A divided federal appeals court has temporarily barred the U.S. government from requiring an Illinois company to obtain insurance coverage for contraceptives, as mandated under the 2010 healthcare overhaul, after the owners objected on religious grounds.

More than 40 lawsuits are challenging a requirement in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that requires most for-profit companies to offer workers insurance coverage for contraceptive drugs and devices and other birth control methods.

Friday's 2-1 order by a panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in favor of Cyril and Jane Korte was the second by a federal appeals court to temporarily halt enforcement against people who said it violated their faith, said Edward White, a lawyer for the Roman Catholic couple.

The 7th Circuit suggested that the couple's legal challenge might eventually prevail.

Its order came two days after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declined to block the provision's enforcement against companies controlled by the family of Oklahoma City billionaire David Green.

The U.S. Department of Justice, which had defended the contraceptives provision, did not immediately respond on Saturday to a request for comment.

The Kortes, who own the construction firm Korte & Luitjohan Contractors, had sought to drop a health insurance plan for 20 non-unionized workers that included coverage for contraception, and substitute a different plan consistent with their faith.

Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com

But the Obama administration's healthcare law did not allow the change, and the Kortes said that violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA.

In issuing an injunction, the 7th Circuit majority said the Kortes had established a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of their RFRA claim, and that the government had not yet justified the apparent "substantial burden" on their religious exercise.

The court also said the couple had established irreparable harm, because absent an injunction they would have to choose between maintaining insurance coverage they considered inappropriate or facing substantial financial penalties.

Stay informed with the latest headlines; sign up for our newsletter

"Business owners who are objecting to the mandate are not objecting to people using contraceptives, but that they have to arrange for and pay for it," White, a lawyer with the American Center for Law and Justice, said in a phone interview. "The federal government shouldn't tell business owners they have to contract to buy what they see as immoral services and goods."

Judges Joel Flaum and Diane Sykes comprised the 7th Circuit majority.

High court declines to block contraceptives coverage in health care law

Judge Ilana Rovner dissented. She said the Kortes were "multiple steps" removed from the contraceptives services because it was their company paying for the coverage, and because it would be a worker, her doctor and the insurer involved in the decisions about the services and their funding.

The Kortes' case is expected to continue in the 7th Circuit.

Neither the 7th Circuit nor Sotomayor ruled on the merits of their respective cases. The legal standard for obtaining an injunction from the Supreme Court is much higher.

The case is Korte et al v. Sebelius, 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 12-3841.

More content from NBCNews.com:

• Officers' 'gut feeling' tracks down missing LA toddler
• Homicides plummet in NYC, leap in Chicago
• Snowstorm disrupts hundreds of Northeast flights
• Video: High profits seen in 'green rush' for legal marijuana
• At 1989 parole hearing, firefighter shooter wondered if he might kill

Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

State of Oregon via AP file

This undated image made available by the State of Oregon on March 18, 2010 shows Timur Dykes. In April 2010, a jury decided the Boy Scouts were negligent for allowing Dykes, a former assistant scoutmaster, to associate with Scouts after he admitted to a Scouts official in 1983 that he had molested 17 boys, according to court records.

As the Boy Scouts of America prepares for the court-ordered release of records detailing accusations of sex abuse by members and leaders, the organization acknowledged in an open letter this week that its response in some of the cases had been “plainly insufficient, inappropriate, or wrong.”

The letter comes after the Oregon Supreme Court ordered the Boy Scouts to release “ineligible volunteer” files from 1965 to 1985 that chronicle suspected or confirmed instances of child sex abuse. Media organizations had sued for the release of the files, part of a 2010 case in which a jury decided that the Scouts were negligent for allowing a former assistant scoutmaster to associate with the organization's youth after he admitted molesting 17 boys in 1983, court records show, according to The Associated Press.

Some 829 of the files from that time period (Jan. 1, 1965 to June 30, 1984) involve suspicions or confirmations of inappropriate sexual behavior with 1,622 youth, according to a report by Dr. Janet Warren, a professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia, for the Boy Scouts. The report, released Tuesday, was completed in 2011.

“Dr. Warren’s report shows that, as part of our broader Youth Protection program, the BSA’s system of ineligible volunteer files functions to help protect Scouts,” Wayne Perry, national president, Tico Perez, national commissioner, and Wayne Brock, chief Scout executive, said Tuesday in an open letter to the Scouting community. “However, we also know that in some instances we failed to defend Scouts from those who would do them harm. There have been instances where people misused their positions in Scouting to abuse children, and in certain cases, our response to these incidents and our efforts to protect youth were plainly insufficient, inappropriate, or wrong.

Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com

“For any episode of abuse, and in any instance where those involved in Scouting failed to protect, or worse, inflicted harm on children, we extend our deepest apologies and sympathies to victims and their families,” according to the letter. “While we believe the files are an inconclusive record, the BSA will undertake a similar review and analysis of the IV (ineligible volunteer) files created from 1965 to present and ensure that all good-faith suspicion of abuse has been reported to law enforcement.”

The developments were first reported by the Los Angeles Times, which noted that Warren’s team was paid $75,000 to complete the study.

Warren’s findings included:

--  The total number of alleged youth victims identified in the files was 1,622. Of these, 1,302 were involved in Scouting, for 112 it was unclear, and for 208, they were not involved in Scouting.
--  486 of the men identified in the files as suspects were arrested at some time for a sex crime. It may have occurred before they got involved with Scouting, as a result of the incident noted in their file or after they left the organization.
--  In 531 of the cases, there was information indicating alleged inappropriate sexual behavior with multiple youths. 
--  In 252 of the cases, the available information indicated alleged inappropriate sexual behavior with only a single victim. 
--  128 of the men in the files had their registration revoked within a year of signing up.
-- Police were involved in the investigation of 523 cases.
-- Six men placed on probation offended against a Scout during their probationary period, while two men were accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with a youth after their probationary period had ended.  
-- After being denied registration by the BSA, 175 men were identified as having sought to re-register with the organization, in some cases under a different name at another location many years after their initial entry into the files. They were denied entry into the Boy Scouts.

“My review of these files indicates that the reported rate of sexual abuse in Scouting has been very low,” Warren wrote in a summary of her report, in which she also said the “files broadly refute the notion that these were ‘secret files’ of hidden abuse.”

“I believe that these files show that children in Scouting were safer and less likely to experience inappropriate sexual behavior in Scouting than in their own families, schools and during other community activities supervised by adults,” she wrote.

But an attorney who has filed several suits for former Scouts said Warren’s review didn’t take into account abuse cases that weren’t in the files.

"Personally I have represented more than a hundred men abused by Scout leaders whose names were never entered in the ... files -- even after BSA paid out substantial settlements on account of these abusers," Timothy Kosnoff, a Seattle attorney, told the Los Angeles Times. "The files are only the tip of the iceberg. Most perpetrators never get caught."

The Boy Scouts said they expect the files from the Oregon case to be released soon. They said that, beginning in 2010, the organization mandated that all suspicions of abuse be reported to law enforcement authorities and that they have always required members to follow local laws on reporting of abuse.

More content from NBCNews.com:

• Summer's over, but drought persists; two-thirds of contiguous US affected
• Lucky 13 brings $202 million for Powerball ticket sold in Iowa
• Authorities hunting for 73-year-old accused of killing his daughter-in-law
• Video: Helmet camera captures soldier shot in firefight
• No fix for 'Jesus rifles' deploying to Afghanistan

Follow US News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Elise Amendola / AP file

Keegan O'Brien of Worcester, Mass., leads chants as members of the LGBT community protest the Defense of Marriage Act outside a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Boston on June 23, 2009. A battle over the federal law appears headed for the Supreme Court after an appeals court ruled on May 31, 2012, that denying benefits to married gay couples is unconstitutional.

When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told a group of students that the Supreme Court would probably hear challenges during its upcoming term to the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages, she confirmed what many observers were already thinking: The nation’s high court is poised to weigh in on the battle over same-sex marriage.

While answering questions from students at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Ginsburg was asked Wednesday about the equal protection clause and if the court might consider applying it to sexual orientation, an argument used in challenges to DOMA, the 1996 federal law that denies various benefits to same-sex couples.

Though she said she couldn’t discuss matters that would come to the court, she also said, according to The Associated Press: “I think it’s most likely that we will have that issue before the court toward the end of the current term.”

The justices have been asked to hear five different challenges to DOMA that have been decided in lower courts, said Brian Moulton, legal director of Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.

But just one of those, Windsor v. U.S. out of New York state, is listed for the court’s conference on Sept. 24, when they will have a first look at a range of cases seeking to be heard by the justices this year. They may hold that case until they have all of the DOMA challenges in front of them to consider, but Ginsburg’s comments reinforced what they were hoping for, Moulton told NBC News.

“I think it’s quite likely the court will … take one or more of the DOMA cases,” Moulton said. “Beyond that, I think we’re all just kind of waiting to see what that’s going to look like and when that might happen.”

Michael Klarman, a Harvard Law School professor who clerked for Ginsburg nearly 30 years ago when she was a DC Circuit judge, said he assumed that the Supreme Court was likely to take the case, so her comments make “it seem that much more probable.”

