Obamacare Bureaucracy vs. Religious Belief

I recently introduced our readers to a small victory for religious freedom over bureaucratic absolutism (Score One for the Christians). In that case, the Supreme Court told the National Labor Relations Board that a religious organization has sole power to determine its own rules regarding hiring and firing based on religious belief. But Leviathan never sleeps, and the Obama administration is at it again.

This time, the issue is much larger than that in the employment case. It is a bold attack on religious freedom, and the attack is grounded on the idea that the mission of a religious institution can be entirely separated from its non-religious functions. The bureaucracy this time is Health and Human Services, its commander is Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and the law from which the conflict stems is nothing less than Obamacare.

Simply put, the Catholic Church and some Orthodox Jewish organizations are religiously opposed to contraception. Obamacare requires that all employers, including those groups, must provide health insurance which includes coverage for contraception, certain abortifacients and sterilization at no additional charge to the employee. Contraceptive services are controversial among those groups, but it is the mandate to provide coverage for abortifacients and sterilization that has brought the issue to a rolling boil.

Obamacare does allow for some exemptions, but they are narrowly-written and are being interpreted by a bureaucracy that demands universal health care coverage whether you like it or not. In describing which employees the "religious employer" may exempt from contraception, abortifacient and sterilization coverage, Sebelius and her people rely on the preliminary regulations (which will undoubtedly remain unchanged in the final version) that require four concurrent things to be true:

1. The inculcation of religious values is its purpose.
2. It primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets.
3. It primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets.
4. It is a non-profit organization under sections of the code that refer to churches, their integrated auxiliaries, and conventions or associations, as well as to the exclusively religious activities of any religious order.

Paying careful obeisance to and obfuscation of the ruling in the NLRB employment case, HHS has issued a statement that specifically says: "The Departments seek to provide for a religious accommodation that respects the unique relationship between a house of worship and its employees in ministerial positions." By pretending to honor the unanimous decision in the NLRB case, HHS is actually carving out a rule that defeats religious belief outside the confines of the "ministry."

One student of the Department's position lays it out rather well. "The group insurance covering nuns in a Catholic religious order would probably not have to cover contraception. But insurance provided by the same order's elementary school probably would. The latter would also be true of a hospital established by the nuns."

The NLRB case was based on religious freedom ("the ministry"). This issue revolves more around religious worship and what information a religious organization must provide to non-members. So even in those cases where the Department may find the exemption applies, it will still require the organization to pass out information about "preventive" services which it does not provide under the exemption. Essentially, this means that the exempt religious organization must tell its employees where and how to obtain those services which are anathema to the organization and church teaching.

Sebelius's official statement explains how the new rule should be applied: "We intend to require employers that do not offer coverage of contraceptive and sterilization services to provide notice to employees, which will also state that contraceptive services are available at sites such as community health centers, public clinics, and hospitals with income-based support." At its most basic it means that Father Flanagan will meet with his employee and tell her that the Church utterly opposes artificial contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization, but since the Church's medical insurance doesn't cover it, here's a list of all the places that will provide the services we find abhorrent and contrary to scripture.

So as it stands, Catholic employees at non-Catholic institutions must pay for insurance for preventive services as part of their insurance package, but cannot be charged anything additional for them. Likewise, Catholic and non-Catholic employees of a Catholic institution may be required to purchase contraception and sterilization insurance through their employers depending on how the Department classifies the religious employer. In the latter case, both the religious institution and its employees are bound by entirely secular rules determining the religious status of the employer and employee.

Church charities, hospitals, universities and other non-church activities are affected. Current organizations preparing to challenge the HHS ruling are Catholic Charities USA, Notre Dame University and the Catholic hospital network. Regardless of the outcome, or even a later softening of its position for political gain, this is another example of how the Obama administration and its leftist supporters are innately hostile to religion. It also demonstrates how a bureaucracy can hide its anti-religious agenda in gentle-sounding legalese.