A chilling view of the upcoming battle for religious freedom took place in a U.S. district court last week when the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) submitted a filing saying the government can and will compel a Catholic-owned family business to surrender their establishment if they refuse to offer insurance coverage that violates their religious beliefs.

Syndicated columnist Terence P. Jeffrey reported on the case of William, Paul and James Newland and their sister, Christine Ketterhagen, the owners of Hercules Industries, a Colorado-based corporation employing 265 people that manufactures heating, ventilation and air-conditioning equipment.

A Catholic family, they sued the Department of Health and Human Services for forcing them, under ObamaCare, to provide health care plans that cover services such as sterilizations, contraception and abortifacients. Under ObamaCare, a business that employs more than 50 people must provide this coverage or pay a penalty steep enough to effectively put them out of business.

“The Catholic Church teaches that abortifacient drugs, contraception and sterilization are intrinsic evils,” says the Newlands’ lawsuit.

“Consequently, the Newlands believe that it would be immoral and sinful for them to intentionally participate in, pay for, facilitate or otherwise support abortifacient drugs, contraception, sterilization, and related education and counseling as would be required by the Mandate, through their inclusion in health insurance coverage they offer at Hercules,” says the suit.

The Newlands believe that they must live their Catholicism in every sphere of life, not just within their parish church.

But the Obama Administration’s DOJ sees it differently. In response to the Newlands’ complaint, the government told the federal court that a private business has no protection under the First Amendment’s free exercise clause — especially if the business is incorporated.

“The First Amendment Complaint does not allege that the company is affiliated with a formally religious entity such as a church,” said the Justice Department. “Nor does it allege that the company employs persons of a particular faith. In short, Hercules Industries is plainly a for-profit, secular employer.”

“By definition,” said the Justice Department, “a secular employer does not engage in any ‘exercise of religion.'”

Applying this line of reasoning in simpler terms, Jeffrey explains that this would be like saying that a family owned newspaper has no First Amendment right to freedom of speech because it’s a for-profit, secular and incorporated institution.

“Never before has an administration taken such a bold step to strip Americans of the freedom of conscience — a right for which, over the centuries, many Christian martyrs have laid down their lives, and which our Founding Fathers took great care to protect in a First Amendment that expressly guarantees the free exercise of religion,” Jeffrey writes.

“As the Founders understood, no government has legitimate authority to take this right away, because it does not come from government. It comes from God. The very purpose of government is to protect this right. A government that seeks to strip it away from the people is by that very process stripping away its own legitimacy.”

He adds: “What we are seeing from the Obama administration today — in its attack on religious liberty — is simply evil. When government seeks to compel individuals to act against their consciences and to engage in activities that, if willfully done, would imperil their immortal souls, there is no other word for it.”

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