Evangelicals Mounting Concerns over Obama Administration's Contraceptive Mandate
An uncomfortable backdrop lay behind President Obama's address to the annual National Prayer Breakfast Thursday, as religious groups have generated increasing concern over his administration's mandate to cover contraceptives under the 2010 health care law. Evangelicals have been joining Catholics in voicing growing concerns over the requirement to cover certain contraceptives such as Plan B (or "the morning-after pill"), as well as the Obama administration's narrow religious exemption of churches.
The President said Thursday that the administration is "linking arms with faith-based groups across the country" but did not address faith-based groups' response to his administration's policy. The night before, director of Domestic Policy Council Cecilia Muñoz defended the mandate, noting that most Catholic women have used contraception, 28 states already require contraception coverage, and comparing the cost of contraceptives to unintended pregnancy.
Several Christian college presidents took their concerns this week to their legislators in Washington, D.C., during the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities' (CCCU) annual presidents gathering, said Shapri LoMaglio, who heads government relations for the CCCU. Christian college administrators have long held concerns over whether they would be able to apply for federal funding if they hire within a specific religious tradition and employees agree to specific standards of sexual conduct, but concern about the mandate runs even deeper since groups cannot opt out.
"This is not an option where you can choose to not participate in this program or take a certain grant. There's no discretion, which is why people are so stunned," LoMaglio said. "It's saying, 'If you exist, you will do this.'"
Even if the religious exemption extended to employees of religiously affiliated institutions, CCCU school leaders voice concerns about whether schools unaffiliated with a denomination would be exempt and whether the mandate would still apply to student health care plans. The rule includes an exemption for certain "religious employers," such as churches, but a religious employer such as parachurch groups or Catholic hospitals would not be exempt if it employs or serves large numbers of people of a different faith.
"It sets a very bad precedent. Both of principle and as a matter of tactics and politics, it's a serious misstep on the part of the administration," said Galen Carey, vice president of government relations for the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). "There needs to be a very robust religious exemption for any religious groups, not just churches."
The NAE was among several evangelicals groups "in solidarity but separately" from Catholic groups that requested a stronger religious exemption after Health and Human Services ruled in August that insurance plans must provide contraception with no copayment. In January, however, federal officials reaffirmed its position, saying the government would give church-affiliated organizations an extra year to adapt to the requirement.
"I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services," said Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services.
"We saw the administration's response as saying, 'I know you like oxygen, but we'll give you a year to get used to living with out it,'" said Eric Baxter, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed a lawsuit on behalf of Colorado Christian University in December.
Star Trek Into Darkness
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Floyd Alsbach
Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus, thank you for standing with us in this fight. We need your help to resist this HHS dictum, which some of our own false Catholic brethren have helped to impose. There are many good Catholic Christians who have suffered the humiliation of seeing some of our own turn on our core beliefs since the rise and fall of that most vain of presidents, JFK and his brothers. We, like you, have been frustrated for a very long time. Perhaps Rick Santorum can help restore what JFK soiled, perhaps the Holy Spirits' hand will give us the leader we need, rather than another leader whom we sadly may deserve. Pray for our country, and the world. We are at the turning of the road, God grant us the Grace to see our way.
Gary Wood
What we fail to recognize in this cultural divide, political and moral crisis is that these issues originated some 50 years ago. As taught in public schools and colleges during the 1960’s and 1970’s existentialism is at the heart of this divide. However, the Vietnam War including the anti-war protests, Women’s Liberation, Civil Rights Movement, Hippies, Woodstock, and inner city riots that occupied the national headlines and evening news obscured a cultural transition. We entered those years comfortable with our basic and nominal faith and acceptance of the universality of our moral values. Somehow the next generation, through the educational process, pop culture (music, cinema, literature) and mass marketing, absorbed as unquestionable that we define values from the context of each individual’s life experience(s). Little else explains the polemics and hyperbole, today, as opposing factions argue and get in each others’ national news face with sound bite “got ya’s”. Core values and “pre-suppositions” are not identified let alone examined or challenged. Christian pre-suppositions are no less valid than any others behind the politics of today. We dare not surrender to liberal media bullying; we do need to expose their sophistry and point of despair.
John Paul
For the record, it is not Catholic Church that elected Obama. In fact, many bishops at that time made it pretty clear that Catholics could not vote for him. Catholics (including me) are papists. It was those who call themselves "Catholic" who are not papists and who do not submit to the Church's authority, teachings, or morals who elected Obama. The "Catholics" in Obama's Administration (Pelosi, Sebellius, Biden, etc.) think that they understand Catholic doctrine better than the Pope and are trying to force the hand of the Church to change its doctrine by law. This has been an ongoing fight in the Church since Pope Paul VI's "Humanae Vitae" in 1968 upheld the ban on artificial contraceptives. Catholic theologians rebelled and taught a whole generation of priests and religious, who in turn taught the laity, that we form our own conscience on these issues, so one may choose to disagree with the Pope and be a good Catholic. NOT true!