Michigan's attorney general supports a Grand Rapids-area businessman who's suing over “tyrannical” federal Affordable Care Act requirements that group health plans cover contraception, sterilization, “morning-after pill” and “week-after pill.”
Those preventive services for women are challenged by John Kennedy, CEO of a medical device manufacturer in Rockwood, Mich., that's self-insured and doesn't cover contraception, sterilization or other reproductive services that violate the Kennedy family’s Catholic principles, MLive reports.
Atty. Gen. Bill Schuette is asking a federal judge in Grand Rapids to let him file a 25-page brief in support of Kennedy’s request for a temporary injunction. John Agar of MLive quotes from the Nov. 21 request:"The Attorney General contends that his analysis will be helpful to this court in examining that claim of the United States about whether secular businesses are protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act the the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. . . .
"The principle of religious freedom is one of the central values in Michigan law and it implicates the role of the attorney general, who is chief legal officer of the state. The insidious effect of the United States government’s argument is to push religious beliefs expressed by the ordinary person or business out of the public square.
"Religious liberty cannot be confined to the sanctuary and sacristy. Such a truncated view of religion threatens to create a barren public culture, denuded of the religious beliefs of ordinary American citizens. This is an important principle, and it applies to all Americans and to all faiths."
A U.S. Justice Department response to the injunction request says provisions Kennedy opposes are intended to assure health coverage access for all women regardless of an employer's religious beliefs.
