The president of a small Catholic college in North Carolina is in a standoff with the Obama administration’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) over demands that the school must offer contraception coverage in its employee health insurance. Belmont Abbey College President William K. Thierfelder says he will shut down his school before doing so, citing the Catholic Church’s prohibition on contraception and First Amendment religious liberty rights.

On September 10, the college retained the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty to appeal an August 5 ruling by the EEOC, charging the school with discrimination. In a letter to Thierfelder, the EEOC stated the college “is discriminating based on gender because only females take oral prescription contraceptives. By denying coverage, men are not affected, only women.” Thierfelder objected with a letter posted on the school’s website, saying: “Belmont Abbey College rejects the notion that by following the moral teachings of the Catholic Church we are discriminating against anyone.… We are simply and honestly exercising the freedom of religion that is protected by the Constitution.”

The college hopes to settle amicably, but if no agreement is reached, the next step could be for the EEOC to file a federal discrimination lawsuit. So far, the EEOC refuses to comment on the case, citing confidentiality provisions in the Civil Rights Act.
A precedent to this is the 2004 case against Catholic Charities in California, in which the state Supreme Court ruled that the organization had to cover contraception as part of its employee health-insurance plan. Though Belmont Abbey College is located in North Carolina, a state that requires this coverage but provides exemption for religious institutions, the EEOC’s letter states that the discrimination charges are based on gender, not religion, and involve only the change in contraception coverage, not coverage for abortion or sterilization. (Of course, only women get abortions, as well as use oral contraception.)

The conflict is rooted in changes the school made to its health coverage in December 2007 after a faculty member discovered their plan inadvertently covered abortions, prescription contraception, and elective sterilization. At the time, Thierfelder explained the changes: “As a Roman Catholic institution, Belmont Abbey College is not able to and will not offer nor subsidize medical services that contradict the clear teaching of the Catholic Church.” Eight employees countered with a complaint filed with the North Carolina EEOC, claiming the college was in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The local EEOC bureau threw out the discrimination charge in March, but the federal EEOC reversed that ruling in July. The new ruling also charges Belmont Abbey College with retaliating against the eight employees by making their names public. (Interestingly, only two are women.)

The Becket Fund blames the “new administration in Washington” for the reversal. Kevin Hasson, president of the Fund, issued a press release saying, “When he went to Notre Dame and the Vatican, President Obama talked a good game about protecting conscience. But when his administration went to Belmont Abbey, where the rubber meets the road, it was a very different story.” Hasson added, “The EEOC’s action is a direct assault on the principle of conscientious objection itself, and we will resist it vigorously.”

Various organizations across the country have raised their voices in defense of Belmont Abbey College. “Under Obama, the federal government is forcing a small religious institution to commit an act that violates its core values,” said Michael Barnett, director of Leadership Development at American Life League. “This is religious persecution and a clear signal of what Obamacare would bring. This is the government imposing its will against the people’s will.” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins pointed out, “This outrageous attack on the historic and clearly articulated convictions of a religious college demonstrate a growing effort on the part of the radical left to impose their anti-faith agenda on people who hold convictions contrary to those of the secular elite.”

Among Belmont’s supporters are students at other Catholic colleges, bracing for their own battles under Obama’s healthcare reforms. President of De Sales University Students for Life, Larry Meo, complained, “The EEOC is attempting to impose a set of values on a certain group of colleges, and this is the very thing the president spoke against during his campaign.”

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Flu-Bird said:

Abolish the EEOC The commie thugs of the EEOC will atempt to intimadate the church as always since OBAMA is a communists and the commies were evil atheists I mean the EEOC is just one buracracy that should be eleminated enterly

September 16, 2009

St. James said:

Correction Flu-Bird; I hate to correct you on this, but Obama isn't an atheist; he is a closet-Muslim. Twenty years in Wright's pews was just for show, (he hasn't stepped into a church for worship purposes since he quit Wright's church... which appeared an all too easy decision for him)and the fact that as a child he indoctrinated with Islam in Indonesia and, remember when he bowed to the Saudi King ... For the life of me, I can't figure out why people put this guy in the White House when the very war we are in right now, whether anyone wants to acknowledge this or not, is a religious war between Christianity and Islam. Yeah, Obama is a closet-Muslim...

September 16, 2009

Bonnie said:

EEOC For starters, the EEOC is unconstitutional. There is nothing in the constitution that even remotely comes close to permitting Congress to produce such an entity. Even IF the EEOC was constitutional (which it isn't), this situation would be covered by the 1st Amendment ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;") I seem to remember a number of years back when another church was in hot water because it would not hire an avowed homosexual as an organist.

September 16, 2009

Zelmer Zootinheimer said:

Yet another example of the badness of income tax law Like everything else this seems to originate in the tax code. If we were to change the tax code so that it was no longer beneficial for employers to offer insurance, insurance companies would have to market directly to consumers. Employers should be expected to only pay wages. Let people decide on their own what kind of help plans to purchase. The EEOC should be abolished. (even if they were Constitutional, which they are not, we can't afford them anyway)

September 16, 2009

Rsw said:

Not a Religious Institution Attention crazy people: Belmont Abbey is not a religious institution. Acccording to its Articles of Incorporation and the arguments the College has made in federal court in an unrelated case, Belmont Abbey is a liberal arts college that does not require its students to be catholic and does not include religious instruction as a primary mission.

September 16, 2009

DN said:

... RSW has a good point. Belmont Abbey College is the exact same college which went to the Federal Court of Appeals a few years ago and argued its heart out to get an official ruling that it was NOT RELIGIOUS so it could get state funds! Read the case yourself in any law library at 429 F.Supp. 871. Now it wants to claim it IS religious so it won't have to pay for employee benefits. When it can GET money for being NOT religious it claims to be not religious. When it has to PAY money for benefits if it is not religious it suddenly finds that it has a precious Catholic identity that cannot be even slightly compromised. I think you right to life types can find a more suitable and credible institution to base your case upon.

September 17, 2009

HRWG said:

Response to DN and Rsw Actually it doesn't matter if they claim to be a religious college or not. It still stand that we are all protected by freedom of religion. As long as you are practicing your Christian religion(since our country was founded a Christian country and the founding fathers wouldn't have dreamed of people practicing any other form of religion) the government can't or shouldn't touch you no matter what you do while practicing your religion. We can all practice it anywhere at anytime. I know what you are thinking "separation of church and state" right? Well look again no where does it state this in our Constitution. People get it from the Establishment clause which only means that a nationwide or statewide religion cannot be established for the purpose of gathering taxes from the people. Look up your English history. England forced taxes on their people for the church. That is why the Establishment Clause was put in the Constitution not to deny people the right to practice their religion when they are in school, public, etc. So the EEOC is unconstitutional and should be, along with the ACLU, thrown out of the US. Groups like that have no place and they prey upon those who are ignorant of the Constitution and the History behind it.

September 18, 2009

Actually sane said:

... OBAMA is a terrorist tying to ruin America by infiltrating our government and destroying our constitution. He is also bringing her down by introducing socialism to us a little bit at a time. But he is not alone. He is backed by the corrupt little men of congress. They control what we can teach in school, they control who we hire, they can make laws against our constitution rights; what makes you think that soon they will not just go all out and bring in some form of communism? That's what keeps me awake at night knowing the condition our nation is in.

September 24, 2009