Automotive Manufacturer Denied Constitutional Protection from HHS Mandate

Contact: Tom Ciesielka, 312-422-1333, tc@tcpr.net

KENTWOOD, Mich., Sept. 18, 2013 /Christian Newswire/ -- The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has dismissed a challenge to the controversial HHS Mandate advanced by the Kennedy family and the Autocam Corporation. The Kennedys believe that their Catholic faith must inform the way they do business in operating the Autocam companies. As a result, they provide their employees with generous and award-winning employee benefits. But they do not provide coverage for contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization because doing so would violate their deeply held religious beliefs. The Obamacare HHS mandate requires them, however, to do precisely that -- either go against the tenets of their Catholic faith, or else pay exorbitant fines totaling about sixteen million dollars ($16,000,000) per year, which would effectively cripple and destroy their business.

"We mean to take this case directly up to the U.S. Supreme Court, as the U.S. Courts of Appeal are now sharply divided on these critical issues," said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, the national public interest law firm representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit along with CatholicVote Legal Defense Fund. "The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was enacted in order to protect people of faith against government mandates that impose a substantial burden on believers' efforts to freely exercise their religious convictions, unless the government has really compelling reasons for doing so, and even then only if the means used are the least restrictive and burdensome among possible alternatives. We hope the Supreme Court will agree to hear this case so that the Kennedys and other business owners who practice as well as profess their religious faith can keep on doing so without having to 'bet the company' and thereby risk their employees' jobs as well as their own livelihood."

A copy of the court's opinion is available HERE.

The original suit filed by the Thomas More Society and CatholicVote Legal Defense Fund on Autocam's behalf may be found HERE.

About the Thomas More Society
Thomas More Society is a national not-for-profit law firm that exists to restore respect in law for life, marriage, and religious liberty. Headquartered in Chicago, the Society fosters support for these causes by providing high quality pro-bono professional legal services from local trial courts all the way to the United States Supreme Court. www.thomasmoresociety.org