Anti-Conscience Mandate Hurts Good Samaritan Groups

From Culture Watch:

March 16, 2012 

Anti-Conscience Mandate Hurts Good Samaritan Groups 

A 15-year-old girl spray-painted the words on pale yellow aluminum siding perched oddly on a slab of concrete: "For sale! Fixer upper." Hours earlier, the siding had been part of a wall and the slab the front porch of her grandmother's home in Harrisburg, Ill.

The good-humored graffiti was probably the rosiest reaction possible after 45 tornadoes swept through 10 states in the Midwest and South, flattening entire towns. Even in the aftermath of what insurance companies call "acts of God," we mere mortals still may feel powerless. "Fixing up" lives, homes and neighborhoods will require superhuman perseverance.

Thankfully many angels of mercy have appeared in devastated communities. Religious groups such as Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and Catholic Charities are providing basic necessities.

More important, faith-based groups have the capacity to deal with deeper damage: psychological shock, grief over lost loved ones and fear of the unknown in a world turned upside down. And they have staying power to help storm-stricken survivors summon the will to persevere through months, if not years, of rebuilding.

Such groups show up because of their faith. Motivated by the belief that God has shown them mercy, they consider it a mandate to extend mercy by serving others. That's why they've invested major resources over decades -- in some cases a century or more -- to build up their capacity to help victims of disaster as well as the poor, sick, elderly, orphaned and unborn.

So why would anyone penalize Good Samaritans for the very beliefs that motivate them to do so much good in communities across America and around the world? That's a question many ask about a federal government mandate, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, forcing religious groups to provide employee health coverage for controversial abortion-inducing drugs.

Popularly called "Obamacare," the health care law mandates what employers must cover, what insurers must offer and what individuals must buy. (This last part, known as the "individual mandate," is the subject of a case to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in late March.) The bureaucrats are beginning to write specific rules for coverage, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released its requirements for preventive health services.

The HHS mandate forces insurance plans, including those carried by religious employers, to cover abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilization-even if such coverage violates their beliefs. As the mandate stands, only houses of worship will be exempted.

Religious groups that serve the public -- think of those reaching out right now in tornado-torn communities -- will be forced to violate their conscience or be hit by penalties for failing to comply or dropping coverage.

In other words, Good Samaritans face a fine on faith. Employers that don't comply with the government mandate, the Congressional Research Servicereports, could be fined $100 per day for each employee.

Continue reading about the anti-conscience mandate’s threat to Good Samaritans' good work >>