Source: Newsweek
Can religious believers give themselves a free pass to ignore laws that bind everyone else? Common sense and the Constitution say no.
Yet religious institutions are now maintaining that they alone may judge whether their religious exercise is “substantially burdened” and thus entitled to special privileges under the law; this claim will soon be argued before the Supreme Court in the cases consolidated as Zubik v. Burwell.
Like Hobby Lobby, these cases involve the Affordable Care Act “contraception mandate,” which requires health plans to cover contraceptives without co-pays or other “cost-sharing” beyond the employee’s contribution to the plan premium.
Churches and other “houses of worship” do not have to provide this coverage. Religious colleges, hospitals and similar nonprofits may opt out by notifying the government of their objections and supplying the name and contact information of their plan insurer or administrator.
The government, in turn, notifies the insurer or administrator which then provides contraceptive coverage directly to employees without cost-sharing and without the religious nonprofit’s payment or participation. (A nonprofit may also bypass the government and give notice directly to its insurer or administrator.)
The religious nonprofits in these cases complain that the opt-out violates theReligious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). RFRA excuses religious believers and institutions from complying with any law that “substantially burdens” their religious exercise, unless the government proves that the burden is the “least restrictive means” of advancing a “compelling government interest.”
This means that when a law significantly interferes with someone’s religion, RFRA excuses that person from obeying the law, unless the government shows that the law is the best way of achieving an exceptionally important government goal—something the government often cannot do.
The religious nonprofits are not just asking that the court excuse them from the contraception coverage requirement and the opt-out but that it also allow them to block their insurers and administrators from providing the coverage directly to employees.
If the nonprofits prevail, their employees will not receive contraception coverage, and will have to pay the full cost out of their own pockets with after-tax wages.
One of the pending cases illustrates the unprecedented nature of these claims.The Little Sisters of the Poor is an order of Roman Catholic nuns that operates nursing homes for the poor and elderly using employees of all faiths. The Little Sisters object to covering contraceptives in their employee health plan and to notifying the government of this objection.
The Little Sisters believe that giving the government notice would make them complicit in the sin of contraception use, by permitting the government to use their plan administrator to supply contraceptive coverage directly to their employees.
Categories: Law, Religion, The Muslim Times
The short answer is yes.
The religious person obeys God first then man. Generally the God rules are Holy scriptures centuries old.
Different groups interpret those differently.
Liberal Christians tend to make the scripture fit the modern moral standpoint. Fundamental Christians take what it says far more literally.
Take the commandment thou shalt not kill. Very few believe it to be universal even fundamentalists believe in the just war.
In the old testament it meant you shall not kill your own tribe , enemies had no status.
Now we have to define killing and to the fudamentalist a newly created human cannot be killed.
Is it not rather ironic that such a believer is prepared to kill in the war.
In the secular governments the law is constantly scrutinised and updated as we become more enlightened.
Now the fundamentalist believes God’s law does not change yet that same fundamentalist takes his own standpoint.
We need to keep the law of whatever country we find ourselves in and that is why I ‘m mighty glad to be in England.