Fellow Patriot: The voluntary financial generosity of supporters like you keeps our hard-hitting analysis coming. Please support the 2024 Patriots' Day Campaign today. Thank you for your support! —Nate Jackson, Managing Editor

June 29, 2016

Religious Liberty Denied, Supreme Court Shrugs

Justices decline to hear a case involving the coercion of Washington pharmacies.

Leftists in this country are celebrating this week’s release of a Supreme Court decision, as well as a non-decision. Naturally, both portend dark times ahead for religious liberty, the sanctity of life and protection of conscience.

We took on the Court’s outrageous abortion decision yesterday. But the other case involved matters of conscience for those who oppose abortion, including abortion-inducing birth control, for religious or moral reasons. The Supreme Court declined to review the case involving a third-generation, family-owned pharmacy in Washington State. In 2007, the Washington Board of Pharmacy passed regulations forcing pro-life pharmacists to provide abortion drugs to customers. The Storman family, when previously presented with such a request, had always referred the customer to one of dozens of other nearby pharmacies that supplied the abortion drugs. No one was denied service because of the Stormans’ declining to participate in the transaction.

In 2012, a federal court struck down the regulation as unconstitutional, declaring that there was “abundant evidence” that the law was specifically passed to force religious pharmacists and pharmacy owners to violate their faith and conscience. However, the Ninth Circus, the most overturned (by a wide margin) of all the circuit courts, reversed the federal court ruling and upheld the law. By refusing to take up the case, the Supreme Court allows the Ninth Circuit ruling to stand, and allows the state to violate the actual constitutional rights of American citizens — as opposed to those fabricated “rights” created out of “emanations and penumbras.”

Writing in dissent from the Court’s denial of certiorari, Justice Samuel Alito described the process leading up to the law, showing that it was clearly motivated by anti-religious sentiment. He also warned of the dangers ahead indicated by the Court’s refusal to address the case: “At issue are Washington State regulations that are likely to make a pharmacist unemployable if he or she objects on religious grounds to dispensing certain prescription medications. … [T]here is much evidence that the impetus for the adoption of the regulations was hostility to pharmacists whose religious beliefs regarding abortion and contraception are out of step with prevailing opinion in the State. Yet the Ninth Circuit held that the regulations do not violate the First Amendment, and this Court does not deem the case worthy of our time. If this is a sign of how religious liberty claims will be treated in the years ahead, those who value religious freedom have cause for great concern.”

Our forefathers fought a decade-long war to be free of the tyranny of King George. Much blood was shed in that war to secure the very liberties of speech, religion, conscience, and many more, that we enjoy today.

One can only imagine how quickly they’d have taken up arms if they had been told the government demanded they participate in the killing of innocent children.

The Left claims to be tolerant, but they seek the eradication of any God-given, constitutionally protected rights that impede their agenda. They are forcing religious pharmacists to dispense abortion drugs. They have tried to force Catholic nuns to provide birth control for employees of their organizations. They’ve jailed a county clerk for declining to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple, and then opposed a law that would allow someone else to provide the service. They’ve forced bakers, photographers and florists to participate in services to which those entrepreneurs object as a matter of conscience.

As is abundantly clear, the Left is no longer interested in tolerance (if it ever was). The Left demands nothing less than full and complete acquiescence, accommodation and approval from every single American, regardless of religious or moral views.

And the Supreme Court just shrugged.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.