Written by Don Byrd
As I posted yesterday, the Baptist Joint Committee has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Zubik v. Burwell, a consolidation of the cases challenging the government’s religious accommodation for religious organizations that object to the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act.
Today, Baptist News Global’s Bob Allen writes about the BJC’s brief and gives a nice introduction to the position the BJC takes in defense of the government’s religious accommodation.
Here is an excerpt:
The BJC brief acknowledges the burden placed by the HHS rules might seem “substantial” to the groups making the claim, “but substantial to the believer is not inevitably the same as substantial in law.” What they really want, the brief contends, is “absolute” deference to their religious liberty claim, opening the door to “absurd results that would discredit the cause of religious liberty.”
…
“These objections reach too far,” the brief contends. “They are in fact objections to the government pursuing its own interests by its own means.”
Hollman welcomed legislative and administrative exemptions that protect religious liberty without harming other important interests.
“The religious organizations have been relieved of paying or contracting for services,” Hollman said in a press release Feb. 18. “Their RFRA claims, however, cannot extend to the government’s regulation of secular insurers.”
Visit BJConline.org/Zubik for frequently asked questions and answers about this case. You can also watch a short video with BJC General Counsel Holly Hollman, and read the news release on the filing.
