gender Transition over Religious Liberty – American Thinker
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