California court rules Catholic charity must provide birth control

SAN FRANCISCO — A California state Supreme Court ruled March 1 that a Roman Catholic charity must provide employees with birth control coverage despite its opposition to contraception.

Religious employers, such as churches, are exempt from the requirement in California, and Catholic Charities argued it, too, should be exempt.

But the state’s Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that the charity is not a religious employer because it offers such “secular” services as counseling, low-income housing and immigration services to people of all faiths, without directly preaching Catholic values. The court said the non-profit group is not different from other businesses despite its affiliation with the Catholic church.

Carol Hogan, spokeswoman for the California Catholic Conference, which represents the church’s policy position in the state, told The Associated Press that the ruling “shows no respect” to California’s religious organizations. She also argued that the ruling could open the door to mandated insurance coverage of abortion.

Experts said the ruling could affect thousands of workers at church-backed hospitals and institutions in California and prompt other states to pass similar laws.

California is one of 20 states to require that all company-provided health plans must include contraception coverage if the plans have prescription drug benefits.

Justice Janice Rogers Brown was the lone dissenting judge. Brown wrote that the Legislature’s definition of a “religious employer” is too limiting if it excludes faith-based nonprofit groups like Catholic Charities.

“Here we are dealing with an intentional, purposeful intrusion into a religious organization’s expression of its religious tenets and sense of mission,” Brown wrote. “The government is not accidentally or incidentally interfering with religious practice; it is doing so willfully by making a judgment about what is or is not a religion.”

Some evangelicals expressed disappointment and concern over the ruling, warning that it could affect Christian organizations all over the country.

“In general, I think that Christian charities are not going to be able to follow their faith practices due to this ruling,” said Linda Klepacki, abstinence manager at Focus on the Family. “I think it’s going to have far-reaching consequences to Christian charities as a whole in the U.S.”

Catholic Charities has 183 full-time employees and had a $76 million budget in California in 2002.

The 20 states that require private-sector insurance coverage for prescription contraceptives are Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont and Washington.

EP News
Published by Keener Communications Group, April 2004

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