Edification from a Legal Complaint
Posted By Brother André Marie On July 31, 2012
As reported earlier, the Newland family, who own Hercules Industries, won a partial victory [1] in their case against Kathleen Sebelius and the Obama Administration’s HHS contraception mandate.
Reading legal complaints is hardly something one would do for the purposes of edification; however, the complaint [2] filed by the Newlands speaks of their Christian duties. Catholic businessmen should read this:
“The Newlands sincerely believe that the Catholic faith does not allow them to violate Catholic religious and moral teachings in their decisions operating Hercules Industries,” says the complaint. “They believe that according to the Catholic faith their operation of Hercules must be guided by ethical social principles and Catholic religious and moral teachings, that the adherence of their business practice according to such Catholic ethics and religious and moral teachings is a genuine calling from God, that their Catholic faith prohibits them to sever their religious beliefs from their daily business practice, and that their Catholic faith requires them to integrate the gifts of the spiritual life, the virtues, morals, and ethical social principles of Catholic teaching into their life and work.”
“The Catholic Church teaches that abortifacient drugs, contraception and sterilization are intrinsic evils,” says the complaint. “As a matter of religious faith the Newlands believe that those Catholic teachings are among the religious ethical teachings they must follow throughout their lives including in their business practice.”
If the Newland family gives us edification in their complaint, the Department of Justice causes fright an alarm by the outrageous claims they make in their brief to the Court:
“Here, plaintiffs have not sufficiently alleged that the preventive services coverage regulations substantially burden their religious exercise,” the Justice Department told the court. “Hercules Industries, Inc., is not a religious employer; it is ‘an HVAC manufacturer.’”
“The First Amendment Complaint does not allege that the company is affiliated with a formally religious entity such as a church,” the Justice Department told the federal court. “Nor does it allege that the company employs persons of a particular faith. In short, Hercules Industries is plainly a for-profit, secular employer.”
“By definition,” the Justice Department claimed, “a secular employer does not engage in any ‘exercise of religion.’”
“Hercules Industries has ‘made no showing of a religious belief which requires that [it] engage in the [HVAC] business,” DOJ told the court. “Any burden is therefore caused by the company’s choice to enter into a commercial activity.” (Source [3])
The notion that “a secular employer does not engage in any ‘exercise of religion,’” is not only offensive, but clearly reveals that the administration would prefer we limit religious practice to our churches. So, one’s Catholicism cannot “by definition” have anything to do with his work ethics. This is big government off the rails.
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Article printed from Catholicism.org: catholicism.org
URL to article: catholicism.org/edification-from-a-legal-complaint.html
URLs in this post:
[1] partial victory: www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/7524
[2] the complaint: cnsnews.com/sites/default/files/documents/NEWLAND%20V%20SEBELIUS-COMPLAINT.pdf
[3] Source: cnsnews.com/news/article/doj-colorado-family-give-your-religion-or-your-business
[Nonetheless] Obama administration: secular employers ‘generally’ lack constitutionally-protected religious freedom
CWN – August 01, 2012
In arguing against a firm’s attempt to block application of the HHS mandate, lawyers for the Department of Justice stated that “for-profit, secular employers generally do not engage in any exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment.”
A federal judge in Colorado gave a preliminary legal victory to the privately owned business on July 27, granting an injunction to stop the implementation of the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate.
“A secular entity by definition does not practice religion,” the Obama administration had argued in its filing. “The Newlands nonetheless claim that the regulations substantially burden their religious exercise because the regulations may require the group health plan sponsored by their secular company to provide health insurance that includes contraceptive coverage.”
“Plaintiffs’ challenge rests largely on the theory that a for-profit, secular corporation … can claim to exercise a religion and thereby avoid the reach of laws designed to regulate commercial activity,” the administration added. “This cannot be … Hercules Industries’ desire not to make available a health plan that permits such individuals to exercise their own choice as to contraceptive use must yield to the Government’s compelling interest in avoiding the adverse and unfair consequences that would be suffered by such individuals as a result of the company’s decision.”
