Posted on 01/13/2016 7:37:08 AM PST by NYer
Washington D.C., Jan 12, 2016 / 03:41 pm (CNA).- Since its first introduction, the federal contraception mandate has drawn controversy, with hundreds of employers saying it forces them to violate their sincerely-held religious beliefs.
Now, one lawyer is arguing that the Obama administration unfairly relied on tax law to determine which institutions were religious enough to get an exemption from the mandate.
"The distinction they ended up making was simply whether you file a 990 [tax form] or not. That's an absurd distinction to make," Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network told CNA.
"At the end of the day, it's really a matter of whether we're going to make religious freedom rights depend on arbitrary details of the tax law, or whether they should really be based on someone's sincere religious beliefs," she added.
According to internal e-mails obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, the administration used tax law - and not religious mission or affiliation - to determine which religious groups would be exempt from the contraception mandate, Severino said.
Therefore, some organizations that were not direct auxiliaries of churches - such as Catholic universities and hospitals - were required to follow the mandate simply because of their tax status.
A woman who belongs to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has won the right to wear a colander on her head in her Massachusetts driver’s license photo. Her initial attempts were denied.
Woman Wins Right to Wear Colander on Her Head in Driver's License Photo
Catholic ping!
mockery. Does this twit wear that on her head all the time?
At least she’s not a Muslim.
Obama’s minions are in CONTROL. Being religious is whatever they say it is, or is not. Pretty soon, we’ll have all the Muslim organizations filing just the right tax form, helped along by Federal “navigators”, just like in Obamacare.
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