More news in higher education and Obamacare opposition: Jerry Fallwell’s Liberty University is appealing the law’s individual mandate. According to a piece by Alexander Abad-Santos at the Atlantic:
Liberty University will be allowed to appeal Obamacare’s individual mandate and a mandate requiring employers to provide coverage for workers, the Supreme Court decided on Monday. “The court on Monday ordered the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., to consider the claim by Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., that Obama’s health care law violates the school’s religious freedoms,” reports the AP, which adds that the Obama administration said it did not oppose Liberty’s request.
Why’s the fundamentalist college challenging the law? While many institutions are trying to fight the law simply because it’ll be expensive for them to implement, Liberty argues that its opposition is principled. It’s apparently a violation of some sort of religious stance. As Fox News puts it:
The school is challenging the constitutionality of the part of the law that mandates employers provide insurance and whether forcing insurers to pay for birth control is unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause.
What? While arguably even Catholic institutions’ stances on birth control and Obamacare are questionable (the law requires insurance companies to cover birth control at no cost to policyholders, not the institutions that contract with those insurance companies) this Liberty opposition makes very little religious sense.
Liberty University is Southern Baptist. The Southern Baptist Convention is not opposed to the use of contraceptives.
