Still no joy for them.
A federal appeals court will not reconsider its ruling, delivered in June, that the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive rules do not violate the religious freedom of church-based organizations in Texas.
The religious organizations, including two Catholic dioceses and the University of Dallas, had asked the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reject the ruling by a three-judge panel.
The court refused 11-4, issuing an opinion that did not discuss the merits of the case.
Three of the justices on the losing side, however, issued a scathing dissent that called the original ruling “ironic and tragic” for denying the free exercise of religion and placing “literally millions of dollars in fines and immortal souls on the line.”
“This should have been an easy case for upholding religious liberty,” said the dissent, issued Thursday and written by Justice Edith Jones and joined by Justices Edith Brown Clement and Priscilla Owen. The three are among the court’s most conservative members.
See here, here, and here for the background. It would be far more accurate to say that those three are among the most ideologically driven judges, not just on that court but any federal court, though I suppose it’s not polite to say things like that. As of August, when Ken Paxton found time in his busy schedule to file an amicus brief on behalf of the plaintiffs, there wasn’t a circuit split in cases like this, but now there is and there’s been an even more radical anti-contraception ruling in another federal court, so the likelihood of SCOTUS hearing some case related to this, whether it’s HBU’s or one of the others out there, seems pretty high. And after Obergfell, one can only imagine the caterwauling and chest-thumping vows of defiance that will ensue if the plaintiffs lose there as well. The Press has more.