Does the Archdiocese of New York *already* provide contraception coverage?

[Ana_v]

I just recently sent out an email to a Catholic I volunteer for, wherein I brought to his attention a comment I read on Facebook (by a professor of Constitutional Law). I won’t give further details about the professor because I don’t want to bias CAF readers. As I stated in the email, pay close attention to the opinion of the court quotation he includes (because, many Catholics, myself included, have been under the impression that if the HHS mandate goes to the Supreme Court, the court will rule in our favor. Should this be a ’ think again ’ moment for us?) :

Quote:

" More than half the states have laws that require health insurance policies–including those offered by certain religious employers–to cover all FDA-approved contraceptive drugs and devices if they cover other prescription drugs. New York is one of these states.

The Obama administration recently adopted a similar rule to be implemented a year from now.

Quoting NY’s Catholic archbishop Timothy Dolan (in whose Archdiocese such a rule already applies and is being obeyed), Republican Newt Gingrich called the new federal rule “a direct assault of freedom of religion in America and a complete violation of our First Amendment rights.”

Republican Mitt Romney claims the new rule “tramples” 1st Amendment rights. He promises that, if elected, he will “defend religious liberty” by repealing the rule.

Does the new federal rule and the law in 28 states violate religious freedom as protected by the 1st Amendment? No. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in Employment Division v. Smith (1990):

“[T]he right of free exercise [of religion] does NOT relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes). … To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. … Our cases do not at their farthest reach support the proposition that a stance of conscientious opposition relieves an objector from any colliding duty fixed by a democratic government” (emphasis added).

law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0494_0872_ZO.html "

 

[revert_jen]

"Does the new federal rule and the law in 28 states violate religious freedom as protected by the 1st Amendment? No. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in Employment Division v. Smith (1990):

Hmm. Well I think we would have to mistrust the applicability of a 20-year old case on a completely different subject.

The quoted case, according to Wikipedia (yeah, I know, but I don’t have time for real research) “determined that the state could deny unemployment benefits to a person fired for violating a state prohibition on the use of peyote, even though the use of the drug was part of a religious ritual. Although states have the power to accommodate otherwise illegal acts done in pursuit of religious beliefs, they are not required to do so.” I might also mention that the people in question (who were fired for peyote use) were working at a drug rehab facility.

Really largely unrelated to the current issue. Here’s how.

1. In the current instance, we are talking about the constitutionality of a law passed by the federal government. The laws of the federal government are much more restricted by the constitiution than the laws of state governments.
2. The state has more rights relating to its employees than it does toward its general citizens. For example, the state can say, “If you work in the courthouse, you are not allowed to carry a concealed weapon, even if you have a concealed carry permit.” It can’t say, “Nobody in the state can carry a concealed weapon to work, even if they have a concealed carry permit.” There are lots of things you can be fired for as an employee that you cannot be sent to jail for. The current issue has nothing to do with state employees.
3. There is a difference between arguing that people do not have to obey existing laws, and arguing that existing laws should be changed. Basically, if the supreme court had found for the plaintiffs, it would have opened the door to someone creating a new “murder religion” where they were exempt from laws against murder.
4. I have no idea whether there is a legal precident for this, but it seems to me that the test on a law prohibiting behavior does not need to be as rigorous as the test on a law compelling behavior. To take something in a similar subject area, say Americans are divided 50/50 between pro-abortion and pro-life. If the American people were forced to choose whether abortions should be prohibited or whether they should be required after, say, a couple’s second child, or the second child had by someone on state assistance, or something like that, I’m pretty sure that the law prohibiting abortion would be chosen over the law compelling it.

I’m clearly not a lawyer, but this seems like proof-texting. Just because it’s a court decision instead of the Bible doesn’t make it any better as a debate technique.

And I’m 100% sure that if the supreme court were to actually rule that the Catholic Church has to pay for the killing of babies using abortifacient birth control methods or stop providing services to non-Catholics, Justice Scalia would NOT be writing the majority opinion.

–Jen