Organizations weigh in on how Supreme Court should
handle HHS mandate
By Patricia Zapor
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- After ruling in 2012 that
certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act stand up to
constitutional scrutiny, the Supreme Court’s next dip
into legal challenges to the law focuses on whether for-
profit secular employers can claim religious rights pro-
tections from some provisions.
In addition to the standard briefs and replies filed by
the two sides in each of the cases, the Supreme Court
is being asked to consider the arguments raised by
hundreds of organizations represented in “amicus” or
friend-of-the-court briefs filed in advance of the court’s
March 25 oral arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby
and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius.
The court is jointly hearing the cases, in which two
federal appeals courts issued opposite rulings about the
companies’ claims to a religious rights-based exemption
from having to provide coverage for various forms of
contraception in employee health insurance. The court
is under no obligation to consider “amicus” briefs, but
it typically does, and sometimes cites them in rulings.
There’s been a great deal of attention within the
Catholic Church, in particular, to whether church-affil-
iated institutions may be exempted from the contracep-
tive provisions -- widely described as a mandate. But
the cases being heard in March deal only with how that
mandate applies to for-profit, secular employers.
Cases over how the mandate is applied to nonprofit
religious institutions, including the Little Sisters of the
Poor, are still being addressed by lower courts and are
unlikely to reach the Supreme Court before its next
term.
Especially in comparison to the interest in lawsuits
brought by dioceses, religious orders and church-run
universities, there may be less public awareness of the
Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods cases than there
was of the Supreme Court’s highly publicized last ven-
ture into the ACA in 2012 primarily over the require-
ment that individuals buy health insurance. But the ad-
vocates for either side in the current cases are no less
vehement that the outcome is crucial to how the 2010
health care law works -- or doesn’t.
Among legal issues the briefs raise are questions
based on past rulings about the circumstances under
which an employer may claim faith-based exemption
from various kinds of laws; about whether the federal
government is trying to define religious beliefs and
about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993
law passed by Congress in an effort to reverse what was
perceived as a rollback of Free Exercise rights in a 1990
Supreme Court ruling.
One key Supreme Court case raised in many of the
“amicus” briefs on both sides is U.S. v. Lee, a 1982
unanimous ruling which said an Amish employer could
not be exempted from paying Social Security taxes for
employees of his for-profit business.
The court found that “while there is a conflict be-
tween the Amish faith and the obligations imposed by
the Social Security system, not all burdens on religion
are unconstitutional,” the court said. “The court may
justify a limitation on religious liberty by showing that
it is essential to accomplish an overriding governmental
interest.”
Amicus briefs supporting the government’s position
that Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods should not be
exempted argue, for example, that “the ACA does not
require corporations to administer or use the contracep-
tive methods to which they object, nor does it require
them to adhere to, affirm or abandon a particular be-
lief,” said a brief on behalf of 91 members of Congress.
It quoted from Lee: “Every person cannot be shield-
ed from all the burdens incident to exercising every as-
pect of the right to practice religious beliefs.”
On the other side, the U.S. Conference of Catho-
lic Bishops argued that applying Lee to the companies
should mean “the court should accept at face value
Hobby Lobby’s and Conestoga’s earnest belief that they
cannot in good conscience comply with the mandate.
But instead of accepting that representation, the govern-
ment would have this court conduct its own analysis of
whether compliance with the mandate should be taken
to violate those convictions.
“In other words, rather than analyzing whether the
mandate puts substantial pressure on Hobby Lobby and
Conestoga to abandon their religious opposition to pro-
viding the mandated coverage, the government would
have this court evaluate whether compliance with the
mandate amounts to a substantial violation of their re-
ligious beliefs.”
The dozens of amicus briefs filed on either side
include sometimes unusual combinations of religious
institutions, civil rights organizations, politicians, aca-
demics and secular employers.
For instance, the partners in one brief supporting the
for-profit employers were Drury Hotels, the National
Catholic Bioethics Center, the Christian Medical As-
sociation and groups of pro-life nurses and doctors. In
another, Ave Maria University, a Catholic institution,
teamed up with the International Society for Krishna
Consciousness, Crescent Foods and the Church of the
Lukumi Babalu Aye, a Santeria church that brought a
successful religious rights lawsuit against the city of
Hialeah, Fla., over its law prohibiting animal sacrifices.
Among institutions filing solo briefs in support of
the employers were the USCCB, the Knights of Colum-
bus, the Catholic Medical Association, the Ethics and
Public Policy Center and the Family Research Council.
Other joint briefs supporting the companies were
filed by: 67 Catholic theologians and ethicists; several
religion-related publishers and a coalition that includes
the American Bible Society, the Anglican Church in
North America, Prison Fellowship Ministries and the
church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
On the other side, one large-coalition brief was
submitted on behalf of two dozen participating orga-
nizations including several Jewish institutions; Dignity
USA and New Ways Ministry, both of which minister
to gays and lesbians; the Hindu American Foundation;
Catholics for Choice; the Women’s Ordination Confer-
ence and the Disciples of Christ Church.
A brief filed on behalf of 19 Democratic or indepen-
dent senators in support of the government’s position
was countered by one filed for four Republican senators
on the other side. Another represented 20 church-state
scholars who framed the cases in terms of Establish-
ment Clause jurisprudence.
Also filing in support of the government was a
group including the Freedom From Religion Founda-
tion; Bishopaccountability.org and several other groups
whose work focuses on support for survivors of sexual
abuse.
Editor’s Note: The American Bar Association’s list
of the briefs in the two cases may be found at: www.
americanbar.org/publications/preview_home/13-354-
13-356.html.
Hobby Lobby files brief with Supreme Court in HHS mandate case
By Jennifer Brinker
Catholic News Service
ST. LOUIS (CNS) -- Arts-and-crafts retailer Hobby
Lobby has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court
seeking protection from a federal mandate that requires
coverage of contraceptives in workers’ health insurance
plans.
The brief, filed Feb. 10, called the mandate “one
of the most straightforward violations ... this court is
likely to see” of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act
of 1993.
Under the Affordable Health Care law, most em-
ployers’ health plans must include free coverage of
contraceptives, sterilizations and other types of birth
control opponents say can induce an abortion.
Hobby Lobby, which is being represented by the
Becket Fund, a religious liberty law firm, is one of two
for-profit employers who object to the requirement. On
March 25, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments
in its case and the case filed by Conestoga Wood Spe-
cialties, a Pennsylvania family-run company that makes
cabinets.
The owners of the for-profit companies object to the
contraceptive mandate on religious grounds.
Just a week before Hobby Lobby filed its brief with
the court, the Oklahoma-based retailer, operated by the
Green family, announced that it would open 70 new
stores across the United States in 2014, dispelling ru-
mors circulating through social media that the company
would be forced to close its stores in light of the lawsuit
against the government. The company has about 16,000
full-time and 12,000 part-time employees.
See hobby lobby, page 18
Gulf Pine Catholic
•
February 28, 2014
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