AP file

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg participates in a panel discussion, on Aug. 3, during the American Bar Association's annual meeting in Chicago.

“ … with a bunch of lower court decisions and this being a pretty important issue, I think most people expected that they would grant review. She didn’t say they have granted review and obviously she is not supposed to say anything until it’s public, but she also has inside knowledge. So, I would say this just increases the likelihood that they’ll review the DOMA case,” said Klarman, author of “From the Closet to the Altar: Courts, Backlash, and the Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage.”

Appeals court: Denying federal benefits to same-sex couples is unconstitutional
Despite marriage progress, gay couples face big hurdles to parenthood
Conservatives target Republicans who back gay marriage
Same-sex couple fights to stop deportation, gay marriage ban
Obama: 'I think same-sex couples should be able to get married'
Prop 8 backers ask Supreme Court to review gay marriage ban

Klarman said opposing sides on the bench, such as liberal justices who support same-sex marriage and conservatives who opposed federal intervention into states’ rights, potentially could come together on the issue.

“I think it’s actually a pretty easy case for them to some extent that’s reflected in the lower court decisions, where even judges who were appointed by Republican presidents have signed on to invalidating the statute,” he said. “So that’s probably a factor in granting review as well … if a bunch of the justices think this is a fairly easy constitutional issue to resolve, it might make them more inclined to grant review.”

He noted, however, that the court could issue a narrow ruling that kicks the issue back to the states or a broad one that would have big implications for state laws and constitutional amendments.

Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage, said he was confident his side would win the court argument.

“It’s so far out to claim that somehow the states can force the federal government to redefine marriage. That’s so far out legally, I don’t see the Supreme Court siding with these decisions of lower courts,” he said.

DOMA was passed in 1996, when it appeared Hawaii would legalize same-sex marriage. Since then, many states have instituted their own bans on gay marriage, while eight states have approved it, led by Massachusetts in 2004, and followed by Connecticut, New York, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maryland, Washington state plus the District of Columbia.

The Maryland and Washington laws are not yet in effect and are subject to referendums in the November ballot. Maine is also holding a vote on whether to allow same-sex marriage, while voters in Minnesota will decide whether to add a same-sex marriage ban to their state constitution.

More content from NBCNews.com:

• Did Supreme Court justice tip hand on gay marriage?
• Mom who 'smooshed' son's alleged bully: No regrets
• Video: Thrill ride passengers get stuck 300 feet in the air
• Prosecutors give up fight for James Holmes' notebook
• Mom: Substitute teacher duct-taped kid's mouth shut

Follow US News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Beck Diefenbach / Reuters file

Gay marriage advocates cheer during a rally outside a federal courthouse in San Francisco moments before hearing that judges had struck down Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage, on Feb. 7, 2012.

Backers of California's Proposition 8, intended to ban same-sex marriage in the state, asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to take up their appeal after two lower federal courts found the measure unconstitutional.

The justices now face two gay rights issues: the Prop 8 appeal and two challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Voters in California approved Prop 8 in 2008, less than six months after the state’s Supreme Court approved same-sex marriage. The measure was immediately challenged.

A federal judge declared it unconstitutional in 2010, and a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in February that the ban discriminated against gays and lesbians. The full circuit declined to hear the appeal from Prop 8 supporters, though its ruling remains on hold until all legal avenues have been exhausted.

In urging the Supreme Court to hear their appeal, backers of the measure – which includes that Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal ministry -- said the nation was in the midst of a public debate about "the profoundly important question” of “whether the ancient and vital institution of marriage should be fundamentally redefined to include same-sex couples."

Stay informed with the latest headlines; sign up for our newsletter

Proponents of Prop 8 stepped in to lead the court battle after California officials concluded the ban was unconstitutional and declined to defend it.

The federal appeals court wrongly concluded, the Prop 8 backers said in their petition Tuesday, that because California's domestic partnership law already gave same-sex couples the same legal rights that married couples have, all the measure did was take away their legal right to get marriage licenses. 

Such a distinction, the appeals court determined, had no effect other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians. The court also found that Prop 8 unconstitutionally took away a fundamental right that the state had previously guaranteed.

Watch the Top Videos on NBCNews.com

"This reasoning calls into immediate question the marriage laws of Hawaii, Nevada, and Oregon, which extend to same-sex couples the incidents but not the designation of marriage," lawyers for the Prop 8 supporters argued in their Supreme Court filing.

The appeals court ruling "threatens to short-circuit further democratic deliberation regarding official recognition of same-sex marriage," they said.

