WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted a temporary exemption late Tuesday to a small group of Catholic nuns that shields it from having to comply with a part of President Obama's healthcare law that requires it to provide contraceptive coverage in its insurance plans. 
 
 She acted on an emergency appeal from lawyers for the group who said the nuns faced "draconian fines" beginning on New Year's Day if they failed to comply with the law widely known as Obamacare. 
 
 Sotomayor gave the government until Friday to file a response in the case. Her order extends only to the group of nuns and does not apply more broadly to the Affordable Care Act and its requirements. 
 
 The Supreme Court is facing a series of appeals from religious organizations and private corporations whose owners object to paying for contraceptives. In March, the court will hear two cases involving corporations and the contraceptive mandate. 
 
 The Obama administration has exempted churches and other religious groups from providing contraceptive coverage. However, it has granted a more limited exemption for religiously affiliated charities. Although they need not pay for this coverage directly, their insurers are required to include the coverage in their policies. 
 
 Nonetheless, several religious charities have continued to press for exemptions to the law. And on Tuesday evening, hours before the mandate was to take effect, they sent several emergency appeals to the court seeking an emergency exemption. 
 
 It was unclear how the Obama administration would proceed after Sotomayor's order. Obama is vacationing with his family in Hawaii this week, and the White House is not expected to make any comment before the Justice Department files a response to Sotomayor's ruling on Friday. 
 
 A number of religious groups with similar objections have vigorously challenged the Affordable Care Act in court. The Colorado order of nuns, the Little Sisters of the Poor, asked for the last-minute ruling Tuesday because the healthcare law's provisions go into effect Jan. 1. 
 
 In late November, the Supreme Court agreed to hear several cases that could settle the dispute between the Obama administration and businesses run by Christian conservatives over whether those companies must pay for birth control if providing that coverage is in conflict with the religious beliefs of the business owner. 
 
 The November announcement that the Supreme Court would hear the constitutional challenge to the birth control mandate in Sebelius vs. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., as well as another case, signaled a new phase of the political battle over the healthcare law. 
 
 David Green, founder of Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby Stores, has argued that business owners "should not have to choose between violating their beliefs and violating the law." 
 
 david.savage@latimes.com 
 
 maeve.reston@latimes.com 
 
 Savage reported from Washington and Reston from Honolulu. ||||| WASHINGTON — Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday temporarily blocked the Obama administration from forcing some religious-affiliated groups to provide health insurance coverage of birth control or face penalties as part of the Affordable Care Act. 
 
 Acting at the request of an order of nuns in Colorado, Justice Sotomayor issued the stay just hours before the requirement was to go into effect on New Year’s Day. She gave the Obama administration until Friday to respond to the Supreme Court. 
 
 Justice Sotomayor’s order applies to the nuns, the Little Sisters of the Poor, and other Roman Catholic nonprofit groups that use the same health plan, known as the Christian Brothers Employee Benefit Trust. The groups’ lawsuit is one of many challenging the federal requirement for contraceptive coverage, but a decision on the merits of that case by the full Supreme Court could have broader implications. 
 
 “We are delighted with the ruling,” said Mark L. Rienzi, a lawyer at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who represented the nuns in the lawsuit. “We are delighted that the Supreme Court will require the government to file briefs in the court on this matter.” The Little Sisters of the Poor operate nursing homes for low-income people in the United States and around the world. 
 
 Without Justice Sotomayor’s order, the nuns “would have been forced to comply with the contraceptive mandate on Wednesday or face large fines,” Mr. Rienzi said late Tuesday. 
 
 The contraception requirement has been one of the most controversial aspects of the health law since the Obama administration first announced it in mid-2011, along with other requirements it characterized as preventive care. Religious opponents of abortion have objected especially strongly to the requirement to provide emergency contraception pills, like Plan B, although most studies show that the drug works by preventing fertilization, not by inducing abortion. 
 
 In an effort to compromise, the administration said that women who work for nonprofit religious groups that object to birth control could receive separate coverage not paid for by the employers. It refused, however, to offer accommodations to secular businesses whose owners have religious objections to contraception. 
 
 That has led to a separate group of lawsuits. And last month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a pair of cases on whether corporations may refuse to provide insurance coverage for contraception. 
 
 Justice Sotomayor — who later was to lead the countdown for the Times Square ball drop — issued her order after the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver, earlier on New Year’s Eve denied the nuns’ request for a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the contraceptive coverage requirements imposed by the new health care law. 
 
 The Obama administration had argued that the Little Sisters of the Poor could opt out of the contraceptive coverage requirement by completing “a self-certification form” and providing it to the entity that administers their health benefits. Therefore, the Justice Department said, the contraceptive mandate imposes “no substantial burden on their exercise of religion.” 
 
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 “To opt out of providing contraceptive coverage, Little Sisters need only certify that they are nonprofit organizations that hold themselves out as religious and that, because of religious objections, they are opposed to providing coverage for some or all contraceptive services,” the Justice Department told the appeals court on Monday. 
 
 The administration says it has exempted churches from the contraceptive coverage requirement and offered an accommodation to certain religious nonprofit groups. But the Becket Fund argued that “the ‘accommodation’ still forces the Little Sisters to find an insurer who will cover sterilization, contraceptive and abortion-inducing drugs and devices.” 
 
 “The Sisters would also be required to sign a form that triggers the start of that coverage,” it said. “In good conscience, they cannot do that. So the ‘accommodation’ still violates their religious beliefs.” 
 
 The Obama administration has repeatedly defended the birth control requirement. “The president believes that no one, including the government or for-profit corporations, should be able to dictate those decisions to women,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said last month. 
 
 One of the pending Supreme Court cases was filed by Hobby Lobby, a corporation owned by a family whose members have said they try to run the business on Christian principles. The company, which operates a chain of arts-and-crafts stores and has more than 15,000 full-time employees of many faiths. Hobby Lobby has said it has no problem with offering coverage for many forms of contraception, including condoms, diaphragms, sponges, several kinds of birth control pills and sterilization surgery. But drugs and devices that can prevent embryos from implanting in the womb are another matter, and make it complicit in a form of abortion, the company said. 
 
 The other case was filed by the Conestoga Wood Specialties Corporation, which makes wood cabinets and is owned by a Mennonite family that had similar objections to the law.
– Before dropping the ball in Times Square, Sonia Sotomayor dropped yet another problem on ObamaCare, many key provisions of which kick in today. The Supreme Court justice granted a last-minute temporary exemption to a group of Catholic nuns who object to providing contraceptive coverage for employees, reports the Los Angeles Times. The government has been given until Friday to file a response in the case, which applies to the nuns and other Roman Catholic nonprofit groups using the same health plan. Lawyers for the nuns argued that they would face "draconian fines" if they didn't start complying with the law today. Churches have been exempted from providing contraceptive coverage, but the nuns' suit is among several from religious organizations and private corporations who are also pressing for exemptions, NBC notes. The Justice Department says that to opt out, all the nuns need to do is "certify that they are nonprofit organizations that hold themselves out as religious," though the group representing the nuns says ObamaCare rules still require them to violate their beliefs by dealing with an insurer covering "sterilization, contraceptive and abortion-inducing drugs and devices," the New York Times finds.