Federal Court Rules against Catholic HHS Contracts

We've hear a great deal of disingenuous whining from the Catholic bishops about contraception and theats to "religious liberty" of late. What the enablers and protectors of child rapists are actually peeved about is the refusal of the Obama administration to write specific religious beliefs into aspects of health care regulations. And the bishops are all about having special rights and deference to the detriment of those who hold differing religious views. In short, the bishops want it their way and to Hell with everyone else. In this mentality, they are of a like mind with the Protestant Christianists who likewise demand that their beliefs be written into the nations laws and regulations (in Virginia, a prime example are the "private" adoption agencies funded with state money who have been granted the right by the Virginia GOP to discriminate against would be adoptive parents based on the agencies' "religious beliefs"). Yesterday, a federal court in Massachusetts ruled against special rights for Catholic agencies since it would violate the establishment clause of the U. S. Constitution. Here are highlights from Religion Dispatches:

Late yesterday a federal court in Massachusetts ruled [PDF] in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union in a challenge it brought against the Department of Health and Human Services over contracts with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. When the ACLU first brought the case in 2009, HHS permitted the USCCB to prohibit the referral of victims of sexual assault to be referred for contraception and abortion services. Although HHS did not renew the USCCB contract last year, the ACLU proceeded with the case "to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not misused to impose religious restrictions on vulnerable trafficking victims that receive U.S. aid," according to a statement.

Judge Richard Stearns agreed the case was not moot, and in holding that the policy permitting the Bishops to restrict trafficking victims' access to reproductive health services violated the Establishment Clause, noted, "[t]o insist that the government respect the separation of church and state is not to discriminate against religion; indeed, it promotes a respect for religion by refusing to single out any creed for official favor at the expense of all others."

Judge Stearns' decision shows that the Bishops were not, in fact, entitled to use taxpayer money to refuse to refer victims of sex trafficking and rape for a full range of reproductive health services. That, Judge Stearns held, amounted to an impermissible government endorsement of a particular religious view because, although "[b]eliefs about the morality of abortion and the use of contraceptives need not be based on a religious viewpoint," in this case "there is no reason to question the sincerity of the USCCB’s position that the restriction it imposed on its subcontractors on the use of TVPA funds for abortion and contraceptive services was motivated by deeply held religious beliefs." In other words, the Free Exercise Clause does, of course, protect one's expression of deeply held religious beliefs. But the Establishment Clause prohibits the government from favoring particular religious beliefs, no matter how deeply held they are.

Rest assured, we will be hearing shrieks and belly aching from Cardinal Dolan and various Christofascists that the "religious liberty" is under attack. But, again, it's really the rights of all others that are under attack by the Catholic bishops and Christianists