Health law exemption called an ‘intrusion’ into religion

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The contraceptive mandate in the new health reform law is constitutional but the religious exemption to it represents an unconstitutional intrusion by government into decisions about religion, according to the former chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Catholic Education.
Speaking March 15 at The Catholic University of America on “Religious Liberty, Conscience and Contraception,” Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Curry of Los Angeles traced the current controversy over the Department of Health and Human Services’ requirement that most religious employers provide free contraceptives through their health insurance plans to misinterpretations of the First Amendment by politicians, courts and the public.
“If one were to set out to write a law in violation of the First Amendment, to write a regulation giving power to government in religious matters, one would be challenged to come up with a better sample than this exemption,” he said.
The HHS mandate and its narrow religious exemption have prompted protests led by the U.S. Catholic bishops, who say requiring people to pay for drugs and procedures contrary to their moral beliefs is a violation of religious freedom.
The Irish-born Bishop Curry, who holds a master’s degree in history and a doctorate in political science from U.S. universities, said the controversy “has brought to light a problem that has been growing by leaps and bounds in recent years — the interference of government in religion.”
He said the “wall of separation between church and state” — not mentioned in the First Amendment but part of the Supreme Court’s 1947 decision in Everson v. Board of Education — has been subject to the government’s interpretation about where the separation should occur, constituting an impermissible breach of the constitutional requirement that the government stay out of religion.
He said the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights made clear that the First Amendment meant “that the government has been given no power in religious matters,” but over the years the Supreme Court has turned that on its head by setting up a test that asks whether “a law aids, hinders or is neutral toward religion.”