News Alert

Photos from the Military Funeral of Rear Admiral Jeremiah A. Denton, Jr. at Arlington National Cemetery

July 23, 2014 by TMLC

Yesterday morning, I said good-bye to a dear friend and a true American hero, Rear Admiral Jeremiah A. Denton, Jr.

I was blessed enough to have the opportunity to attend the full military honors services during his burial along with family, friends and several of his comrades who were also in the Vietnam POW camp.

I would like to share with you a short photo slideshow of the services, so that you may join me in honoring his extraordinary service to our country.

Best when viewed fullscreen.

Jeremiah Andrew Denton Jr. was born on July 15, 1924, in Mobile, Alabama. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1946 and received a master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University in 1964.

He was promoted during his captivity to the rank of captain and later to rear admiral. After the war, he served as commandant of the Armed Forces Staff College at Norfolk, Va., and retired from the Navy in 1977.

In addition to the Navy Cross, his honors included the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, three awards of the Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Laying to Rest an American Hero in Arlington National Cemetery: Rear Admiral Jeremiah A. Denton, Jr.

July 21, 2014 by TMLC

Tomorrow morning, July 22, 2014, Rear Admiral Jeremiah A. Denton, Jr. will be laid to rest with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va.

The services will begin at 8:45 AM at the Old Post Chapel where Senator Jeff Sessions and Representative Sam Johnson are expected to give remarks. The ceremonies will also include a 13 cannon-salute, a 21 gun-salute and a military fly-over.

Admiral Denton, a retired Naval rear admiral and former U.S. senator who survived nearly eight years of captivity in North Vietnamese prisons, and whose public acts of defiance and patriotism came to embody the sacrifices of American POWs in Vietnam, died March 28, 2014 at a hospice in Virginia Beach. He was 89.

President Reagan in his 1^st State of the Union address in 1983 stated of Admiral Denton, “We don’t have to turn to our history books for heroes, they are all around us. One who sits among you here tonight epitomized that heroism … .”

Admiral Denton, also served as the president of the Thomas More Law Center’s Citizens Advisory Board. The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, helped share Denton’s commitment to faith, family and the preservation of traditional values.

Admiral Denton, first captured the attention of the nation when in a television appearance orchestrated by the North Vietnamese as propaganda and broadcast in the United States in 1966, he appeared in his prison uniform and blinked the word “torture” in Morse code — a secret message to U.S. military intelligence for which he later received the Navy Cross.

At one point, the reporter asked him what he thought about the “so-called Vietnamese War.”

“Well, I don’t know what is happening,” Adm. Denton replied. “But whatever the position of my government is, I support it fully. . . . I am a member of that government, and it is my job to support it, and I will as long as I live.”

Adm. Denton was subjected to four years in solitary confinement. Living in roach- and rat-infested conditions, he endured starvation, delirium and torture sessions that sometimes lasted days.

On Feb. 12, 1973, shortly after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords that helped end U.S. involvement in the war, Adm. Denton and hundreds of other POWs began coming home. He was the first returnee to disembark from the plane at Clark Air Base in the Philippines.

“We are profoundly grateful to our commander in chief and to our nation for this day,” he said in remarks on behalf of his fellow POWs. “God bless America.”

Jeremiah Andrew Denton Jr. was born on July 15, 1924, in Mobile, Ala. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1946 and received a master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University in 1964.

In addition to the Navy Cross, his honors included the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, three awards of the Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Female Owner Challenging HHS Mandate’s Contraceptive Coverage Gets Relief from 6th Circuit Court of Appeals

July 10, 2014 by TMLC

Karen Mersino, one of 14 female owners of for-profit companies challenging the HHS Mandate, is finally free to continue offering health insurance to her employees that does not cover contraceptives and abortion causing drugs. Reacting to the 6^th Circuit Court’s order, she commented, “It’s a real win for religious freedom.”

The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which represents Karen Mersino, her husband Rod, and their business, Mersino Management Company, announced that yesterday the 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals, issued aninjunction halting enforcement of the HHS Mandate. The 6^th Circuit acted in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Hobby Lobby and without opposition from the Department of Justice.

