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n2doc

(47,953 posts)
Mon Mar 24, 2014, 08:42 AM Mar 2014

When ‘Religious Liberty’ Was Used To Deny All Health Care To Women And Not Just Birth Control

BY IAN MILLHISER

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear Hobby Lobby’s and Conestoga Wood Specialties’ claims that they should be exempt from their legal obligations to provide a full range of health coverage — in this case, contraceptive care for women — because they object to providing this coverage on religious grounds. Yet, for women who worked for a California private school in the 1980s, this lawsuit must feel like déjà vu. Nearly three decades ago, the Fremont Christian School claimed a similar right to deny health coverage to its female employees, citing its religious beliefs as justification for doing so. Fremont Christian’s case does bear one important difference from Hobby Lobby’s, however, they did not just want to deny birth control to their employees — they wanted to deny all health coverage to many of the women in their employ.

Fremont was owned by a church which claimed that “in any marriage, the husband is the head of the household and is required to provide for that household.” Because of this belief, they had a very unusual compensation package for their employees — though Fremont offered a health plan to its workers, the plan was only available to “heads of households” which Fremont interpreted to mean single people or married men. When a woman became married, she was to rely on her husband for health care.

(In what Fremont described as an “act of Christian charity,” there was an exemption to this rule. A married woman could receive health benefits if “the husband is incapable of providing for his family, by virtue of non-working student status, or illness” though the school also emphasized that “the husband is still scripturally the head of the household.”)

Offering one set of employee benefits to men and a different, inferior package to women is a blatant violation of federal civil rights law, which prohibits employers from “discriminat[ing] against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” While Fremont claimed that their religious liberty gave them a trump card, a federal appeals court disagreed. “Congress’ purpose to end discrimination,” the court explained, “is equally if not more compelling than other interests that have been held to justify legislation that burdened the exercise of religious convictions.”

more

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/03/23/3417404/when-religious-liberty-was-used-to-deny-all-health-care-to-women-and-not-just-birth-control/

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When ‘Religious Liberty’ Was Used To Deny All Health Care To Women And Not Just Birth Control (Original Post) n2doc Mar 2014 OP
This is the Pandora's box that will open if we lose the Hobby Lobby case Freddie Mar 2014 #1

Freddie

(9,232 posts)
1. This is the Pandora's box that will open if we lose the Hobby Lobby case
Mon Mar 24, 2014, 09:07 AM
Mar 2014

"Religious conviction exemptions" will go beyond health care to other kinds of employment law. Many Fundies believe a woman should never have authority over men. Now this will be a "legitimate reason" for them to refuse to hire or promote women to supervisory positions.

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