[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 43 (Thursday, March 17, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H1453-H1457]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND THE LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR CASE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Curbelo of Florida). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Pennsylvania
(Mr. Rothfus) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the
majority leader.
General Leave
Mr. ROTHFUS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous materials on the topic of this Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Pennsylvania?
There was no objection.
Mr. ROTHFUS. Mr. Speaker, next week, the Supreme Court will hear the
most important religious freedom case in decades. It is Zubik v.
Burwell. The purpose of this Special Order is to talk a little bit
about religious freedom and what is at stake here.
Before I begin, I yield to my colleague, the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Smith), who has long been a champion of human rights across
the globe and understands the importance of religious freedom and is
also the chair of our Pro-Life Caucus.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I want to thank my good friend and
colleague, Keith Rothfus, for his tremendous leadership on protecting
the weakest and the most vulnerable among us, including the unborn and
their mothers who are at risk of violence perpetrated by abortion, and
for his dedication to protecting conscience rights, again, the subject
of today's Special Order.
Next week, the Court will hear oral argument on a landmark case for
religious liberty. The impact of the Court's ruling in this case cannot
be overstated, but the question before the Court is really quite
simple: Can the government coerce the Little Sisters of the Poor and
other people of faith to violate their conscience?
The Obama administration is telling these religious sisters, women
who have given their life in service to God by taking care of the
elderly poor, that their conscience is irrelevant and that they must
follow the Federal Government's conscience rather than their own.
This abuse of government power is absolutely antithetical to the
American principle of freedom of religion and the First Amendment.
Unless reversed, Obama's attack on conscience rights means that
government can impose discrimination against Americans who seek to live
according to their faith.
The Little Sisters have 30 homes for the elderly across the United
States. Each Little Sister takes a vow of obedience to God and of
hospitality ``to care for the aged as if they were Christ Himself,''
and they wear religious habits as a sign to others of God's presence in
the world. Yet the Obama administration is dictating to the Little
Sisters and others about how they should interpret their own religious
beliefs. That, in a word, is outrageous.
{time} 1330
The Sisters object to having their healthcare plans used to funnel
drugs and devices that they have a moral objection to, including drugs
that could even destroy a young human life. The sisters say that
facilitating the provision of these items is a violation of their
religious beliefs, and the government is saying: No, it isn't. We know
better than you.
Under the Obama administration's coercive mandate, the Little Sisters
and other religious organizations, like Priests for Life and Geneva
College, are put in the impossible situation of being forced to violate
their religious beliefs or face Obama-imposed crippling fines of $100
per day per employee. In the case of the Little Sisters, that would
mean about $70 million per year.
This obscene penalty is completely unfair, unreasonable, and
unconscionable. The Obama administration is saying: We will punish you;
we will hurt you; we will stop you from serving, unless you provide
health care according to the government's conscience, not your own.
President Obama has no business imposing his morality on people of
faith, but that is exactly what this oppressive mandate does.
Let's make no mistake about it, this mandate is very much Obama's
willful intention. The imposition of this attack on religious freedom
is no accident. It comes straight from the pages of ObamaCare.
In December of 2009, in the run-up to passage of ObamaCare, Senator
Mikulski offered an amendment which provided the authorizing language
for this oppressive mandate; and some, including Senator Casey,
rigorously supported Senator Mikulski's amendment.
Mr. Speaker, when President Obama spoke in 2009 at Notre Dame
University--which, I would say parenthetically, has also filed suit
over the mandate--he spoke about drafting a sensible conscience clause.
Yet today, protection of conscience is another highly visible broken
promise of ObamaCare.
The Supreme Court, Mr. Speaker, has a duty to protect the right of
the Little Sisters of the Poor and others to live according to their
conscience, to ensure that they serve the elderly poor according to
their conscience.
Again, I thank Mr. Rothfus for his leadership.
Mr. ROTHFUS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, again, for his long
leadership on this very important subject of protecting life and
protecting conscience.
