Legal action contends Christian publisher was refused a 'religious employer' exemption by 'Obamacare' mandate 

Tyndale House Publishers has filed a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration after the company was deemed “insufficiently religious” to qualify for an exemption to the nation’s healthcare overhaul law, which requires employers to provide abortion pill coverage.

Filed Oct. 2 in the District of Columbia, the suit claims the Carol Stream, Ill.-based company has been refused a “religious employer” exemption because the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) maintains that any for-profit publisher is categorically non-religious.

Tyndale, though, is strictly a publisher of Bibles and other Christian publications and is owned by the nonprofit Tyndale House Foundation, which provides grants to help meet physical and spiritual needs around the world.

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which filed the suit on behalf of Tyndale, called the ruling an unconstitutional and arbitrary threat to religious freedom.

“Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “To say that a Bible publisher is not religious is patently absurd. Tyndale House is a prime example of how ridiculous and arbitrary the Obama administration’s mandate is. Americans today clearly agree with America’s founders: The federal government’s bureaucrats are not qualified to decide what faith is, who the faithful are, and where and how that faith may be lived out.”

The publisher's suit also claims the government’s refusal to exempt Tyndale is inconsistent with the myriad exceptions already granted to the contraception and other healthcare mandates, which the lawsuit says require HHS to generously interpret religiously based requests for exemptions.

“The government’s mandate exempts what it calls 'religious employers,' but denies that status to Tyndale House through its arbitrary definition,” the suit said.

The mandate went into effect Aug. 1, but HHS gave all nonprofit religious organizations until August 2013 to comply. Tyndale, though, is considered a for-profit company and ineligible for the extension. Its employees' new insurance plan year began Oct. 1, meaning Tyndale was in need of immediate relief from the court, said the suit, noting that the company has 260 full-time employees and functions as a thoroughly Christian organization.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld “Obamacare” as constitutional. Formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obamacare includes a “preventive services” mandate issued by the HHS, which forces businesses to provide the “morning-after” and “week-after” pills—without co-pay—in their health insurance plans.

“Obamacare demands that Americans choose between two poison pills: either desert your faith by complying or resist and be punished,” Bowman said.

In September, Hobby Lobby and its sister company, Mardel Christian & Education, filed a similar suit, claiming the government mandate is forcing the company’s owners “to violate their deeply held religious beliefs under threat of heavy fines, penalties and lawsuits.” Failure to provide the drugs in the company’s health insurance plan could lead to fines of up to $1.3 million a day.

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