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Catholic Bishops Slam Administration's Attack on Religious Freedom
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In a sharply worded and very detailed comment on the federal government's recent requirement that health insurance plans must cover a wide range of "preventive services," including contraceptive services, the Office of the General Counsel of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops says that the coverage mandate is unprecedented, illegal, and unconstitutional, and that the regulations' narrow exemption of religious employers is also unprecedented in federal law, illegal, and unconstitutional.  The Obama administration's requirements here, the comment says, constitute "an unprecedented attack on religious liberty."

The coverage mandate itself, by requiring health insurance to cover "all FDA-approved contraceptives"--and thus coverage of at least one abortifacient drug--violates, among other things, the health insurance law itself (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) and President Obama's Executive Order intended to assure critics that the law would not promote abortions.  Furthermore, the mandate, by forcing coverage of such services by virtually all health insurance plans, unconstitutionally "coerces" organizations and individuals "to subsidize--and thereby endorse--conduct that they teach or otherwise state is wrong."  

The comment goes on to document the utter inadequacy of the religious exemption that is written into the regulations.  The exemption only covers a few religious employers--church-like entities.  It thus does not protect the religious freedom or conscience rights of individuals, who are required by the law to purchase insurance; religiously affiliated insurance companies; secular organizations that object to covering certain services; and the vast majority of faith-based service organizations. The comment argues that the exemption violates the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment.

Most likely, most religious colleges and universities are not exempt under the narrow definition of religious employers.  In any case, the health insurance plans they offer to their students are, under the administration's rules, obligated to cover contraceptive services, even if the college or university itself is exempt.  

The comment notes that, to qualify for the exemption, a religious organization has to have as its purpose "the inculcation of religious values" and must serve predominantly only those of its own faith.  And yet, preposterously, under these criteria, "even the ministry of Jesus and the early Christian Church would not qualify as 'religious,' because they did not confine their ministry to their co-religionists or engage only in a preaching ministry. In effect, the exemption is directly at odds with the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which Jesus teaches concern and assistance for those in need, regardless of faith differences."

The only adequate solution, the comment says, is for the administration to rescind the mandate that insurance plans must cover contraceptive services.

Note:  Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) has proposed the "Respect for Rights of Conscience Act of 2011," HR 1179, which would permit organizations, individuals, and insurers not to pay for or support services that conflict with their "religious beliefs or moral convictions." 

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Democrat Mike McIntyre (North Carolina) and Republican Randy Forbes (Virginia), co-chairs of the Congressional Prayer Caucus,  have written to President Obama, asking him not to change the rules that enable faith-based organizations that consider religion in hiring to become contractors providing goods and services to the federal government.  The so-called Coalition Against Religious Discrimination has urged the President to change the rules.  IRFA in July organized a letter from faith leaders asking for the policy, which dates back to a Bush Executive Order, to be kept.

The Congressional Prayer Caucus brings together Republican and Democratic members of the House of Representatives to protect the role of prayer in American public life and to preserve "the presence of religion, faith, and morality in the marketplace of ideas."  A notable CPC initiative in 2009 got the motto "In God We Trust" engraved in the new Capitol Visitor Center, which originally had been devoid of any acknowledgement of religion in American public life.  

In their letter McIntyre and Forbes say: "A crucial aspect of America's religious freedom is the right of like-minded individuals to unify in service to their community, guided by their religious beliefs.  It is imperative that we preserve the ability of these valuable contributors to society to offer assistance to the federal government while simultaneously preserving their religious identity."

Worth Noting
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*Stanley Carlson-Thies, "Why Freedom of Religion?"  Capital Commentary, Sept. 2, 2011.

  

"[R]eligion is not a matter only of inner belief, religious ritual, and institutions to propagate the faith, as important as all of these are.  It is a matter of right living--living life in the world as required by one's deepest convictions about what is right.  Thus religious freedom must protect not only the communication of religious truth but also the care of physical and psychological needs.  Religious freedom must protect parachurch organizations--faith-based non-profits and other institutions--as well as churches, for it is often through parachurch organizations such as religious charities, schools, and hospitals that people of faith put their convictions into action in the world."  

 

 

*Helen Alvar�, "Uphold Conscience Protection:  Religious Freedom's Contribution to the American Experience and Threats to its Survival," Public Discourse, August 26, 2011.  

 

"Over the course of our history, Americans came to understand that the state's lack of jurisdiction over questions of ultimate meaning entailed not only allowing individuals to believe privately in a transcendent reality, or to worship as they believed, or even to pray privately and perform good works. Rather, it also entailed recognizing that religion is also exercised in the form of associations that provide services to vulnerable citizens of every background in accordance with religious principles. Throughout American history, religious citizens were not only permitted, but even encouraged, to let their religious convictions inform their work, and their contributions to public debates were understood to have important consequences for our understanding of human rights and dignity."   

 

 

*Christopher T. Haley, "Creating a Catholic Ghetto," First Things, August 25, 2011. 

 

"Catholic hospitals, schools, and charities do not serve primarily Catholics, they serve everyone; there is no baptismal requirement to receive services from Catholics. We do not serve people because they are Catholic; we serve people because we are Catholic. And the same goes for members of other religious groups."  

 

 

 *President George Washington, Letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, Summer 1790, before the ratification of the First Amendment:

 

"The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support."

 

Hat tip to Seth Lipsky, "A Missing Monument to Religious Freedom," Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2011.

 

 

*Stephen D. Smith, "The Plight of the Secular Paradigm," San Diego Legal Studies Research Paper Series, 11-062, August 2011.

 

"For many it has been axiomatic that liberal democratic governments and the laws they impose must be 'secular'; this assumption pervades both constitutional law and much political theory. But there are indications that this secular 'paradigm of legitimacy' is losing its grip; thus, while urging a rehabilitation of secularism, Rajeev Bhargava suggests that '[o]nly someone with blinkered vision would deny the crisis of secularism.' This essay considers that crisis.

"Part I of the essay discusses the nature of a 'paradigm of legitimacy.' Part II outlines the strategies of assimilation and marginalization that historically have supported such paradigms and considers the paradigm shifts that can occur when these strategies prove ineffective. Part III illustrates these observations by reviewing the process by which, beginning in the fourth century, a Christian paradigm replaced an earlier Roman one and then in turn declined in favor of a more secular view. Part IV, the longest in the essay, discusses the rise of the secular paradigm, the strategies that have supported it, and the increasing futility of those strategies that have led to the present distress."

 

 

*Cindy Huynh, "Virginia Ministry Uses Networks to Get People Back to Work," White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships blog, July 28, 2011.

 

"Earlier this month, I joined some colleagues at the Department of Labor's Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships on a visit to the Career Network Ministry (CNM) at McLean Bible Church in Northern Virginia. The visit was made in conjunction with the Center's efforts to identify job clubs across the country and connect them to one another and to the workforce investment system. CNM is one of the most successful and celebrated job clubs in the country . . . . 

 

"DOL Center's Deputy Director Ben Seigel . . . praised CNM's work. 'This ministry is a testament to the power of community and volunteers to come together and help out your neighbors, and achieve real results in getting people back to work,' said Ben." 

 

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