He mentioned something about the government deciding what is or is
not a sincerely held belief. It has been long established, Mr. Speaker,
that that is up to the religious adherent-to-be, making that decision,
not the government, not the government to interpose itself and tell an
individual what is a sincerely held belief for the individual. That is
a fundamental freedom that the individual has.
I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa), who also has
concerns about what is at stake.
Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Rothfus.
Also, I appreciate following somebody like the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Smith), who has been a tremendous leader on life and on the
individual liberties that we are guaranteed and that, indeed, were the
cornerstones of the founding of this country and are our religious
rights. So I am glad to be able to support Mr. Rothfus today in this
Special Order about our First Amendment to the Constitution.
We know that next Wednesday, it appears the Supreme Court will hear
oral arguments for the Little Sisters of the Poor in the consolidated
cases of Zubik v. Burwell.
Now, why is it we are even having to do this? How far have we gotten
out of touch, as a Nation and as this oppressive government, that we
have to go to court to assert the religious rights and freedoms of
individual organizations, like Little Sisters and others that are
joining them? It is outrageous to me because, again, a cornerstone of
the founding of this country is religious rights.
The Little Sisters of the Poor is a tremendous faith-based
organization consisting of Catholic nuns who serve the elderly in over
30 countries around the world, giving from their hearts to help people
in a way they see fit in their views and their religion with God.
My scheduler, Caitlin, hosts a weekly movie night at the Little
Sisters D.C. home, where she and many others can attest to the
incredible work that is done by these nuns.
The HHS mandate under ObamaCare is now forcing religious
organizations, like the Little Sisters, to provide health care plans,
contraceptives, drugs, and things that they find that are against their
belief system, that violate their deeply held belief system system; yet
the club of ObamaCare and this Federal Government, hitting them over
the head saying ``you have to provide this,'' goes against our founding
principles, and I think the whole country should be outraged by this,
merely so that a few can have something provided to them for free by an
organization that shouldn't have to be doing so.
[[Page H1454]]
Indeed, John Adams once stated: ``Nothing is more dreaded than the
national government meddling with religion.'' It is a fundamental
liberty critical to a thriving and free society.
We have been blessed in a free country, where we can have our
expression free, not having to adhere to a healthcare mandate or being
forced to bake a cake because of someone else's idea of violating
religious views. It is not government's place to determine what a
person's religion requires or adheres to. Our laws should support and
encourage citizens to worship without fear of reprisal from an
oppressive Federal Government.
I urge my colleagues to stand up for religious organizations, such as
Little Sisters of the Poor, and protect them from this horrific HHS
mandate. And for the Supreme Court, once they decide to weigh in on a
decision, not just to have yet another partisan down-the-line decision
based on politics but, indeed, look into their hearts and look into
their souls to what is right for the founding principles of this Nation
and for people like Little Sisters of the Poor to carry out their God-
given and God-driven agenda to help the people of the world.
Mr. Speaker, I, again, thank Mr. Rothfus for the time and for leading
this Special Order here today.
Mr. ROTHFUS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman LaMalfa for those
observations and to hear about some personal interactions with the
Little Sisters of the Poor and the tremendous work that they do.
We see the Little Sisters of the Poor at my parish about once a year.
They are the most unthreatening individuals you would imagine. They
stand at the door. Some of them are older, so it appears that some of
them may have a little bit of arthritis as they are bent over holding a
basket. And in that basket is a request for donations. They beg. They
beg for people to support their work, which is caring for the most
vulnerable people in our society, the elderly poor.
We haven't gotten here in a vacuum, Mr. Speaker. I think it is very
important for us to take a look at the historical context of religious
freedom and its importance.
Freedom of religion is fundamental in our country. An interesting
note, here in my pocket is the Constitution, and religious freedom is
literally the very first freedom mentioned in our Constitution. It is
in the Bill of Rights.
``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.''
The very first freedom mentioned.
After freedom of religion, there is freedom of speech, freedom of the
press, freedom of the right of the people to peaceably to assemble and
to petition the government for a redress of grievances. But the very
first freedom mentioned is the freedom of religion.