Click Here to Read the Order

Erin Mersino, TMLC Senior Trial Counsel, stated, “In the aftermath of the Hobby Lobby decision, we were able to gain concurrence for immediate relief from the illegal aims of the HHS Mandate that violate our clients’ sincerely held religious beliefs.”

The initial challenge to the HHS Mandate, which forced employers to provide health insurance which included co-pay free coverage for abortion causing drugs and devices or pay cripplingIRS fines, was filed by TMLC in March 2013. In all, TMLC represents 10 for-profit companies totaling 30 plaintiffs in challenges to the HHS Mandate. TMLC is also challenging the HHS Mandate on behalf of 6 non-profit entities.

The Mersinos provide their employees with health care coverage which is superior to coverage generally available in the Michigan market. Based on their deeply held religious beliefs, however, the Mersinos have never offered insurance which included coverage for contraception, sterilization, abortion, or abortion causing drugs and devices. They believe, in accordance with the teachings of the Catholic Church, that these procedures involve gravely immoral practices and the intentional destruction of innocent human life.

All of the Mersinos’ corporate offices display a document that reflects their core value: “Honor God in all we do by serving our customers and employees with honesty and integrity.”

TMLC’s Erin Mersino, reflected, “It has been an honor to represent Karen and Rod Mersino- two individuals who truly live out their faith everyday through the integrity with which they treat others, through their numerous charitable works, and through their overwhelmingly selfless devotion to their community and Church.”

Religious Freedom Wins in Supreme Court, But More Battles to Be Fought—An Analysis

July 7, 2014 by TMLC

On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court released its decision in Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties, holding that the Federal Government cannot force closely held for-profit corporations to choose between obeying their religious beliefs and paying huge fines for following their convictions. The Court emphasized that its decision was a relatively narrow one, thus opening the way for further battles relating to Obamacare and the HHS Mandate.

The Justices, in a 5-4 decision, ruled in the joined cases that the HHS Mandate instituted by then HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Obama Administration violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). RFRA is a federal law enacted over twenty years ago that prohibits the government from imposing a substantial burden on a person’s ability to practice his religion unless that burden advances an important government interest and does so in the least restrictive way possible.

The HHS Mandate promulgated under Obamacare requires employers to provide their female employees with health insurance that includes no-cost access to twenty different kinds of contraceptives. Many Christians consider the covered drugs and procedures tantamount to the taking of an innocent human life, and a grave sin. The Government in their briefing admitted that at least four of the covered drugs aborted life after the moment of conception. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties, based on their religious beliefs, did not want to provide insurance coverage for those four kinds of twenty required types of birth control because the drugs, according to the Government’s own sources, cause abortions and it would make them complicit in the sin of abortion.

The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, MI, welcomes the decision on behalf of the thirty for-profit plaintiffs represented by the Law Center which has also filed federal lawsuits challenging the HHS Mandate. Those lawsuits are at various stages in the legal process including one, Eden Foods, currently held in abeyance in the Supreme Court pending the ruling in the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga cases. While handling its own cases, TMLC also filed a Friend of the Court brief in the Supreme Court supporting the Hobby Lobby case.

TMLC is also representing six non-profit corporations challenging the HHS Mandate in several different federal courts.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of TMLC, commented, “Justice Ginsburg ignoring the actual clear limiting words of the majority opinion, wrote a dissent characterizing the decision as one of ‘startling breadth.’ She was joined in her dissent by the other Democrat appointees on the bench, Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. Her opinion has fueled the outraged voiced by groups like the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and Democrat politicians like Hillary Clinton claiming the decision is a war on women. The decision will undoubtedly be used as a fundraising tool and to mobilize their base.”

TMLC Senior Trial Counsel, Erin Mersino, is the principal attorney handling the Law Center’s challenges to the HHS Mandate.

You can also read Erin’s USA Today commentary on the decision here.

