Here we go again?
The D.C. Circuit Court ruled Friday that the federal government had provided adequate accommodations to religiously affiliated groups that don't want to provide coverage for contraception in their employee health insurance plans under the Obamacare mandate and ordered those groups to comply. That accommodation requires that organizations merely send a letter to the federal government and their insurance administrators stating their objection. One of the groups suing, Priests for Life, says that it
will defy the order.
Priests For Life objects to this scheme because they claim that sending a letter that sets in motion a chain of events that lead to someone receiving contraception violates their religious beliefs. As Father Frank Pavone, the national director of Priests for Life told the Washington Times, his organization will not comply with the law because they believe that doing so would amount to cooperating "in the government’s plan to expand access to birth control and abortion-inducing drugs." […]
As Friday’s DC Circuit opinion explained, however, religious objectors do not have an absolute right to defy any law they choose not to follow. Rather, they may only invoke federal religious liberty law when they allege that a federal law "substantially burden[s]" their religious exercise. The requirement that they fill out a brief form or send a very short letter, however, hardly qualifies as substantial. As Judge Nina Pillard laid out in her opinion for the court, "[a]ll Plaintiffs must do to opt out is express what they believe and seek what they want via a letter or two page form. That bit of paperwork is more straightforward and minimal than many that are staples of nonprofit organizations' compliance with law in the modern administrative state." Indeed, "[t]he accommodation requires as little as it can from the objectors while still serving the government’s compelling interests."
Sending a letter can hardly be seen as a substantial burden, but the very existence of the law is such an offense to these celibate men whose lives are totally removed from the reality of women's health, not to mention family planning, that they will absolutely refuse to acknowledge it. Oh, and they believe medical science on what is and is not abortion is all wrong, too. Because God.
This is no great surprise—these organizations have already made clear that no accommodation could ever be made on the issue that they'd be happy with. If they choose to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court (and why wouldn't they?), the results are hard to predict. The court suggested in its Hobby Lobby decision that it was comfortable with this accommodation for religious groups, but just days later it backed away from that language. As we've seen time and again with this Supreme Court and this law, it's likely to do anything.