http://www.democraticunderground.com/1218105656
It looks more mundane than advertised.
As applicants acknowledge (Compl. ¶198), the employer-applicants here are eligible for religious accommodations set out in the regulations that exempt them from any requirement “to contract, arrange, pay, or refer for contraceptive coverage.” 78 Fed. Reg. 39,874, 39,879 (July 2,2013).
They need only self-certify that they are non-profit organizations that hold themselves out as religious and have religious objections to providing coverage for contraceptiveservices, and then provide a copy of their self-certification to the third-party administrator of their self-insured group healthplan. See id. at 39,874-39,886; see also 29 C.F.R. 2590.715-2713A(b). At that point, the employer-applicants will have satisfied all their obligations under the contraceptive coverage provision. Thus, as this case comes to the Court, it is not about the availability or adequacy of a religious accommodation, but rather about whether a religious objector can invoke RFRA to justify its refusal to sign a self-certification that secures the very religion-based exemption the objector seeks.
Applicants have no legal basis to challenge the selfcertification requirement or to complain that it involves them in the process of providing contraceptive coverage. As both of the lower courts recognized, this case involves a church plan that is exempt from regulation under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1003(b)(2). Employer-applicants’ third-party administrator therefore will be under no legal obligation to provide the coverage after applicants certify that they object to providing it. If employer-applicants’ third-party administrator were nevertheless to decide to provide contraceptive coverage, applicants’
employees and their covered dependents would receive such coverage despite applicants’ assertion of their religious
objections, not because of those objections.
Goverment reponse brief,
http://www.becketfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Little-Sisters-Injunction-Opp-13A691.pdfEssentially, the Government argues there is no legal harm to the plaintiffs as they are not required to provide contraceptive courage, against their moral beliefs, as that decision is made by a third party.
The Plaintiffs, on the other hand, argue the statutory scheme is tantamount to compelling them to participate in a mechanism that results in supplying contraception against their moral beliefs.
That argument rests on the spurious claim that the certification form at issue is merely an “orderly means of permitting eligible individuals and entities to declare that they intend to take advantage of” an “exemption” from the mandate. Resp. 33. That claim is false: it is contradicted by Respondents’ public statements, by the text of the regulations, by the text of the form, and by Respondents’ more forthcoming discussion of the form’s legal effect in other courts. See Application at 9-11.1
Tellingly, Respondents require no such “orderly means” for those religious organizations (unlike the Little Sisters) whom they have actually “exempted” from the mandate. Resp. 11. Yet Respondents continue to insist that their minimalist characterization of the form must control the Little Sisters’ religious determination about whether they can execute the form, even though six of the seven church plan cases have now entered injunctions protecting those plaintiffs from having to fill out the forms in violation of plaintiffs’ religious faith.
Plaintiff's reply brief.
http://www.becketfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/LSP-Supreme-Court-Reply.pdfI'll have to read this again slowly but it seems to me, that when all is said and done, it will boil down to whether the Court determines if the act to which the plaintiffs object on moral grounds, which the Government concedes is a legally protected objection, is sufficiently removed from the actors so that their protected objection is not violated.
It's going to rest on the language of the statute and the insurance forms. Then they'll have their Thomas More moment.
ROPER There's to be a new Act through Parliament, sir!
MORE (Half-turning, half-attending) Act?
ROPER Yes, sir-about the marriage!
MORE (Indifferently) Oh. (Turning back again. ROPER and MARGARET look at one another)
MARGARET (Puts a hand on his arm) Father, by this Act, they're going to administer an oath.
MORE (With instantaneous attention) An oath! (He looks from one to the other) On what
compulsion?
ROPER It's expected to be treason!
MORE (Very still) What is the oath?
ROPER (Puzzled) It's about the marriage, sir.
MORE But what is the wording?
ROPER We don't need to know the (Contemptuously) wording-we know what it will mean!
74
MORE It will mean what the words say! An oath is made of words! It may be possible to take it.
Or avoid it. (To MARGARET) Have we a copy of the Bill?
A Man for All Seasons, Act Two
= new reply since forum marked as read
