On December 4, 2012, a federal court in Brooklyn, New York ruled that various Roman Catholic entities in the New York area had legal standing to pursue their challenge to the so-called “HHS Mandate,” a series of federal regulations requiring virtually all employers to pay for their employees’ contraception, sterilization, and early abortion-inducing drugs.

This significant ruling comes on the heels of a federal appeals court’s issuance of a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the Mandate against the ACLJ’s clients last week in a case out of Missouri.

The lawsuit in Brooklyn was brought by Roman Catholic entities that object to being forced to provide and pay for contraceptive coverage that violates their sincerely held religious beliefs, including the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York which encompasses 370 parishes in the New York area. The government argued that the court should not consider the merits of their claims, but should dismiss the case because the plaintiffs are not currently being harmed by the Mandate. The government cited a one year “temporary safe harbor” for certain non-profit organizations, which briefly delays enforcement of the Mandate against those organizations and includes a vague and unenforceable promise by the government to consider possible ways to take their religious objections into account when regulations may be enacted in the future

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