Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Catholic News

Home

Home
Catholic
Religion News
Lawyer says ACLU wrongly limits religious liberty

Lawyer says ACLU wrongly limits religious liberty

Last updated on: February 15, 2013 at 11:03 am by CNA Daily News

Lawyer says ACLU wrongly limits religious liberty 2013-02-15T11:03:00+00:00 CNA Daily News

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Denver, Colo., Feb 15, 2013 / 04:03 am (CNA).- A lawyer involved in prominent religious liberty cases says the American Civil Liberties Union's opposition to religious exemptions will ultimately discriminate against believers.

Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said the ACLU supports restrictions that “would relegate many religious citizens into second-class status.”

This is shown by efforts aimed at “disqualifying them from many parts of public life, including providing certain kinds of social services or even running a larger business,” he told CNA Feb. 11.

The attorney's remarks come in reaction to an address by Louise Melling, a deputy legal director of the ACLU. She addressed the Colorado chapter's 2013 annual membership meeting, held Feb. 9 in Denver on the University of Denver campus.

Melling discussed what she saw as “the limits of religious liberty” in current issues like religious objections to the federal mandate requiring contraception coverage in health insurance plans and the legal position of institutions and businesses with moral reservations about treating same-sex couples like married couples.

She also presented the position of the national ACLU, which has strongly opposed religious exemptions.

“If you're an institution and you open your doors to the public, you hire people of different faiths and you serve people of different faiths, at some level, you should play by the public rules,” she said.

“The questions of whether an exemption is appropriate in today’s battles are no different than questions of whether we tolerated exemptions in the civil rights era.”

Melling compared present controversies to lawsuits against businesses in the American South that refused to serve black customers on religious grounds and lawsuits against religious schools that paid women less than men because of religious beliefs that men are the heads of households.

“We’re trying to remedy a second-class status that has been imposed on many of us,” she said. “We’re seeking to foster equality, but also to end the stigma that has been associated with all that discrimination.”

In response, Rassbach said Melling “attempts to tar religious organizations with the broad brush of 'discrimination.'”

“But if her simplistic approach is to be believed, then 'discrimination' is everywhere: people exercise religious preferences in whom they marry, whom they associate with, where they go to school, or whom they choose to be their clergy, among many other areas of life.”

“If this is 'discrimination' then we are all discriminators.”

He said the law only restricts “invidious discrimination” and not “religious preferences that are a natural and in some cases an essential part of what it means to be religious.”

“The Supreme Court recognized as much in the Hosanna-Tabor case decided last year when it rejected arguments very similar to Melling's,” Rassbach said, referencing the Jan. 2012 ruling which upheld the right for religious groups to make employment decisions without government interference.

During her remarks, Melling also expressed surprise at the more than 40 lawsuits challenging the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' new requirement that employer health care plans provide coverage for sterilization and contraception, including some drugs that can cause abortion.

Violators face heavy fines, but many organizations and business owners say they cannot provide those drugs and procedures to their employees in good conscience.

Melling, who said the number of lawsuits is “completely unusual,” gave her own defense of the mandate.

“Contraception is essential to women's equality,” she said. “Contraception let us control decisions about education, about family, about how we structure our lives.”

She said that the refusal of contraception, in some sense, means “that the proper role of women is either to be mothers, and accept pregnancies, or not to be sexual beings, except for the purposes of procreation.”

“Those are the kind of antiquated stereotypes that used to permeate this country and in a whole different range of ways we said 'no' to,” she continued, contending that religious exemptions for companies are “reinforcing or at least supporting that kind of view.”

Rassbach, whose legal group has filed many legal challenges to the HHS mandate, was dismissive of this claim.

“Melling's definition of ‘antiquated’ must be different than the normal sense of that word, since before August 2011 the law did not prevent employers to follow religious conscience with respect to their insurance plan coverage,” he told CNA.

“Was there rampant stereotyping going on that no one happened to notice?”

He added that the only federal Court of Appeals to consider the question has rejected the idea that the refusal to provide contraception in health care plans constitutes illegal sex discrimination.

Melling also acknowledged to the ACLU membership meeting that the U.S. bishops are engaged in “a very serious campaign to try to educate people about what they perceive as the dramatic threat to religious liberty.”

She noted the U.S. bishops' Fortnight for Freedom campaign and other initiatives like their letters to the Catholic faithful.

Melling also questioned the Obama administration’s recent changes to the mandate, which the administration has presented as an accommodation that addresses religious and moral objections from organizations like Catholic archdioceses, colleges, health systems and charities.

“I don’t really know what Obama was thinking when he made those accommodations, as if he thought this was going to satisfy these adversaries,” Melling said.

Previous Post

February 15, 2013

Engaging modern society central to Benedict's papacy

Next Post

February 15, 2013 EWTN mourns passing of Deacon Steltemeier, founding president

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Americas Asia - Pacific Europe Middle East - Africa Uncategorized US Vatican

Select a Month November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was King Zedekiah, and what did he do to anger God and ensure Jerusalem's fall?

Select your answer to see how you score.

He killed Jeremiah He burned the scroll He built an idol He rebelled against Babylon