Philly Court Torches Trump’s Religious Freedom Rules, Spitting on Supreme Court Precedent
Oh, for crying out loud, here we go again with the godless goons in black robes playing God while kicking faithful folks in the teeth. On August 13, 2025, some Obama-appointed hack in Philadelphia’s federal district court – yeah, Wendy Beetlestone, if you care about names – dropped a nationwide bomb on the Little Sisters of the Poor, those saintly nuns who just want to care for the dying without funding baby-killing pills. In a 55-page screed that’s pure activist drivel, she vacated the Trump-era rules that let religious outfits opt out of the Obamacare contraception mandate, forcing these holy women to cough up for birth control coverage or face fines that could shutter their homes. This after the Supreme Court slapped down similar nonsense 7-2 back in 2020. But no, the left can’t let it go – they’re obsessed with shoving their secular sacrament down everyone’s throat, even if it means endless lawfare against a bunch of elderly sisters in habits. America First? More like Atheists First in this clown world.
Let’s rewind this farce, because the Little Sisters’ saga is a masterclass in leftist bullying. It all started with Obamacare’s so-called Women’s Health Amendment in 2010, which jammed a contraception mandate into employer insurance plans – no cost-sharing, cover everything from pills to IUDs that some folks see as abortifacients. The feds carved out a piddly exemption for churches but left nonprofits like the Little Sisters twisting, forcing them into an “accommodation” where they self-certify objections and their insurers pick up the tab. The nuns said hell no – that still makes them complicit in what they view as sin, violating their faith and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Cue the lawsuits: By 2013, the Sisters were in court, arguing this junk burdens their religious exercise.
Fast-forward to Trump’s first term. In 2017, he issued interim rules expanding exemptions to all nonprofits and for-profits with sincere religious or moral objections – no more forced complicity. States like Pennsylvania and New Jersey freaked, suing to block them. The district court enjoined the interims in December 2017, then the finals in January 2019. The Third Circuit affirmed in July 2019, but boom – Supreme Court steps in with Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania on July 8, 2020. In a 7-2 smackdown penned by Justice Thomas, the Court said the agencies had full authority under the ACA to craft those exemptions, the rules followed APA notice-and-comment, and poof – reversed and remanded. The Sisters won big, or so we thought. But the left doesn’t quit; they dragged it back to Beetlestone’s courtroom, where it’s been festering on remand since August 2020, with stays during Biden’s failed attempts to gut the rules in 2023 and 2024.
Now, this August 13 ruling: Beetlestone declares the 2018 Final Rules – both religious and moral exemptions – arbitrary and capricious under the APA, vacating them nationwide. Why? She nitpicks like a pro: No “rational connection” between RFRA problems and the broad fix, since exemptions went to public companies unlikely to claim religious beefs (per Hobby Lobby in 2014) and outfits fine with the old accommodation. No way to vet sincerity of objections. Then she hammers the agencies for flipping on contraception’s safety and effectiveness – they called it safe in 2012 but hedged in 2018 citing old studies (most pre-2012) on risks like blood clots or teen pregnancy factors, without explaining the U-turn. Ambiguity on whether some methods are abortifacients? That’s a flip too, no justification. And get this: They ignored alternatives like an Individual Contraceptive Arrangement from 2023 proposals, where women get coverage direct from insurers without boss involvement – a fix floated since 2015 in Notre Dame v. Burwell.
How does this square with the Supreme Court? Beetlestone claims it doesn’t contradict at all – the 2020 ruling only greenlit agency authority and procedural compliance, not the merits of these specific gripes. SCOTUS remanded for lower courts to hash out standing and other claims, declining to dive into whether plaintiffs even had a case. But come on – that’s lawyer-speak for dodging the elephant. The High Court said the rules were kosher under the ACA and APA basics, yet here’s Beetlestone cherry-picking unresolved bits to nuke them on “arbitrary and capricious” grounds SCOTUS never touched. It’s not a direct flip; it’s a sneaky end-run on remand, exploiting the Court’s punt on merits to relitigate what should be settled. The Sisters vow to appeal – Third Circuit next, then maybe SCOTUS round three – because this reeks of judicial overreach, ignoring how RFRA demands exemptions for burdens like the mandate (as in Geneva College 2015 and Real Alternatives 2017, where Third Circuit said the accommodation wasn’t a burden, but SCOTUS vacated that in Zubik 2016).
Why the hell does the left keep hammering this? Simple: Contraception is their holy grail, the gateway drug to abortion-on-demand and erasing any whiff of traditional morality from public life. They frame it as “women’s health” – gotta have free pills or the sky falls – but it’s about control: Forcing religious folks to fund lifestyles they abhor, chipping away at faith-based exemptions until everything’s secular soup. Revelations from this ruling? Beetlestone admits the rules aimed to dodge RFRA suits, but she says they overreached, ignoring how few employers (maybe 109, as agencies estimated) would use them. Yet lefty states like PA and NJ poured millions into this since 2017, even after SCOTUS wins, because losing means admitting religion trumps their agenda. Recent bombs: Biden yanked his 2024 proposal to kill the rules on December 30, 2024, right before Trump 2.0, but these blue states kept the fire alive on procedural BS. It’s not about the nuns – it’s about precedent: Let one exemption stand, and poof, their whole house of cards on mandates crumbles. Polls? A 2023 survey showed 58% of Americans support religious exemptions for contraception coverage, but the left ignores that, fixated on “reproductive rights” as their wedge to demonize conservatives.
This is lawfare at its ugliest – endless appeals to bleed the faithful dry while advancing the culture war. The Little Sisters, caring for the poor since 1839, shouldn’t be collateral damage in the left’s crusade against God. Trump needs to fight this tooth and nail; appeal, reform, whatever it takes. America First means protecting our freedoms, not letting activist judges turn nuns into contraceptive ATMs. Wake up, patriots – or next, they’ll come for your church.