Overlawyered » Catholic Church http://overlawyered.com Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:22:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Scope of existing state employer-contraceptive mandates http://overlawyered.com/2012/02/scope-of-existing-state-employer-contraceptive-mandates/ http://overlawyered.com/2012/02/scope-of-existing-state-employer-contraceptive-mandates/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:28:34 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=27481 It has been asserted in various outlets that many states already mandate contraceptive coverage, that the Catholic church has been content to live with those mandates, and so that the current firestorm over the ObamaCare provision must just be something cooked up by Republican consultants. Here is a response from the National Council of Catholic Bishops via NR’s Kathryn Lopez:

6. The federal mandate is much stricter than existing state mandates. HHS chose the narrowest state-level religious exemption as the model for its own. That exemption was drafted by the ACLU and exists in only 3 states (New York, California, Oregon). Even without a religious exemption, religious employers can already avoid the contraceptive mandates in 28 states by self-insuring their prescription drug coverage, dropping that coverage altogether, or opting for regulation under a federal law (ERISA) that pre-empts state law. The HHS mandate closes off all these avenues of relief.

More on the controversy from my Cato colleague Roger Pilon and from Jonathan Rauch. And: John Cochrane on the wider folly of letting the feds mandate contraceptive coverage in the first place: “Sure, churches should be exempt. We should all be exempt.”

Tags: ,

Related posts

]]> http://overlawyered.com/2012/02/scope-of-existing-state-employer-contraceptive-mandates/feed/ 7 “Their government’s communitarianism leaves no room for their church’s communitarianism” http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/their-government%e2%80%99s-communitarianism-leaves-no-room-for-their-church%e2%80%99s-communitarianism/ http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/their-government%e2%80%99s-communitarianism-leaves-no-room-for-their-church%e2%80%99s-communitarianism/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:02:23 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=27248 Ross Douthat on how the ObamaCare Pill edict points up some “trade-offs… which liberal communitarians don’t always like to acknowledge. When government expands, it’s often at the expense of alternative expressions of community, alternative groups that seek to serve the common good.” More: Steve Chapman.

Tags:

Related posts

]]> http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/their-government%e2%80%99s-communitarianism-leaves-no-room-for-their-church%e2%80%99s-communitarianism/feed/ 0 “Religious employers must cover pill, Feds say” http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/religious-employers-must-cover-pill-feds-say/ http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/religious-employers-must-cover-pill-feds-say/#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:06:52 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=27070 HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius said giving church-related sponsors of health plans an additional year to comply with the contraceptive mandate “strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.” Really? If religious freedom is in fact at stake, what kind of “balance” is attained if it gets a one-year reprieve but then expires? A balance between current freedom of institutional conscience and future lack of same? [AP] On the Obama administration’s remarkably unfriendly stance toward self-governance by church institutions, see my coverage of this term’s Hosanna-Tabor Supreme Court case. More: Michael Greve has a must-read analysis predicting the directive’s downfall in court, and pointing out the procedural dodginess of this and much other regulation implementing the ACA. And Thom Lambert asks: “What if the Government Ordered the Human Rights Campaign to Cover Conversion Therapy for Gays?”

Tags: , ,

Related posts

]]> http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/religious-employers-must-cover-pill-feds-say/feed/ 27 December 6 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/december-6-roundup/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/december-6-roundup/#comments Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:23:12 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=26076
  • TSA: design of gun on purse is “replica gun” [Radley Balko]
  • “Note: Before Attaching Ankle Monitor, Make Sure Leg Is Real” [Lowering the Bar]
  • “Harm to others” rationale seems to fall by wayside as Boston bans workplace use of e-cigarettes [Jacob Sullum]
  • “Should legislation protect the obese?” [NYT "Room for Debate"]
  • German town drops charges against Pope Benedict XVI for failure to wear seat belt in Popemobile [WaPo, Lowering the Bar, Irish Times]
  • Ninth Circuit agrees to review litigation seeking court takeover of vets’ mental care [SFChron, WSJ Law Blog, earlier]
  • The shaky science of “shaken baby syndrome” [Pfaff, Prawfs, ABA Journal, earlier here, here] Jerry Brown should pardon dubiously convicted grandmother [Emily Bazelon, Slate]
    • Tags: , , , , , ,

    Related posts

    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/december-6-roundup/feed/ 1     November 23 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/november-23-roundup-4/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/november-23-roundup-4/#comments Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:02:02 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=25696
  • Big win for Ted Frank against cy pres slush funds [CCAF, Fisher, Zywicki, CL&P, @tedfrank ("Ninth Circuit rules in my favor ... but I still think I'm right".)]
  • “Can the Vatican Be Subject to ICC Prosecution?” [Ku/OJ]
  • “Tennessee: ATS Sues City Over Right Turn Ticket Money” [The Newspaper]
  • “Law firms dominating campaign contributions to Obama” [WaPo]
  • Does that mean it’s an entitlement? Punitive damage limits face constitutional challenges in Arkansas, Missouri [Cal Punitives]
  • Businessman sues to silence critical blogger, case is dismissed, now files suit #2 [Scott Greenfield]
  • Going Hollywood? “The Supreme Court should move to Los Angeles” [Conor Friedersdorf]
    • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

