Thomas More Law Center’s West Coast Regional Director, attorney Charles LiMandri, spoke out against the Obama administration’s HHS Mandate at the Eagle Forum Convention held in San Diego this past Friday, June 1st. The Forum’s theme was “Rise Up California” and included other national and local leaders such as Frank Gaffney, of the Center for Security Policy; and Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage.
LiMandri blasted the HHS Mandate as “the greatest threat to religious freedom in our lifetimes if not in the entire history of our nation.”
Continued Limandri: “The Obama Administration has taken governmental oppression to a new level by seeking to force many Americans to pay for goods and services that violate their deeply held religious convictions.”
The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, recently announced it filed a federal lawsuit challenging the HHS mandate, on behalf of Legatus, the Nation’s largest organization of top Catholic business CEOs and professional leaders. LiMandri is co-counsel in that lawsuit.
The Law Center’s lawsuit which was filed in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, challenges the constitutionality of the HHS Mandate under the First Amendment rights to the Free Exercise of Religion and Free Speech and the Establishment Clause. It also claims that the HHS Mandate violates both the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 and the Administrative Procedure Act.
Approximately 2000 guests attended Friday’s event. Many other important political and social topics were discussed as well. These included: an update of Proposition 8 – upholding the definition of traditional marriage; the threat of Sharia Law and radical Islam; and the right of personhood at conception.