WASHINGTON -- A divided Supreme Court gave a small Christian college in Illinois a temporary exemption Thursday from the "contraceptive mandate" in President Barack Obama's health care law, renewing questions about how the justices will handle religious requests to opt out of the rule.
In a ruling Monday in a case involving Hobby Lobby, the court approved religious exemptions for companies whose owners have religious objections to certain forms of contraception.
In their opinions in that case, the justices spoke approvingly of a compromise position the Obama administration had previously adopted that is designed to shield religiously affiliated nonprofit employers from paying directly for contraceptives.
But in Thursday's order, the court granted Wheaton College, an evangelical Protestant liberal-arts school west of Chicago, a temporary injunction allowing it to continue to not comply with the compromise rule.
The college, whose mission statement says it "serves Jesus Christ and advances His Kingdom through excellence in liberal arts and graduate programs," says its religious precepts forbid it from paying for so-called morning-after pills, which it views as a form of abortion.
College officials refused even to sign a government form noting their religious objection, saying that to do so would allow the school's insurance carrier to provide the coverage on its own.
The court's order means that for now, the school's students and faculty members and their dependents will not be able to use the college's health plan to pay for those contraceptives.
The Thursday order was brief, provisional and unsigned, but it drew a sharply worded dissent from the court's three female members, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.
"I disagree strongly with what the court has done," Sotomayor wrote in a 16-page dissent. Noting that the court had praised the administration's position on Monday but was allowing Wheaton to flout it on Thursday, she wrote, "those who are bound by our decisions usually believe they can take us at our word. Not so today."
The administration's existing accommodation for church-related employers was worked out last year and was intended to take effect Jan. 1.
Under the plan, religiously affiliated nonprofits that object to covering some or all contraceptives for employees are supposed to file a form certifying their objection. After that, their insurance carriers will step in to provide the coverage at no added cost.
Insurers have been willing to go along with that idea on the belief that the cost of paying for contraceptives is offset by the savings from not having to pay for pregnancies.
Some religious groups have accepted that plan. Others have gone to court to try to block it. Lower courts have been divided over what to do. The Supreme Court seems increasingly likely to have to resolve the issue.
In the interim, the court has faced a series of emergency appeals from religious entities seeking temporary exemptions. Though many lower courts have granted the requests, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago has turned down sev.eral
In Thursday's order, the Supreme Court said Wheaton need not comply in any way with the law while its appeal is pending.
Mark Rienzi, a lawyer at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents Wheaton, said, "The court rightly recognized that Wheaton's religious community should be allowed to practice its faith free from crushing government fines."
Walter Dellinger, who was acting U.S. solicitor general in President Bill Clinton's administration, said Monday's decision and the order on Thursday were dual blows to the Obama administration's efforts to provide contraception coverage
"Before the Hobby Lobby ruling, women had guaranteed contraceptive coverage as part of their employment health insurance," he said. "After today, it is clear that their access to contraception is by no means guaranteed given the administrative complexities the court has now imposed upon" the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Information for this article was contributed by David G. Savage of the Tribune Washington Bureau and by Adam Liptak of The New York Times.
A Section on 07/04/2014