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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhen ‘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 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.
(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 individuals 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.
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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/
Freddie
(9,275 posts)"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.