It is interesting because we also talk about rights in our society.
As a footnote, our founding documents--the Declaration of Independence
and the Constitution--talk about rights. But the very first right in
one of our founding documents is the right to life.
In our Declaration, ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness.''
The very first right in our founding documents is the right to life,
and the very first freedom in our founding documents is the freedom of
religion.
Why was it so important? Because there is a long history, Mr.
Speaker, of how religion has been treated throughout the world.
You can go back to the beginnings of the development of the Christian
faith in Europe where we saw this religious sect begin in the Holy Land
and then spread to the capital of the Roman Empire.
It was the Roman emperors who first persecuted the people of faith,
who had the Christian faith. We saw how the emperors forced early
Christians to violate their conscience.
It might not seem as any big deal. All they wanted was for
individuals to burn a little pinch of incense before the Roman gods
because the emperors were concerned about threats to the empire; and
they thought if they could appease the Roman gods, if they had
everybody in the empire doing that little pinch, it was not going to
hurt anybody.
In fact, a lot of Christians went along with it. But there were those
who did not because they could not do that in their conscience. And
what happened to them? They were murdered. They were murdered because
they did not burn that pinch of incense to the Roman gods.
So we look back through history and we understand now that it was
wrong for an all-powerful government to go after people of conscience's
sincerely held beliefs. We all recognize that as abhorrent right now.
But it wasn't just 2,000 years ago or 1,800 years ago, Mr. Speaker,
that we saw these persecutions happening. There was a gentleman in 16th
century England, in 1535. We know him now in history as ``a man for all
seasons.'' Thomas More, an extraordinary intellect, was a poet, lawyer,
father, husband, Speaker of the House of Commons, chancellor.
Mr. More was a man of serious faith and serious conscience. He had a
very good relationship with his friend, King Henry VIII, but King Henry
had a problem. He had made an arrangement to have special permission
granted where he could marry the widow of his brother who had died,
Catherine of Aragon.
But after some time, Henry was concerned that he did not have a male
heir that he wanted to leave the throne to. So he thought he needed
another wife.
We know the course of history: He divorced Catherine, and he married
Anne Boleyn. He wanted the people of England to accept that. He knew
that his dynasty was at stake, so he required people to accept that.
Thomas More, in conscience, could not. He was jailed in the Tower of
London. His books were taken away. He refused to speak on the matter
because he thought that silence would protect him. Then there was
perjury, and he was convicted of treason for opposing the king, and he
was beheaded, all because he was following the dictates of his
conscience.
This was the context, Mr. Speaker, in which Western history was
developing. And as the Renaissance was happening--and More was part of
the English Renaissance--and as we went into the later 16th century and
the 17th century, the development of thinking on religious freedom--and
there were religious wars throughout Europe, and all these minorities
seemed to be getting oppressed by the government--a number of sects
decided that there would be a better place where they could practice
their faith in conscience, and that place was the New World across the
ocean.
{time} 1345
It took a lot of trouble to get to the New World--dangerous new
territory, treacherous crossing, unknowns--but these were people who
were looking to build a city upon a hill. We know the stories of
Pilgrims, who sought religious freedom, and of, later, the Puritans. My
own State, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, was established as a
colony where people of conscience would be protected.
William Penn, in his Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges in 1701,
wrote:
``No people can be truly happy, though under the greatest enjoyments
of civil liberties, if abridged of the freedom of their conscience as
to their religious profession and worship.''
Penn, himself, was jailed for his exercising his conscience, as he
wrote from Newgate Prison in 1670:
``By liberty of conscience, we understand not only a mere liberty of
the mind but the exercise of ourselves in a visible way of worship,
upon our believing it to be indispensably required at our hands, that
if we neglect it for fear or favor of any mortal man, we sin and incur
divine wrath.''
All of these individuals were seeking protection, were seeking a
place where they could exercise their freedom of conscience. Maybe
that, Mr. Speaker, is why the freedom of religion is the first freedom
mentioned in our Bill of Rights.