Defending the HHS mandate, the attorneys added:
Lack of contraceptive use has proven in many cases to have negative health consequences for both women and a developing fetus … Accordingly, through the requirement that health coverage includecoverage for contraceptive services without cost-sharing, defendants seek to further an indisputably compelling interest in the promotion of women’s health and the health of potential newborn children.
Contraceptive coverage, by reducing the number of unintended and potentially unhealthy pregnancies, furthers the goal of eliminating this disparity by allowing women to achieve equal status as healthy and productive members of the job force … Congress’s attempt to equalize the provision of preventive health care services, with the resultant benefit of women being able to contribute to the same degree as men as healthy and productive members of society, furthers a compelling governmental interest.
The Obama administration’s filing acknowledges that “Plan B and similar drugs” work in three ways: “by delaying or inhibiting ovulation, and/or altering tubal transport of sperm and/or ova (thereby inhibiting fertilization), and/or altering the endometrium (thereby inhibiting implantation).”
Even while acknowledging that such drugs can inhibit the implantation of an embryo that has already been conceived, the filing–citing the Food and Drug Adminstration–insists that the drugs do not act as abortifacients.
Additional sources for this story: See www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=15108
[And also] The Obama argument: only churches—not individuals—can claim religious freedom
By Phil Lawler | August 01, 2012
www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=930
Arguing against Hercules Industries—the Colorado firm that won an injunction against the HHS contraceptive mandate–lawyers for the Obama administration made the stunning claim that “for-profit secular employers generally do not engage in any exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment.”
Read that line again. If you don’t want to take my word for it, read it in the brief submitted by the Justice Department in support of the mandate (you’ll find that quotation on page 35). Now reflect on what those portentous words mean.
They mean that ordinary Americans like you and me, as we go about our everyday business, are not protected by the religious-freedom clause of the First Amendment!
Oh, sure, we’re protected on Sundays, when we go to church. The government can’t interfere with worship services; the Obama administration will grant that much. But it’s the church qua church that is granted that constitutional protection. Individuals are not.
The Newland family, owners of Hercules Industries, are religious people—Catholics, in fact. They presumably attend Mass on Sundays, and the Obama administration has no problem with that. But on Monday mornings, when they show up at their offices, the Obama administration argues that they “generally do not engage in any exercise of religion” that deserves constitutional protection.
How does the Justice department know that? Maybe the Newlands pray quietly, by themselves, during work hours. That’s an “exercise of religion,” isn’t it? Shouldn’t it be protected? OK, and what if they hold deep-seated religious beliefs, which impel them to act in certain ways? Wouldn’t those beliefs, and the actions that flow from them, merit some constitutional protection?
The Obama administration says No. The Justice department brief argues that a line can be drawn between the employer’s exercise of religion, which takes place on Sunday, and his business activities during the week. When they are acting as for-profit employers, the administration claims, the Newlands are no longer religious actors.
Unfortunately the Obama administration is not unique in making this claim. A Los Angeles Times editorial, defending the administration’s position, argued thus:
Our view is that church-affiliated charitable and educational institutions should offer such coverage, even if they are self-insured…That said, religious colleges and hospitals are at least part of a church’s religious mission, so the discussion makes sense. The same cannot be said for a company that sells heating, ventilation and air conditioning services.
By what logic is Hercules Industries excluded from the religious mission of the Church? Certainly not by the logic of Vatican II, which emphatically taught that lay people, even when engaged in secular activities, are full partners in the work of the Catholic Church. Our formal worship does not exhaust our commitment to Catholicism; we are also enjoined to transform the secular order through the power of Christian witness. That’s an essential part of the mission entrusted to the Catholic laity. It is the “exercise of religion” that is expected of us. So if that is not protected by the First Amendment, we as citizens are not protected.
The Obama administration seems to be arguing that freedom of religion is a corporate right, which applies only to institutional churches. That argument is incompatible with the original intent of the Bill of Rights, which was clearly designed to secure the freedoms of individual citizens. It is equally incompatible with the teachings of Catholicism, which require all of the faithful—lay, clerical, or religious; in church or on the job—to share responsibility for the Church’s mission.