EEOC Seeks Conciliation with Belmont Abbey over Denial of Oral Contraceptive Coverage and Retaliation

According to the Gaston Gazette , the EEOC has issued a letter to Belmont Abbey, making a determination that the Catholic college discriminated against women by removing coverage for prescription contraceptives from the health insurance plan and by publishing the names of faculty members who filed a charge with the EEOC.

[David]

You can understand this better if you stop focusing on the contraception issue and look at the bigger picture. The law treats a Cathoic college like any other employer. The issue in controversy is whether or not an employer can impose religious practices on employees resulting in discrimination. Religious beliefs are absolutely protected by the constitution. You can believe anything you want. Religious practices can and sometimes must be regulated because they affect the rights of others. So it is perfectly legal to believe that a man should have 3 wives, but he will be arrested if he puts that belief into practice and actually marries three women. In this case the last thing that you, as a practicing Catholic, want is for Belmont Abbey to win the case because that would mean that the courts have decided that employers can dictate religious practices to employees. The result would be that millions of Catholic employees could be required to follow practices of their non-Catholic employers. So a business owned by a Jehovah's witness might not allow blood transfusions in the health plan. A business owned by a Muslim might require the employees to face Mecca at prayer time. A business owned by a Jew might require male employees to be circumcised. A business owned by a Hindu might fire an employee seen eating beef on company premises. I could go on and on but you can see that it is best to let each employee decide for him or herself, freely without coercion, how to practice religion. You see contraception as an evil but many others see things that you do on a daily basis as equally evil and you don't want your employer interfering with your life in this way as I don't. As "they" say, be careful what you wish for. If you will let me practice as I wish I will let you have your trespasses forgiven instead of your debts!

[CatholicPatriot]

David wrote:

You can understand this better if you stop focusing on the contraception issue and look at the bigger picture. The law treats a Cathoic college like any other employer. The issue in controversy is whether or not an employer can impose religious practices on employees resulting in discrimination. Religious beliefs are absolutely protected by the constitution. You can believe anything you want. Religious practices can and sometimes must be regulated because they affect the rights of others. So it is perfectly legal to believe that a man should have 3 wives, but he will be arrested if he puts that belief into practice and actually marries three women. In this case the last thing that you, as a practicing Catholic, want is for Belmont Abbey to win the case because that would mean that the courts have decided that employers can dictate religious practices to employees. The result would be that millions of Catholic employees could be required to follow practices of their non-Catholic employers. So a business owned by a Jehovah's witness might not allow blood transfusions in the health plan. A business owned by a Muslim might require the employees to face Mecca at prayer time. A business owned by a Jew might require male employees to be circumcised. A business owned by a Hindu might fire an employee seen eating beef on company premises. I could go on and on but you can see that it is best to let each employee decide for him or herself, freely without coercion, how to practice religion. You see contraception as an evil but many others see things that you do on a daily basis as equally evil and you don't want your employer interfering with your life in this way as I don't. As "they" say, be careful what you wish for. If you will let me practice as I wish I will let you have your trespasses forgiven instead of your debts!

First, it is wrong to claim that a Catholic school is just another employer. The mission of a Catholic school is to provide a sound Catholic education. The free exercise clause of the First Amendment as well as the prohibiton of a religious test act (the target of England's religious test act was the Catholic church) means that Catholic schools are allowed to hire and fire whomever they please in accordance with Catholic teaching not the EEOC laws.

Second, the use of unnatural birth control is not a natural right. No rights are violated by denying women or men access to unnatural birth control under the health plan.

The EEOC alleges it violates women's rights which is a significant streth since no such natural right exists. It is also a stretch because there is no evidence the oilicy applies only to women.

I'm quite certain the liberals at the EEOC have set this up as a test to see which way the Supreme Court will go.

When they lose in the Supreme Court they hope to use that as a means of initiating an anti-Catholic response.

[Jos Soroka]

This is true. Employers routinely enact policies and protocols that extend beyond the workplace. This includes behavior such as smoking, and entertainment, such as 'gentleman's clubs.' The courts usually side in favor of the employer.

[James]

I'm not sure whether the EEOC is made up of liberals or not, but including prescription contraception has been a requirement for has been a requirement since 2000. I think they would have found the same way even if Bush were still in office.

Following David's point, what if the Jehovah's Witnesses sponsored a college, and the health plan prohibited blood transfusions? Do you think the Supreme Court would go with that? I doubt it.

I don't think that the SC would find that a college, though sponsored by a church, fulfills the requirements for a religious exemption.