Related stories:

• Appeals court: Denying federal benefits to same-sex couples is unconstitutional
• Conservatives target Republicans who back gay marriage
• Same-sex couple fights to stop deportation, gay marriage ban
• Obama: 'I think same-sex couples should be able to get married'

Separately, both the Obama administration and House Republicans are urging the Supreme Court to decide the constitutionality of a provision in the federal Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996 and signed into law by former President Bill Clinton. 

DOMA, as the law is known, prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage -- even in states where it is legal -- thereby denying various benefits given to heterosexual couples. 

Survey: Partisan divide over gay marriage widens

The Obama administration had stopped defending the law, concluding it was unconstitutional. It recently asked the Supreme Court to take up two of the DOMA cases – one originating in Massachusetts, the other in California -- after appeals courts struck the law down.

Neither case sought for justices to decide the fundamental question of whether the Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry. No Supreme Court action on whether to take up any of the cases, or all of them, is expected until the fall.

No same-sex marriages have been performed in California since Prop 8 was passed by voters.

Equality California, a LGBT advocacy group, said there was no need for the Supreme Court to review the case because the decision to strike down Prop 8 “rested on solid constitutional principles.”

"Two federal courts in this case have affirmed what we know to be true -- that Proposition 8 seriously infringes on the guarantee of equal protection and serves no legitimate state interest,” the group’s spokeswoman, Rebekah Orr, said in an email. “We look forward to a day in the near future when all loving, committed couples will have the freedom to commit their lives to one another in marriage and enjoy the security and protection that only marriage can provide." 

NBC News’ Miranda Leitsinger contributed to this report.

More content from NBCNews.com:

• Give us a break from ethanol, drought-hit livestock producers ask EPA
• Bedbugs, energy 'audits' among new top consumer headaches
• Poll: Views on gun laws unchanged after theater massacre
• Man shoots at police officer in dash-cam video
• Sergeant faces 30 days, demotion over soldier's suicide

Follow US News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Darren Mccollester / Getty Images file

Greg Kimball and Brian O'Connor shout outside the Massachusetts State House on June 14, 2007 in Boston, Mass. On May 31, 2012, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutionally denies married same-sex couples federal benefits.

A Filipino woman who married her American wife in 2008, when it was briefly legal to do so in the state of California, should not be denied immigration rights that heterosexual couples receive and should not be deported, her lawyers are arguing in a lawsuit.

Jane DeLeon, who came to the U.S. in 1989, her son, Martin Aranas, and her spouse, Irma Rodriguez, are suing the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, among others, for their implementation of the Defense of Marriage Act. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division.

The suit joins several others targeting DOMA, the federal law banning same-sex marriages, including one filed by binational gay couples in New York. The Obama administration has asked the Supreme Court to take up two of those cases: one originating in Massachusetts and another in California, according to scotusblog.

“ … [T]the lawsuit alleges that the Administration has refused to implement a nationwide program to place same sex marriage immigration cases on hold while the courts determine DOMA’s constitutionality,” the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the family along with others, said in a statement, echoing complaints made by other same-sex marriage immigration groups.

“While the Administration has stated that it would review gay marriage cases on a ‘case-by-case’ individual basis, the plaintiffs claim that many immigrants cannot afford to retain lawyers to prepare the materials needed for an individualized discretionary case-by-case determination, and in any event many immigrants are afraid to come forward and expose themselves to detention or deportation,” the statement continued. In this case, “DeLeon was not offered a ‘case-by-case’ determination but instead had her temporary status automatically revoked and was told to leave the country.”

DeLeon, 47, came to the U.S. with her common-law husband. She met Rodriguez in 1992, and they have lived together ever since.

Authorities approved her employer’s application for permanent resident status for her in May 2006, and she had temporary lawful status until April 2011, when immigration officials told her she was inadmissible to the country. They said she had misrepresented her name and marital status because she had entered the U.S. under the last name of her former spouse, even though they were not legally married, according to the lawsuit.

The couple attempted to get a waiver based upon the hardship that deportation would impose upon them and DeLeon’s 25-year-old son, whose immigration status would also be affected if his mother was deported, but it was denied last November. Authorities, the lawsuit said, did not reject the request because the couple failed to prove the hardship claim, but solely because under the federal marriage law she was married to someone of the same sex who was not recognized as a relative.

The denial states that under DOMA, DeLeon’s spouse did "not qualify as a relative for purposes of establishing hardship,” the lawsuit said.

Peter Boogaard, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman, said immigration services won’t comment on pending litigation.

"In general, pursuant to the attorney general’s guidance, the Defense of Marriage Act remains in effect and the executive branch, including the Department of Homeland Security, will continue to enforce it unless and until Congress repeals it, or there a final judicial determination that it is unconstitutional,” he said in an email.

