Attorney General Alan Wilson leads fight for religious liberty

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – Attorney General Alan Wilson led a coalition of 18 states today defending religious liberty. He filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a case where a church in Washington state was unlawfully forced to provide health insurance that covered abortions and abortion-inducing drugs for its employees. The First Amendment protects religious institutions’ “autonomy with respect to internal management decisions that are essential to the institution’s central mission.”

“Churches should not be forced by the government to do something that goes against their core beliefs, like providing healthcare coverage for abortions,” said Attorney General Wilson. “This violates the church’s First Amendment rights, and when the First Amendment and religious liberty are being threatened, we’re going to fight back.”

The Washington law at issue, SB 6219, requires all non-exempt employers in Washington who are covered by the Affordable Care Act to provide their employees with health insurance coverage for abortions.

The brief states, “Cedar Park Assembly of God was once able to provide health insurance coverage to its employees in a manner consistent with its core convictions. Now it cannot, after the passage of Washington’s so-called Reproductive Parity Act. That’s because the Parity Act mandates that Cedar Park’s health plan provide coverage to permit the abortion of a pregnancy.”

The attorneys general continue, “[This church], like other religious institutions, enjoys First Amendment protections that grant the church autonomy with respect to internal management decisions that are essential to the institution’s central mission. The Parity Act violates Cedar Park’s religious autonomy. Yet Cedar Park’s protestations to that effect were barely acknowledged by the district court. And its argument wasn’t even considered or addressed by a panel of this Court.”

This issue was previously heard before a District Court. The District Court upheld the unconstitutional Washington state law and ruled against religious liberty. The church appealed to a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit. That panel ruled 2-1 that the church didn’t have standing to sue. Now, the church is asking a larger panel of eleven judges in the 9^th Circuit to rule on its lawsuit.

Led by South Carolina Attorney General Wilson, this brief was also supported by the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.

You can read the brief here.