Posted on 10/01/2007 1:21:03 PM PDT by processing please hold
(CBS/AP) The Supreme Court opened its new term Monday refusing to get involved in two church-state disputes - one over religious organizations paying for workers' birth-control health insurance benefits, the other over an evangelical group's plea to hold religious services at a public library.
The birth-control benefits dispute was triggered by a New York state law that forces religious-based social service agencies to subsidize contraceptives as part of prescription drug coverage they offer employees.
New York is one of 23 states that require employers offering prescription benefits to employees to cover birth control pills as well, the groups say. The state enacted the Women's Health and Wellness Act in 2002 to require health plans to cover contraception and other services aimed at women, including mammography, cervical cancer screenings and bone density exams.
Catholic Charities and other religious groups argued that New York's law violates their First Amendment right to practice their religion because it forces them to violate religious teachings that regard contraception as sinful.
"If the state can compel church entities to subsidize contraceptives in violation of their religious beliefs, it can compel them to subsidize abortions as well," the groups said in urging the court to take their case. "And if it can compel church entities to subsidize abortions, it can require hospitals owned by churches to provide them."
Other Catholic and Baptist organizations are part of the lawsuit. Seventh-Day Adventist and Orthodox Jewish groups signed onto a brief filed in support of Catholic Charities.
In the library case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco had ruled that public libraries can block religious groups like the Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries from worshipping in public meeting rooms.
The Contra Costa library system in the San Francisco Bay area allows groups to use its facilities for educational, cultural and community-related programs.
"Although religious worship is an important institution in any community, we disagree that anything remotely community-related must therefore be granted access to the Antioch Library meeting room," the appeals court concluded in a 2-1 decision.
Allowing worship services would amount to having taxpayers subsidize religious exercises, argued the Contra Costa County, Calif., Library Board, which operated the facility in Antioch, Calif.
In the dispute over making religious organizations subsidize contraceptives, the court rejected a challenge to a similar law in California.
"A church ought to be able to run its affairs and organize relationships with its employees in a way that's consistent with moral values and teachings," said Kevin Baine, a partner at the Williams and Connolly law firm who represents the religious organizations.
The New York law contains an exemption for churches, seminaries and other institutions with a mainly religious mission that primarily serve followers of that religion. Catholic Charities and the other groups sought the exemption, but they hire and serve people of different faiths.
New York's highest court ruled last year that the groups had to comply with the law. The 6-0 decision by the state Court of Appeals hinged on the determination that the groups are essentially social service agencies, not churches.
According to Planned Parenthood, the other states with similar laws are: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.
The birth-control benefits case is Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany v. Dinallo, 06-1550. The library case is Faith Center Church v. Glover, 06-1633.
Hey New York. Pound sand.
I only have one nerve left and people just gotta stand on it.
I know exactly how you feel.
It's becoming more and more apparent every day.
It's truly a twisted time.
I second that.
Got to stay vigilant.
Always vigilant.
Let's see if they do. Agree.
Good point.
If I had to guess, the pro murder abortionist and leftist liberal atheist are going to run with this. It's a golden opportunity for them to poke their finger in the eye of religion and they won't pass up that opportunity.
Once in a while a little Civil Disobedience is needed to keep these legislatures in line.
If they push the Catholic hospitals to go against their religious beliefs, they just might get a little civil disobedience. At least I hope so.
What are they going to do? Close down the Charities? Then what are they going to do with all the people who are serviced by these organizations? Are the Atheists going to step up and do all this miserable thankless charity work? I suspect not.
Atheist only want to give 'other peoples' money away. If it were left up to them to help charities, I suspect all the charities would have to close their doors.
As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, there has been a process of laicization of its social functions. Church organizations have created large bureaucracies that didn’t exist before. Work that was done by religious for bare wages is now done by employees. Employee cost money, because people expect to live middle-class lives and will not live in poverty. One reason for the push to allow priests to marry is this desire to integrate them into this new clericy.
repeating that commercialized phrase another 1000000000000x wont change the historical context or the very plain English used in the first amendment.
Anyways, catholic charities will now be forced to drop rx coverage [ victory for the government healthcare junkies ] and those employees are gonna be stuck with pretty useless insurance coverage.
Also the fags and gw freakos eliminated a competing 'religious' view of the world, and get to 'preach' their doctrines unnopposed in this venue...ANTIOCH library...
Excellant rant...
“They don’t pay for the library so they, as a church, don’t get to use it.”
Please provide some evidence that no member of the church pays taxes that go to the libarary.
THere’s a real easy solution for Catholic Charities. Stop hiring and serving non-Catholics.
“I don’t mean christian individuals can’t use libraries. I’m saying churches can’t use them for church use. Tax dollars can’t be used to fund church worship and proslytizing and so on. Churches have to build their own places or use private buildings, not goverenment buildings. EIther that or they should pay taxes (but that would be a big mess). Sorry I wasn’t clear on that.”
So, according to you, it is OK to FORCE money to be taken from the congregation of a church to be used to build a public building that the congregation of the church can not use as a congregation. Did I get that right?
“Does religion really need government to prop it up?”
Your question is backwards. It should be “Does government need religion to back them up?” The persons of a Congregation are the tax payers. The government is not the tax payers to the congregation.
I don’t know the answer to your question, but annually there are 6,000-7,000 petitions filed in the Supreme Court. They hear maybe 150. They just can’t take every case, and the case they do take have to have a serious constitutional question.
In both of these instances, there are alternatives and options available to the appellants. Catholic Charities can stop hiring and serving non-Catholics, thereby earning the religious group exemption to the NY law.
The SF church can find another place to meet. They are not being prohibited from holding services, just can’t hold them in the local library.
We’re granted freedom to practice our religion. Nothing in the Constitution says we’re entitled to practice it at a given place. If the people who live and vote in the area think it’s wrong to prohibit that group from meeting in their public library, they can force a referendum, or vote out the incumbents and put in other local lawmakers that would insist the library be available to religious groups for their services.
“Its that the government isn’t allowed to support churches.”
There is nothing that says the government can not support churches, there is a clause that government can not create a national church (establishment clause). There is another clause that the government can not prohibit the free exercise thereof.
The government can force money to be taken from citizens, yet your claim is that those citizens can not use the money they pay in taxes to exercise their religion. That is a clear violation of the “nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof” clause.
“Allowing worship”=”nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
Ever read the US Constitution?
Yes, without looking it up, I think the relevant clause is something like:
Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
Now I will look it up and see if I got it right:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
OK, I was pretty close but not exact, if I proof read it first I might have been suspicious of the verb "pass" and caught my error.
I believe "Congress" in this case applies exclusively to the federal legislature. Do you have a different understanding?
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