Several Roman Catholic organizations have challenged Obama administration rules requiring religious colleges and hospitals (but not churches themselves) to offer preventive health care, including contraceptive coverage, with no deductibles or co-pays. Even though the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of most of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), the courts still have t o decide whether those institutions are exempt from the contraception requirement under a federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Our view is that church-affiliated charitable and educational institutions should offer such coverage, even if they are self-insured. Not all of their employees are Catholic, and even many Catholics make a personal choice to use contraceptives. The Obama administration’s decision to provide only a narrow religious exemption is the right one.
That said, religious colleges and hospitals are at least part of a church’s religious mission, so the discussion makes sense. The same cannot be said for a company that sells heating, ventilation and air conditioning services. Yet a federal judge in Colorado is taking seriously a complaint by Hercules Industries, an HVAC company owned by a Catholic family, that the contraceptive mandate violates its rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Senior U.S. District Judge John L. Kane issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the contraceptive mandate against Hercules.
It’s troubling that Kane sees a for-profit secular company as in any way analogous to a parochial school or Catholic hospital. It’s not a new idea: Earlier this year Senate Republicans unsuccessfully proposed a bill to let any employer drop health coverage that didn’t comport with his religious or moral beliefs. But it is a bad idea. Reasonably interpreted, neither the Religious Freedom Restoration Act nor the First Amendment provides an escape hatch for profit-making businesses from the ACA, any more than it exempts them from civil rights laws.
Los Angeles Times (July 31)
Excellent editorial.
There is nothing wrong with loving God. I do so myself. The problem as I see it is when your belief in God interferes with your one on one relationship with him. He gave us ten rules to play this game called life and yet those rules are broken daily even by those who claim to love him the most. If you did as he asked and understood his standing on free choice you would mind your business. What someone else chooses to do about having babies is none of anyone’s business. But the one thing humans like to do is over ponder the issue. And like typical humans we have over complicated the matter. The only thing left to do is scrap all these ideas we have on how we are going to control others and manipulate them and go back to start. What does God really say about this? This is a question we all need to individually find the answers to. No religion can teach us this. This is between you as an individual and God. No middle manipulating man in in the way.
Every person is free to make whatever religious decision they want as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. This means that every individual, including all Catholics, have the right to choose to use birth control or choose not to use it. This is not being threatened in any way. What we are not free to do it line-item veto what our money goes to. This is what churches want to do. They wish to line-item veto birth control in their insurance payment. If I cannot line-item veto wars that kill hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, then churches can’t do the same with birth control. You are free to choose the medical care you want, but you are not free to make others choose the way you want.
Besides, I question their motives. Maybe the churches want to regulate sex. It’s a great con idea. You take something that everyone does and everyone likes doing, make it bad thing, then provide the guilt relief for doing that bad thing. Churches use sex to make up a problem, then provide the solution to said problem. Birth control takes away the justification of “Think of all the unwanted children because people couldn’t control themselves”. Now that they don’t need to control themselves, they’re scared that their problem that they made up to keep people hooked will melt away.
Much to ponder. Given separation of church and state, I would think that religious colleges and hospitals that accept money from the government would be found in violation of the ACA. (Leo Pfeffer arguing PEARL v. Levitt, and Pearl v. Nyquist, for example).
If upheld, shouldn’t Hercules Industries be prohibited from contracting business with any individual, business, or nonprofit organization that supports the use of contraceptives, and is/or receives any type of local, state, or fedral government funding.
Viagra should not be covered by health insurance, when contraceptives and contraceptive devices are not.
I see the ACA as solely concerned with profit lines and the insurance industry, and consider its mandates unconstituional, not at all concerned with providing health care, but mandating insurance payments.
This will be an interesting court case.
I agree with the 1st 3 paragraphs.