[Jos Soroka]

I know and agree with what you are saying. This is insurance to cover birth control, which the Church opposes. In this case I wonder whether the court would agree with the abbey. Likewise the abbey could probably not prohibit a woman from receiving a hysterectomy.

[Samuel]

David wrote:

You can understand this better if you stop focusing on the contraception issue and look at the bigger picture. The law treats a Cathoic college like any other employer. The issue in controversy is whether or not an employer can impose religious practices on employees resulting in discrimination. Religious beliefs are absolutely protected by the constitution. You can believe anything you want. Religious practices can and sometimes must be regulated because they affect the rights of others. So it is perfectly legal to believe that a man should have 3 wives, but he will be arrested if he puts that belief into practice and actually marries three women. In this case the last thing that you, as a practicing Catholic, want is for Belmont Abbey to win the case because that would mean that the courts have decided that employers can dictate religious practices to employees. The result would be that millions of Catholic employees could be required to follow practices of their non-Catholic employers. So a business owned by a Jehovah's witness might not allow blood transfusions in the health plan. A business owned by a Muslim might require the employees to face Mecca at prayer time. A business owned by a Jew might require male employees to be circumcised. A business owned by a Hindu might fire an employee seen eating beef on company premises. I could go on and on but you can see that it is best to let each employee decide for him or herself, freely without coercion, how to practice religion. You see contraception as an evil but many others see things that you do on a daily basis as equally evil and you don't want your employer interfering with your life in this way as I don't. As "they" say, be careful what you wish for. If you will let me practice as I wish I will let you have your trespasses forgiven instead of your debts!

David, I think your response, though I can see the logic in it, presents us a false choice. The real choice here is is the employee's choice to work for (or not) an employer, who excludes certain procedures from the health care coverage he offers his employees, such enumerated exclusions being for religious reasons. That ought to be the employer's right, as long as his exclusion does not intend to discriminate against a certain class of folks, who might otherwise choose to be employed. Since the employer, in this case, is a Catholic School, it is, demonstrably, not discrimination, which drives their exclusion of these certain enumerated medical procedures. I think the Supreme Court would side with Belmont Abbey on this one. I appreciate your concern for the well-being of the church.

[James]

Samuel,

Today I read the NY Court of Appeals decision on the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany et al vs. Gregory Serio, New York Superintendant of Insurance, 2006. While this case is based on the NY State contraceptive equity law, I believe it was appealed to the US Supreme Court, which refused to hear it, thus affirming the 6-0 opinion (one judge took no part). I am not an attorney, but it appears to me that NY Appeals court rebutted every argument that can be made in favor of allowing employers which serve the public and employ people of various faiths to dictate what their prescription drugs plans may offer on the basis of the employer's religious convictions.

'we must weigh against plaintiffs' interest in adhering to the tenets of their faith the State's substantial interest in fostering equality between the sexes, and in providing women with better health care. The Legislature had extensive evidence before it that the absence of contraceptive coverage for many women was seriously interfering with both of these important goals'.

In many cases, the complainants at Belmont Abbey College began their employment with the explicit assurance that their non-Catholicism would not affect their employment. Contraceptive prescription coverage had been the norm for at least ten years. Do you think the administration overlooked this for that long? I don't think so. I think what happened is that the school was taken over by evangelicals; and this group promptly took charge, wrote themselves huge salary packages, and cut the pay of everyone else. There has been a huge exodus of employees, including some it will be impossible to replace.

It is difficult to tell whether the purpose that the evangelicals were brought for--raising money, has been enough. Belmont Abbey, like many other colleges, is making hay with their adult degree program. It is still a fine place to get an education, but will it continue to be if they can no longer attract a diverse faculty? I don't know, but a lot turns on this case, which I am confident the Abbey will lose.

[James]

My point in these latter two paragraphs was to demonstrate that there is conflict between the administration and faculty that goes far beyond the filing of the EEOC complaint by the eight faculty members. There is an atmosphere of distrust that needs healing.

Whether the current administration's salaries are higher than those at peer institutions, I don't know for sure, as that information is private. It is rumored to be so. And I also don't know if the loss of faculty and other employees can be accounted for by the natural ebb and flow of employment. However, I have good reason to believe that at least some employees have left because of the change in administration six years ago.

What is happening at the Abbey is symptomatic of what is happening in society at large. Liberal Catholics, who seem, according to the polls, to be in the majority, are scrapping with the minority conservative Catholics, who also have major issues with the majority non-Catholic society, whose views tend to be reflected in the courts. College employees are caught in the middle.