NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against six Catholic groups in Tennessee and Michigan that claim the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act violates their religious beliefs.
On Friday, the Cincinnati based federal court reaffirmed its prior judgment that the mandate does not violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
As religiously affiliated nonprofits, the six groups don't have to pay directly for their workers' birth control. Instead, their insurance providers are required to pay for it. But the groups still say the scheme makes them complicit in the provision of contraception.
One of the plaintiffs in the case is the Catholic Diocese of Nashville where David Choby is the presiding Bishop. Choby says he find's the ruling's implications disturbing.
“I don’t really think that that is the spirit with which the country was founded that somehow churches have certain rights that are just simply accommodated or conceded by the government. The rights are really more constitutional rights, and not something is just simply deigned to be handed out on the part of the federal government.”
Bishop Choby says he thinks the case will eventually be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, but he hasn’t yet decided whether the Diocese of Nashville will continue as a plaintiff.