Last week, in Michigan Catholic Conference v. Burwell, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected the appeal of Catholic nonprofit groups in their challenge to the Obamacare anti-conscience mandate. The court got it wrong by second-guessing the religious beliefs of these groups.
Formal houses of worship and their integrated auxiliaries (e.g., church-run soup kitchens) are exempt from this mandate—which requires employers to pay for employee health insurance coverage that includes contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs—and other nonprofit religious employers are eligible for an “accommodation.” Under the accommodation, employers must self-certify to a third-party administrator that they have a religious objection to providing or paying for certain drugs and devices, and this initiates the process of the third-party administrator providing the mandated coverage to their employees.
Some of the plaintiffs in Michigan Catholic Conference challenged the exemption for discriminating between types of religious institutions in violation of the Establishment Clause. Others challenged the accommodation, arguing that the act of self-certification substantially burdens their exercise of religion in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the First Amendment because it makes them complicit in an act that they consider to be a grave violation of their beliefs.
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