Obamacare must respect religious liberty
With Monday’s order in the case of Zubik v. Burwell, the Supreme Court justices have, in effect, ordered the government to come up with an Obamacare accommodation that does not force religious non-profit groups to violate our faith.
In March, the court heard oral arguments in Zubik, which is a consolidation of seven lawsuits that includes the one filed by the group I lead, Priests for Life. The
Zubik petitioners, and scores of other religious non-profit, faithbased charities, colleges and organizations across the country, object to the Health and Human Services mandate because it forces us to be complicit in the distribution of items that our faith informs us are evil — including contraception and abortion-causing drugs and devices.
Afterward, the justices took the highly unusual step of asking the parties for supplemental briefs. The court wanted to know whether the government could come up with a plan that both satisfies its interest in providing insurance for abortifacients, contraceptives and sterilization to the employees of religious nonprofit groups and protects those groups’ religious rights.
We petitioners responded that such an accommodation was not only possible, it’s also what we’ve been requesting through more than four years of litigation.
The Obama administration, lo and behold, admitted in its response that, yes, although it really didn’t want to issue such an accommodation, it could.
In effect, it admitted that enormous amounts of taxpayer dol- lars spent defending the government’s position and untold resources expended by charities defending religious rights have really been unnecessary.
Now, the Supreme Court has ordered all seven Zubik cases back to their respective courts of appeal with the implied message to the government and religiously based groups that, in light of the agreement expressed in the supplemental briefs, we all should try to work out a solution.
The order is a victory for the scores of other Catholic and Protestant organizations that have sued over the HHS mandate. It’s also a win for the Orthodox Jewish Rabbis, Muslims, Krishna adherents and Native American religious practitioners who have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of our case. Actually, it’s a victory for all Americans.
While we oppose the government’s plan to make abortifacients more available, we object in our lawsuit only to the government’s coercing us into being accomplices to its scheme. And “coerce” is not too strong a word. Organizations that fail to comply with the mandate can be fined $100 per employee a day.
In response to the new order, settlements might be reached in the Zubik lawsuits — or they will continue. Our cases could even return to the Supreme Court. By then, the presidential election might have passed and the Supreme Court might have nine members. Regardless, the wording of the court’s latest order indicates that the justices, indeed, will be concerned with protecting our religious freedoms.