Supreme Court won't hear appeal in Catholic CharitiesoftheDioceseof Alba...

[Hamilton02 at aol.com]

Alan-- Are you seriously saying that having the state bear the cost of  
insurance is a no-cost option?  Your solution is not economically viable  from my 
point of view and our differing economic conclusions just further shows  that 
the better individuals to figure out that sort of public policy are elected  
representatives. 
 
 Marci
 
In a message dated 10/2/2007 4:25:28 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
aebrownstein at ucdavis.edu writes:

Money  is related to this case in a different way, however. Unlike some 
conflicts  between government and religious exercise in which the regulatory 
interests of  the state and the religious practice of faith-based institutions may 
make  compromises difficult, the Catholic Charities case was exclusively about 
money  and how it would be spent. The state wanted to provide insurance 
coverage for  medical contraceptives for women working for employers who provided 
them  health insurance that included prescription drugs and directed employers,  
including religious employers, to pay for the cost of that benefit. 
Obviously,  the state could have accomplished its health and equity goals by having the 
 state itself provide insurance coverage to employees working for religiously 
 exempt employers. And the state could have required Catholic Charities to  
provide equivalent value in funds or services (equivalent to the expenses they  
avoided by receiving a religious exemption from the law) for some public good 
 or services that did not violate the tenets of the Catholic faith. 
(Something  akin to financial alternative service.) 
Thus,  the state could have respected the religious freedom  of Catholic  
Charities without incurring any significant cost or risk. A free exercise  
jurisprudence that allows religious liberty to be outweighed by minimal state  
interests is debased – just as a free speech or other fundamental right  
jurisprudence would be debased if it allowed rights to be burdened for  insubstantial 
reasons. 







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