This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A federal judge in North Dakota has issued a ruling in a fight by the Christian Employers Alliance against the Joe Biden administration's bureaucratic demands that members provide insurance coverage for, and pay for, body mutilations for employees.
And while the ruling at hand concerns only the participants in the case brought by the CEA against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and others, it undoubtedly will be cited as a precedent as similar fights develop under Biden's promotion of the transgender ideology.
Advocates of transgender beliefs often insist that body mutilation, the surgical removal of body parts, is required to satisfy them.
Those requirements were determined to violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and in violation of the beliefs of the group members.
Mat Staver, whose Liberty Counsel has been involved in courtroom battles over related issues, explained, "All employers are protected by the Constitution to conduct their business according to their sincerely held religious beliefs. The government cannot simply ignore or overrule the rights of believers as protected by the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This ruling confirms the broad protections available to people of faith to align their business conduct to their beliefs."
The CEA is a nonprofit network of Christian-owned organizations that works to protect religious freedom on behalf of Christian businesses and nonprofits.
In the case, the CEA argued the EEOC and HHS were following Biden's transgender ideology and improperly enforcing sex discrimination laws.
The fact is the Biden administration multiple times has redefined "sex discrimination" in-laws originally providing that men and women are treated equally including transgenderism.
"The Biden administration argues that since these laws prohibit discrimination based on gender identity, they authorize the federal government to mandate employers who receive federal funding to physically perform or fund procedures, treatments, or counseling that attempt to change a person’s gender," Liberty Counsel reported.
But the judge found those demands to violate the First Amendment.
"As noted in its Order Granting [an earlier] Injunction, this Court determined that if CEA had to comply with these mandates, its members would have to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs which is an impermissible exercise under the First Amendment and RFRA," the judge's ruling said.
"CEA’s sincerely held religious belief is that male and female are immutable realities defined by biological sex and that gender reassignment is contrary to Christian Values," he noted.
He pointed out that the government bureaucracies failed to show that, "even if the court were to accept the purpose for the mandates as a compelling interest," forcing Christians to violate their faith was the "only feasible means" to achieve the goal.
"Because CEA and its members are losing freedoms guaranteed by RFRA, they have per se irreparable harm," the judge said.
He noted pointedly that while the federal bureaucracies claim there's no harm because there's been no "action" against the CEA members, "the Supreme Court and Eighth Circuit have rejected similar arguments advanced in other cases."
