Noose getting tighter for churches in Calif.
The following comes from an Oct. 22 story by Wesley J. Smith in the National Review.
I wrote previously about radical California’s order that insurance companies cover elective abortion as “medically necessary” health care. Ridiculous and ideological.
Now, The Federalist reports that the order also applies to insurance purchased by churches. From the story:
While California (like the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) exempts churches from its contraceptive mandate, there is no exception to this bureaucratic abortion mandate. This leaves California churches in the illogical and impossible position of being free to exclude contraceptives from their health plan for reasons of religious conscience but required to provide their employees with abortion coverage.
What? How can they get away with it?
First, the California abortion mandate is a law of general applicability. This means no violation of the First Amendment: Under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, religious freedom doesn’t matter.
But Hobby Lobby! Nope. HL is a limited cased based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The RFRA only applies to federal law, not state.
Since California could care less about religious freedom, we don’t have an RFRA-type law.
But Obamacare forbids states from discriminating against policies that don’t provide abortion coverage. True. Alliance Defending Freedom and Life Legal Defense Foundation are on the case:
Alliance Defending Freedom and Life Legal Defense Foundation have filed administrative complaints with the HHS Office of Civil Rights (which oversees this federal law) on behalf of individual employees and seven California churches forced into abortion coverage in violation of their conscience.
Go get them, guys, but as the story says, good luck with that.
The Obama Administration is pro-abortion. More, it has amply demonstrated it won’t enforce laws or regulations with which it disagrees. Thus, I would be very surprised if Obamacarians brought its fellow ideological travelers in California to heel.
So sue! Sure. But I have two words for you: “Ninth Circuit”
Bottom line: California has crossed the post-Christian bridge into the anti-Christian era.
The Obama Administration has too.
So have most courts, particularly the Ninth Circuit.
I don’t expect these churches to find legal relief short of the Supreme Court. And that will take years.
As I always say: Abortion – like slavery did in the 19th century – corrupts everything it touches.
To read the original story, click here.
From http://cal-catholic.com/