For some gay couples, fight goes on to marry — and stay in the US
Appeals court: Denying federal benefits to same-sex couples is unconstitutional
Conservatives target Republicans who back gay marriage
Illinois same-sex couples sue for right to marry
Obama: 'I think same-sex couples should be able to get married'

DOMA, enacted by Congress in 1996, blocks federal recognition of same-sex marriage, thereby denying various benefits given to heterosexual couples, such as the right to immigrate.

The lawsuit alleges that the federal marriage law denies due process and equal protection  under the law in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The couple is asking the court to grant their request to give class action status to the lawsuit since their challenge affects innumerable others in their situation.

 “Irma and I have committed to each other for the rest of our lives. We now face being forced to move to the Philippines or breaking up our family only because we are legally married women,” DeLeon said, noting the couple could face persecution in her home country because they are lesbians. “We pray that the administration will change its mind and grant me and those similarly situated around the country the right to remain here temporarily until the courts decide whether our constitutional lawsuit has merit.”

There are an estimated 36,000 binational gay couples in the U.S. Lavi Soloway, a lawyer representing same-sex couples, whose law practice – Masliah & Soloway – created Stop The Deportations: The DOMA project, said the case highlights the need to put such pending green card cases on hold until a judicial resolution has been reached.

“Thousands of gay and lesbian Americans struggle every day with the crisis of expiring visas, separation, exile, and deportation caused solely by DOMA," he said in an email. "This can end now if the Obama administration uses the power of the executive branch to implement remedies to protect our families until DOMA is gone.”

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Horrific N.J. car accident becomes red-light stop campaign
• Man becomes cop to honor murdered brother
• Poll: Confidence in organized religion at all-time low
• Survivalist made chilling video before killing wife, daughter
• Caught on camera: Shark steals fish off pole

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

Jennifer Tyrrell and her 7-year-old son have had many rewarding experiences with the Boy Scouts of America, but their participation in the national organization came to an end because she is gay, and the group does not allow open or avowed homosexuals in their membership.

Tyrrell learned the news on April 10. The loss has been devastating.

“We were like a family, so in essence … we lost our scouting family, but they also lost two members of their scouting family,” the former Tiger Cubs den leader from Bridgeport, Ohio, told msnbc.com, at points breaking down into tears.

“The best time in our lives we’ve had in the last year, it’s gone … because we can’t be scouts any more. I can’t stop crying,” she later added.

Tyrrell, a 32-year-old stay at home mother of four, said she agreed to become the den master on the day she signed up her son, Cruz Burns, for the local troop, last year. She had concerns about the Boy Scouts' policy against homosexuals, but a Cubmaster said that – locally -- they wouldn’t have problem.

“He said they would stand, you know, hand in hand with us and stand behind us all the way. Well, actually, that's been true,” she said. “I've never had a problem.”

Boy Scouts spokesman Deron Smith said Tyrrell was removed from the program for being in violation of the national policy regarding homosexuals.

“This policy was understood by her and her fellow volunteers, but not followed, upon her registering in the program,” he wrote in an email to msnbc.com.

Tyrrell said she would still be at home, crying on the couch, if her friends hadn’t encouraged her to hold a protest in town against her dismissal and start a campaign online to seek changes to the Boy Scouts policy.

Courtesy of Jennifer Tyrrell

Jennifer Tyrrell and her son Cruz Burns.

That petition has garnered more than 170,000 signatures

The Boy Scouts’ policy became a focus of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000, when the justices sided with the organization in a lawsuit involving a former Assistant Scoutmaster who was gay, citing the protections of the First Amendment.

“Scouting, and the majority of parents it serves, does not believe it is the right forum for children to become aware of the issue of sexual orientation, or engage in discussions about being gay. Rather, such complex matters should be discussed with parents, caregivers, or spiritual advisers, at the appropriate time and in the right setting,” Smith said. “We fully understand and appreciate that not everyone will agree with any one position or policy.”

But Tyrrell said sexual orientation wasn’t a topic until her dismissal. The children just knew that Cruz had two moms, but there was no further discussion about sexuality.

She also questioned the timing of the revoking of her membership, claiming that as the recently-appointed treasurer, she was trying to iron out some financial discrepancies – and was going to formally make her queries at a meeting the day she was removed.

“She did raise question about the local unit’s finances, however her removal from the program was solely for being in violation of national policy,” Smith wrote. 

Tyrrell said she will continue to push for changes at the Boy Scouts and called on them to take “the high road” and change their policy to include “all Americans.”

“… because we’re just people,” she said. “We’re just gay people who love their kids.”