Conservative Appeals Court Rejects Religious Whining About Obamacare
LatestA notoriously conservative federal court has ruled that several religious institutions aren’t being oppressed by the process the federal government has created for them to opt out of providing birth control coverage. That’s a mouthful. Let me put it more simply: an ultra-conservative appeals court has directed a group of religious non-profits to stop whining, because no one is making them do anything.
The stop-whining order, which you can read in full here, was issued from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and first spotted by Greg Lipper, a litigator at Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. The lawsuit in question was brought by a bunch of religious non-profit institutions: University of Dallas, East Texas Baptist University, Houston Baptist University, Westminster Theological Seminary, the Catholic Diocese of Beaumont, and two Texas-based divisions of Catholic Charities.
Basically, the religious institutions are mad because the Affordable Care Act’s new rules require them to submit a two-page form opting out of providing contraception coverage for their employees. In their lawsuits, they argued that’s a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which is meant to protect free exercise of religion.