Last July in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected two kinds of challenges to the Trump Administration's expanded conscience exemptions from the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive coverage mandate. the Court held that the relevant federal departments had authority to promulgate the rules, and that the procedural process used to adopt the rules was valid. The case was remanded for consideration of any other issues. (See prior posting.) Now in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, (D MA, Jan. 15, 2021), a Massachusetts federal district court on remand held that the expanded exemptions are not arbitrary and capricious, and do not violate either the Establishment Clause or the Equal Protection guarantee of the 5th Amendment. In rejecting the Establishment Clause challenge, the court said in part:
Permitting entities to practice their beliefs as they would in the absence of the relevant government-imposed regulations does not, in this instance, rise to an unconstitutional violation of the Establishment Clause.
