SCOTUS Refuses To Hear Liberty University Obamacare Lawsuit

In what may be  potentially ominous sign for Christofascists and others seeking to ignore the laws of the land at will because of claimed "deeply held religious beliefs," the United States Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal brought by the always toxic and extremist folks at Liberty University ( a boil on Virginia's ass if there ever was one).  For those tethered to reality, the Supreme Courts action should not be a surprise since Liberty University in effect challenged the Court's prior ruling that upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Health Care Act. As noted many times on this blog, the Christofascists, including the spittle flecked extremists at Liberty University, believe that they are above the law and that their fear and hate based religious beliefs trump everything else.  The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the de facto bitch slap that the Court dealt to Liberty University.  Here are highlights:

The U.S. Supreme Court just announced it will not hear a challenge to the Affordable Care Act filed by Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. In a shocking act of hubris, Liberty University actually challenged the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling that found Obamacare is constitutional, and directly questioned the Court’s ruling that called the individual mandate a tax. In Liberty vs. Lew, the University also challenged the employer mandate, including the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate.

When the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a portion of DOMA this year, Liberty University had some strong words for the Court, claiming it “has lost its legitimacy as an arbiter of the Constitution and the rule of law, and adding, “Today is the death of the Court’s legacy, because the decision in the Federal Defense of Marriage Act case defies logic and is a pure invention of a handful of Justices.”

SCOTUS Blog reports on today’s decision to ignore Liberty University’s case.

The Liberty University case that the Court chose to bypass (Liberty v. Lew, 13-306) involved several challenges to the ACA that the Supreme Court either had refused to review, or had not been appealed to the Court, when the Justices two years ago ruled on the first constitutional challenges to the law.

Liberty also attempted to challenge the ACA’s contraception mandate on employers, but the Fourth Circuit Court had found that issue was raised too late and it did not decide it.   Last week, the Court agreed to rule on the constitutionality of the contraceptive mandate in two new cases.

Liberty University, and its close affiliate, Liberty Counsel, are, of course, two of the most anti-gay activist organizations in the country. Both are home to the infamous Matt Barber, who says Christians love gay people — who are going to hell, and whose Twitter account is often filled with attacks on the LGBT community.