When ‘Religious Liberty’ was Used to Deny All Health Care to Women and Not Just Birth Control
http://www.nationofchange.org/when-religious-liberty-was-used-deny-all-health-care-women-and-not-just-birth-control-1395666832
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear Hobby Lobbys 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 Christians case does bear one important difference from Hobby Lobbys, 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.