    Related posts

    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/november-23-roundup-4/feed/ 2     June 25 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2010/06/june-25-roundup-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2010/06/june-25-roundup-2/#comments Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:00:23 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=17955
  • Supreme Court limits scope of “honest services fraud” law [Mauro/NLJ, Ilya Shapiro and Tim Lynch, Cato, Bainbridge and more]
  • No, defensive medicine isn’t a myth, ask your emergency room doc [AP/Columbus Dispatch] Eagerness to share horror stories [Sharon Begley, Newsweek] “Unusual for a Democrat, Obama readily acknowledges that defensive medicine is a problem.” [AP/WaPo] “VBAC rates are low, but are obstetricians to blame?” [Lin and Tuteur at KevinMD, Replogle/Fair Warning]
  • Social life of a blawger, cont’d: I sat at David Lat’s table at CEI’s evening with Judge Kozinski [Above the Law] Judge Learned Hand, writing in an antitrust case, “was very knowledgeable about everything except how the world works.” [among the many funny things Judge K. said]
  • For those keeping count, at least seven Roman Catholic dioceses in this country have filed for bankruptcy in abuse scandal [Hartley]
  • Business Roundtable enumerates rapidly expanding roster of federal regulatory burdens [Ted at PoL, Amend the CPSIA, Tad DeHaven and Daniel Mitchell, Cato]
  • Colleges fiddle numbers to comply with Title IX, but don’t you dare call it a quota law [LegalBlogWatch, Greenfield] New report on law’s ill effects on soccer [College Sports Council, Charlotte Allen/MtC] More: Allison Kasic, IWF. And back when, I wrote on Princeton wrestling and Title IX; CSC tells how that turned out.
  • Former student of Prof. Robin West defends homeschooling [Sub Specie]
  • Not too long ago: “My environmental advocacy organization would only fill the company cars at BP” [Stoll]
    • Tags: , , , , , ,

    Related posts

    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2010/06/june-25-roundup-2/feed/ 3     New at Point of Law http://overlawyered.com/2010/04/new-at-point-of-law-18/ http://overlawyered.com/2010/04/new-at-point-of-law-18/#comments Mon, 19 Apr 2010 11:22:17 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=16989 Things you’re missing if you’re not keeping up with my other site:

    Tags: , , , , ,

    Related posts

    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2010/04/new-at-point-of-law-18/feed/ 1     “Universal jurisdiction”, Judge Garzon, and the Pope http://overlawyered.com/2010/04/universal-jurisdiction-judge-garzon-and-the-pope/ http://overlawyered.com/2010/04/universal-jurisdiction-judge-garzon-and-the-pope/#comments Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:33:53 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=16919 I’ve got a few thoughts at Point of Law on the continuing uproar over prosecutions of international human rights violations against the will of the home countries of the alleged perpetrators.

    Tags: , ,

    Related posts

    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2010/04/universal-jurisdiction-judge-garzon-and-the-pope/feed/ 3     “The persecution of Belmont Abbey” http://overlawyered.com/2009/10/the-persecution-of-belmont-abbey/ http://overlawyered.com/2009/10/the-persecution-of-belmont-abbey/#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:36:04 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=14315 Charlotte Allen of the Manhattan Institute on the EEOC’s crackdown on a traditionalist Catholic college for not including contraceptives in its health plan. [Weekly Standard]

    Tags: , , ,

    Related posts

    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2009/10/the-persecution-of-belmont-abbey/feed/ 4     October 8 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2009/10/october-8-roundup-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2009/10/october-8-roundup-2/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:57:04 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=14058
  • Judge rules Segways not necessary to accommodation at Disney World, throws out settlement negotiated by disabled rights group [Bloomberg, WSJ Law Blog; background here and here] More: OnPoint News (disputing claims of Disney victory).
  • “Too Many Lawyers or Too Many Laws?” [Somin, Volokh, on Scalia; earlier]
  • More on the $500K award to woman who escaped first WTC bombing and broke ankle ten days later [John Hochfelder in comments]
  • $3 million race bias suit against Martha Stewart Living magazine seems to have followed protest over home furnishing item often described as “coolie-hat” lampshade [NY Post]
  • Skyboxes for the mayor and city councilors who approved the stadium — and this is ethically OK? [Coyote]
  • Getting kind of meta: “Lawyer Says Lawyer Defamed Him in Press Release About Defamation Suit” [NLJ]
  • “Free credit score” firm backs off legal effort to identify critical blogger — but who’s this they’ve identified as their foe? [Paul Levy, Consumer Law & Policy, Felix Salmon, earlier]
  • EEOC says Catholic college “discriminated against women by removing coverage for prescription contraceptives from [its] health insurance plan” [Gaston, N.C. Gazette via LaborProf]
    • Tags: , , , , ,

    Related posts

    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2009/10/october-8-roundup-2/feed/ 2