In what I consider to be a stunningly wrong-headed decision, U.S. District Judge John Kane in Colorado has granted a temporary injunction barring the federal government from enforcing the requirement that businesses include contraceptive coverage in their health insurance policies against a business owned by two Catholics who contend that paying for contraceptive coverage violates their religious beliefs. I haven't yet seen the decision itself, but according to news reports, he based this upon the strong likelihood that they would prevail on their claim that such a requirement, as applied to them, violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
http://www.politico.com/...
Under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,
(a) In general
Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except as provided in subsection (b) of this section.
(b) Exception
Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person—
(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and
(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
42 USC sec. 2000bb-1
The literal languate of this section would appear to mean that pacifists who hold religious objections to war or to supporting war, should be exempt from paying federal income taxes, or at the very least that portion of taxes representing the defense budget's share of the total federal budget. Not surprisingly, however, the courts have held that the federal government's interest in having a uniform income tax system outweighs the religious freedom interests of pacifists in refusing to pay for wars or a military. Adams v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue http://caselaw.findlaw.com/.... (Sorry, but I don't have time to locate the regular citation.)
As the Third Circuit noted in Adams:
Our approach to this particular form of tax challenge under RFRA is consistent with that of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the only other circuit court to have wrestled with this issue in a similar factual context. In Goehring v. Brophy, a group of college students challenged the collection of student fees under RFRA, as those fees subsidized a health insurance plan that covered abortion services. 94 F.3d 1294, 1297 (9th Cir.1996), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1156, 117 S.Ct. 1335, 137 L.Ed.2d 495 (1997), overruled by 521 U.S. 507, 117 S.Ct. 2157, 138 L.Ed.2d 624. In analyzing the “least restrictive means” prong of the RFRA test, the court analogized the challenge to university funding to that of free exercise challenges to the government's use of tax dollars. See id. at 1300. The court then looked to Lee as its guide, and found that the fiscal vitality of the university fee system would be undermined if the plaintiffs were exempted from paying their fees on free exercise grounds, as mandatory participation was necessary to ensure the survival of the student health insurance program. See id.
The decision in Goehring was overruled not on the substance of the decision, but because the Supreme Court later found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was unconstitutional as applied to units of state and local government, such as a state university. The parallels between the factual situation in Goehring and those in the present case are sufficiently obvious that they need not be elaborated upon.
I wish I could say that the Judge who decided this case was a Republican appointee. Unfortunately, he's not. He's a Carter appointee, and I've got to say that while Jimmy Carter appointed some excellent judges, when I've come across a federal judge, appointed by a Democratic President, who seemed not to be up to the standard one hopes for from the federal bench, they've more often than not been Carter appointees.