A federal court issued an order today (May 21,2014) that halts enforcement of the Obama administration’s HHS mandate against two Christian colleges: Dordt College in Iowa and Cornerstone University in Michigan.

The lawsuit, Dordt College v. Sebelius, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, Western Division, argued that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as well as the First and Fifth amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Based on the order these two colleges will be exempted from following Obama- mandate for contraceptive pills, abortion pills and procedures like sterilization.

The Attorneys for the colleges challenged the administration’s mandate that forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions and under threat of heavy penalties, to provide insurance coverage for pills and procedures that many Christians oppose.

The two colleges object to the government’s conclusion that they are not sufficiently religious to qualify for the extremely narrow religious exemption from the mandate.

The arguments made by the attorneys representing the colleges were strong enough to protect the religious freedom and Christian faith. The attorneys belong to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) which is an alliance-building legal ministry that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith. ADF fights for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family.

"Christian colleges should remain free to operate according to their defining beliefs", said Senior counsel Gregory Baylor. “Under this mandate, religious employers have no real choice: they must either comply and abandon their religious freedom, or resist and be taxed for their faith. If the government can force Christian colleges to act contrary to their deeply-held religious convictions, then the government can do just about anything. The court was right to block enforcement of this unconstitutional mandate."

Faithful Christians and faithful Catholics believe that using contraceptive pills and sterilization are against  their faith and religious convictions . This lawsuit represents a large cross-section of Protestants and Catholics who object to the mandate. 19 other lawsuits are pending against the Obama-mandate.