Salient points in the majority opinion include:

• For-profit corporations are persons protected under RFRA.
• For-profit corporations are capable of exercising religion.
• The HHS mandate substantially burdens the exercise of religion.
• Even assuming the HHS mandate is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest, it is not the least restrictive means required by RFRA.

Click here to read the entire Supreme Court Opinion.

The Day After Hobby Lobby Decision, Supreme Court Rules For Another Corporation Challenging the HHS Mandate

July 2, 2014 by TMLC

The day after its ruling in Hobby Lobby, the US Supreme Court granted review of the Thomas More Law Center’s petition on behalf of Eden Foods and its president Michael Potter, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case back to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals for further consideration in light of the Hobby Lobby decision.

Click Here for Supreme Court Order

The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, MI, filed Eden Food’s initial challenge to the HHS Mandate in March 2013. After being denied a temporary injunction preventing enforcement of the HHS Mandate by a federal district court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, TMLC filed a petition for review with the Supreme Court. That petition had been held in abeyance pending the decision in the Hobby Lobby case.

Eden Foods, co-founded by Potter in the late 1960s, is the oldest natural food company in North America and the largest independent manufacturer of dry grocery organic foods. In 2009, Eden Foods was selected as the best food company in the world by Better World Shopping Guide, which also acknowledged the company’s outstanding record in social and environmental responsibility. The company employs 150 employees.

For years, Michael Potter, a Roman Catholic, President and sole shareholder of Eden Foods Corporation, for religious reasons, had arranged for the Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance coverage he designed for his employees to specifically exclude coverage for contraception and abortifacients. In accordance with his Catholic faith, Potter believes that any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation, whether as an end or means”—including abortifacients and contraception—is wrong.

The HHS Mandate forced Potter to make a choice between violating a foremost tenet of his faith or face fines up to $4.5 million per year.

Potter brought the lawsuit because he cannot compartmentalize his faith and his business practices.

Mr. Potter said in a statement, “We are grateful for the Hobby Lobby decision and look forward to further developments.”

Erin Mersino, TMLC’s Senior Trial Counsel who is handling the Eden Foods case commented on yesterday’s Supreme Court order, “The Supreme Court’s ruling in Hobby Lobby preserves the religious freedom we are guaranteed under the Constitution. The HHS mandate required business owners to directly violate their faith. The Supreme Court relied upon the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which was signed into law by President Clinton and passed in a bipartisan effort to protect our First Amendment rights, to strike down the mandate. Under RFRA, the government has to establish a basis for substantially burdening one’s religious faith. Here, the government failed to do so.”

Mersino continued, “Justice Ginsburg’s dissent and proposed parade of horribles has no basis in reality. No flood gates have been opened. The truth is that the Supreme Court struck down an unjust law.”

BREAKING: Supreme Court Declares HHS Mandate for Closely Held For-Profit Corporations Unlawful

June 30, 2014 by TMLC

In a 5 to 4 decision the US Supreme Court struck down the HHS Mandate this morning and declared that the HHS Mandate,which forced closely held corporations to provide contraceptives and abortion causing drugs to its employees, violates our free exercise of religion protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

Justice Alito writing the majority opinion stated:

“We hold that the regulations that impose this obligation violate RFRA, which prohibits the Federal Government from taking any action that substantially burdens the exercise of religion unless that action constitutes the least restrictive means of serving a compelling government interest.

In holding that the HHS mandate is unlawful, we reject HHS’s argument that the owners of the companies forfeited all RFRA protection when they decided to organize their businesses as corporations rather than sole proprietorships or general partnerships. The plain terms of RFRA make it perfectly clear that Congress did not discriminate in this way against men and women who wish to run their businesses as for-profit corporations in the manner required by their religious beliefs.”

“The Opinion protects everyone’s religious freedom and stands for the truism that an Americans cannot be forced to check his or her religious beliefs at the office door.”

– Erin Mersino, Thomas More Law Center Senior Trial Counsel

Click here to read entire opinion.

We will have analysis from Erin Mersino, Thomas More Law Center Senior Trial Counsel, soon.

Stay Tuned!