California Supreme Court: “Secular purpose” of Catholic Charities means it must provide birth control despite church objections A word of warning: Engage in social ministry without discrimination and you may be giving up your religious rights. That’s the basic message of yesterday’s California Supreme Court ruling, which said that Catholic Charities is not a religious employer and therefore isn’t exempt from a state law requiring businesses to pay for employees’ contraception. Catholic Charities isn’t religious, the court said, because it employs and offers social services to people of all faiths and doesn’t directly evangelize.
“This is such a crabbed and restrictive view of religion that it would define the ministry of Jesus Christ as a secular activity,” wrote Justice Janice Rogers Brown, the sole dissenter to the 6-1 ruling. “Here we are dealing with an intentional, purposeful intrusion into a religious organization’s expression of its religious tenets and sense of mission. The government is not accidentally or incidentally interfering with religious practice; it is doing so willfully by making a judgment about what is or is not religious. This is precisely the sort of behavior that has been condemned in every other context.”
Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, writing for the majority (PDF | DOC), said that Catholic Charities is “free to express its disapproval of prescription contraceptives and to encourage its employees not to use them,” but must pay contraception costs for those who disagree with the organization’s teachings.
“This case does not implicate internal church governance; it implicates the relationship between a nonprofit public benefit corporation and its employees, most of whom do not belong to the Catholic Church,” Werdegar wrote. “Only those who join a church impliedly consent to its religious governance on matters of faith and discipline.”
But surely the employer has rights, too, says Christian Medical Association Executive Director David Stevens. “Faith-based organizations must retain the freedom to follow religious and ethical beliefs in matters regarding issues such as birth control,” he says in a press release. “The key issue here is not even the important question of the ethics of birth control, but the fundamental freedom to follow the dictates of one’s conscience and of the teachings of one’s religious faith.”
Stevens says it’s a huge win for those who don’t want to see religious organizations partner with the government in providing social services: “On one hand, they fight laws that would allow faith-based organizations to restrict hiring to those who follow its religious teachings. Then on the other hand, as soon a faith-based organizations hires others, they say it’s no longer a faith-based organization and loses religious and conscience freedoms. The hypocrisy is stunning–but not surprising, given abortion activists’ drive to force their political agenda on everyone who disagrees with their views.”
The California Catholic Conference, which represents Catholic Charities in the case, says it will appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“This case was never about contraceptives. It was never about insurance. It was about our ability to practice our religion—providing food, clothing and shelter to the neediest among us—as a religious organization which is part of the Catholic Church,” executive director Ned Dolejsi says in a press release.
It would be good for the Supreme Court to hear this case, since it’s not just a California issue. “Versions of the law considered in Monday’s ruling have been adopted in the 20 states after lawmakers concluded private employee prescription plans without contraceptive benefits discriminated against women,” notes the Associated Press.
More articles
Marriage:
- Vicar’s wedding trial idea | A Church of England vicar is welcoming couples considering marriage to give them a flavor of the big day (BBC)
- Can this marriage be braved | Seven weeks before their wedding, the happy couple put their relationship to a harrowing test: marriage mentoring. An upside-down roller-coaster ride into the world of premarital education (The Washington Post Magazine)
- What would he say? | Jesus railed against a grave threat to marriage. No, not homosexuality—divorce (Jack Miles, Los Angeles Times)
Gay marriage:
- Same-sex weddings bring division to an upstate village | New Paltz has become a village divided ever since its mayor, Jason West, addressed the national debate over same-sex marriage (The New York Times)
- Mayor of N.Y. town marries gay couples | Twenty-one gay couples exchanged wedding vows on the steps of New Paltz village hall Friday in a spirited ceremony that opened another front on the growing national debate over gay marriage (Associated Press)
- While gays rush to the altar, Albany takes it slow | When the mayor of New Paltz decided to begin performing same-sex weddings last week, some state leaders tried to simply stay out of the way (The New York Times)
- From Ithaca, a new challenge for New York state on the issue of same-sex weddings | The national debate on same-sex marriage spread to another college town in upstate New York on Monday, with city officials in Ithaca challenging the state Health Department to refuse marriage applications submitted by gay couples (The New York Times)
- The gay rights movement, settled down | Gay rights activists today care less about liberation, and more about health care benefits for their partners. Is that a loss? (The New York Times)
- The case for gay marriage | It rests on equality, liberty and even society (Editorial, The Economist)
- The joy of gay marriage | Here’s the denouement of the epic drama over gay marriage. It’s going to happen, it’s going to happen within a generation, and it’s going to happen even though George W. Bush teed off his re-election campaign this week by calling for a constitutional amendment to outlaw it (Frank Rich, The New York Times)
- Warren Court opened door to wedding chapel for gays | The 1954 ruling against “separate but equal” reverberates today (Jim Newton, Los Angeles Times)
- A fight for hope | Yes, we’re fighting to prevent people from taking away rights we don’t have. The irony does not escape us (Michael Alvear, The Washington Post)
- The pilgrims wouldn’t mind gay marriage | Interestingly, they didn’t consider marriage a sacred affair, and in their communities magistrates, not church ministers, presided over weddings (David Aaronovitch, The Guardian, London)
- Revolution by fiat | We are the only Western country to have legalized abortion by judicial fiat rather than by democratic approval of the people or the legislature. Are we going to do it again with gay marriage? (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post)
Gay marriage and religion:
- Drawing lines in the aisle | How local religious leaders view same-sex marriages from a religious perspective (Daily Pilot, Newport Beach, Calif.)
- Row over sex-change weddings | Some Anglican priests say they would rather be sued than allow people who have changed their sex to marry in their churches (BBC)
Gay marriage and politics:
- When left is right and right is wrong | The newspapers that portrayed Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore as a villain are portraying San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom for doing essentially the same thing (Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post)
- Bush stance on gays rallies religious right | The importance of social issues, especially gay marriage, in the minds of 19 million evangelical Christians in the United States, is key for the Bush administration’s efforts to stay in the White House for four more years (The Denver Post)
- Sex warfare breaks out in US election | As the race hots up, gay weddings have triggered a bitter battle between liberals and the powerful morality lobby (The Observer, London)
- Blacks angered by gays’ metaphors | In the battle for same-sex “marriage,” homosexual rights activists have been using civil rights metaphors to advance their cause (The Washington Times)
Evangelism:
- UK Methodists seek youth through pubs | The church, which does not even allow wine at communion services, has had 250,000 drink mats printed for distribution in watering holes across Britain (Associated Press)
- And the 11th Commandment is . . . thou shalt not resort to cheap gimmicks | The Methodist Church is launching a nationwide competition to find the 11th Commandment in an effort to attract more young people (The Daily Telegraph, London)
- The adventures of Mizuki | Mizuki Tanabe’s Japanese-born parents weren’t particularly religious, but in seventh grade Mizuki went on a Christian youth group retreat and came back a convert (The Washington Post)
- For churches, ‘Passion’ is more than a movie | An opportunity, but also a concern (The Washington Post)
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