The Treasury, IRS, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Labor finalized regs Firday that exempt certain religious employers from covering contraceptive care under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. T.D. 9578 (available here now to subscibers to BNA) will be published Feb. 15 in the Federal Register and become effective April 16.
Seems like the Catholic Church wants to impose its own views on these matters of religious theology on all of the people its employees. And they try to use the idea of religious and individual freedom to allow them to impose their views on people who may or may not share them (whether or not they are Catholic themselves).
Under Supreme Court precedent, religious Native Americans can be told they can smoke peyote because it is a regulated substance and the laws regulating that substance are "laws of general application" so they aren't discriminating towards Native Americans. See the Wikipedia entry for Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), excerpted below.
Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), is a United States Supreme Court case that determined that the state could deny unemployment benefits to a person fired for violating a state prohibition on the use of peyote, even though the use of the drug was part of a religious ritual. Although states have the power to accommodate otherwise illegal acts done in pursuit of religious beliefs, they are not required to do so.
The Smith result was replace with a "strict scrutiny" review in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, described here on Wikipedia.
Yet here are the Catholic Bishops claiming that even the direct accommodation provided by the Obama administration--that the church does not have to pay for contraceptive coverage, but the insurers must provide that to the church's employees who want it--isn't enough. See e.g., Newcomb, Contraceptive Compromise Doesn't Please Bishops, ABC News (Feb. 11, 2012). And Mitch McConnell in the Senate is threatening to try to take down the contraception mandate as "just another example of government meddling." See Flaherty, Top Republican Wants Vote on birth control mandate, AP (Feb. 12, 2012)--the flap over contraception provided the GOP what seemed like an opportune chance to pile on against the health reform act yet again: "And this is what happens when the government tries to take over health care and tries to interfere with your religious beliefs."
But individual freedom and interference with religious beliefs is one of those things that looks different depending on whose perspective you take.
The Obama administration compromise means the religious institutions don't have to provide that which they disagree with. There is minimal or no cost to insurance companies from providing the contraceptive coverage separately to employees of such religious institutions. In fact, it is likely that contraceptive coverage is much cheaper in the aggregate to women, government and insurance companies than having more (unwanted) pregnancies. Yet the Bishops think the Church should be exempted from the health care provision requirements --and their employees shouldn't have this option to get covered outside the church's plan--just because the church doesn't agree with it.
In part, they are relying on that statutory protection enacted after Smith--the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, under which the federal government is subject to strict scrutiny regarding laws that impose on religious freedom.
But the question here, of course, is whose freedom are we talking about?
The freedom of individuals of various religious backgrounds to work and receive the kind of coverage that they know they need and that is compatible with their own religion? or the freedom of the institution of the church to impose its religious dogma (and the consequences thereof) on all of its employees, no matter their religious faith? Whenever the two are not consistent--and they will not be for any woman, whether Catholic or not, who wants to use contraception and in fact believes that her faith permits her to do so or even that it requires her to do so to be able to provide appropriately for her family--then the position supporting greater religious AND individual freedom is the one that requires contraception to be covered, one way or another.
Yes, the Obama compromise is a little gimmicky--sort of like the Islamic finance arrangements which justify interest by camoflaging it in ways that make it look like some traditional accepted payments (leases, rents, etc.). But if that helps make it possible to do what needs to be done in this modern age--provide opportunities for borrowing funds to people that need to borrow to start businesses, or opportunities for decent contraceptive health care for people who work for a church that doesn't believe in it--then by all means, use the quasi-gimmicks in order to achieve the better public good. But don't cave to the shrill cries of the mandate amounting to religious persecution. It's nothing of the sort.
PS the same-sex marriage issue is another one where the Catholic Church shouldn't be able to impose its views on its workers who are not teaching theology. There, however, the Supreme Court (with a significant number of Catholic justices who might be expected to empathize with the church on these dogma questions) recently decided a case that supports a "ministerial exception" to laws that otherwise protect employees from various kinds of invidious discrimination in employment for employees of religious organizations. Personally, I see this as a black mark against religious freedom for individuals, and another example of corporatism at work, this time in support of institutionalized views being imposed on individuals that make up the institution. See, e.g., Music director's marriage leads to his firing from St. Gabriel Catholic Church (Feb. 12, 2012) (gay music director--who had worked in the church while having an openly gay relationship for years--suddenly fired for taking advantage of New York's new law permitting same-sex couples to marry, even though his state (South Carolina) and his employer (the Catholic Church) would not recognize the New York marriage anymore than it had recognized his earlier common law marriage). Much like the fundamentalist protestants who accuse the government of discriminating against Christians when the government appropriately uses "happy holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas" to wish its employees well, these religious groups are seeking to have the government impose restrictions on workers that take away worker rights in the name of religious freedom for some, but with the result of limited freedoms for others.
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