Our Founders, the Fathers of our country, understood the importance
of religion. President George Washington remarked in his farewell
address that religion and morality are ``the firmest props of the
duties of men and citizens'' and ``the indispensable supports of the
dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity.''
Six years prior to his farewell address, Washington wrote a letter to
the
[[Page H1455]]
Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, which contained,
arguably, one of the most beautiful articulations of religious liberty
in American history:
``The citizens of the United States of America have a right to
applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged
and liberal policy--a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike
liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more
that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class
of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural
rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives
to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only
that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as
good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.''
Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited this country in the 1830s,
explains in ``Democracy in America,'' in looking back at the experience
of the Pilgrims: The Pilgrims came, de Tocqueville said, ``to make an
idea triumph.'' They founded a community, the Pilgrims, and a society
where government could not encroach on their particular religious
practice. This is part of the fabric of our country.
Look at the experience in history. All of the Founders were well-
versed in our history, the Western history--of the importance of
conscience, of religious freedom. Outside observers coming to this
country, like de Tocqueville, were seeing it and understanding the
importance of people of faith to correct the errors that were in our
country. The movement to abolish the abominable practice of slavery
happened because people of faith stood up and recognized the inherent
indignity of the practice and the violation of fundamental human
rights. History in our country is just replete with instances of people
of faith who have stood up to make a difference. One hundred years
after the end of the Civil War, it was people of faith who began the
marches in the South. It was people of faith from the north who went
down to help.
Dr. Martin Luther King was a pastor. He went to seminary in my home
State of Pennsylvania, to the Crozer Theological Seminary. He was
motivated by what was the fabric of his life, which was grounded in
scripture. He asked the big questions.
Just before his death, Dr. King says:
``Conscience asks, `Is it right?' And there comes a time when we must
take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one
must take it because it is right.''
People of faith, people of conscience, we have seen them very active
in the effort to protect all human life since the Supreme Court, in
1973, took what then-Justice White said was an exercise in raw judicial
power and said that certain human beings aren't persons.
We know that we have had more than 50 million abortions since that
time, but it has been people of faith who have been looking for
solutions, who have been seeking to help women in crisis. Whether it
has been Catholic charities, crisis pregnancy centers, people of faith,
they have been standing up and providing assistance to women in crisis,
walking with them, helping to carry the burdens that they are
experiencing--of women who have often been abandoned and isolated, who
don't feel like they have a friend but then who find a hotline where a
voice picks up--somebody who has been motivated by his faith to be
sitting by that phone, wanting to help, asking to help.
Next week, the Supreme Court is going to be taking a look at this
case. Again, it may be the most important religious freedom case the
Court has heard. The Court is going to make the decision: For the
individual who objects to signing a form based on his religious belief,
is that a legitimate exercise of his conscience?
That is not the government's decision, Mr. Speaker. The government
should not be subjectively telling an individual in this country, who
has a fundamental First Amendment right--a first freedom--to exercise
his religion, what is legitimate and what is not. That is what is at
stake here.
It is interesting that my diocese--the diocese in which I live, the
Diocese of Pittsburgh--is the lead plaintiff named in the case, Bishop
Zubik.
Bishop Zubik has written:
``Religious freedom is not secondary freedom; it is the founding
freedom. Religious freedom in this country means that we pledge
allegiance to both God and country, not to God or country.
``We have the right not just to worship, not just to pray privately.
We also have the right to try to have an impact on our society for the
common good. We have our rights to express our beliefs publicly and try
to convince hearts and minds. We not only have a duty but the right to
live out the faith in our ministries of service.
``Religious freedom is not a passive act. Religious freedom is
intentionally action. Religious freedom has to be expressed. Religious
freedom has to be lived. Religious freedom has to be out in the open,
among the people. Freedom of religion can never be confined to merely
the freedom to worship. It defies the Constitution and does a mortal
injustice to society.''
The First Amendment doesn't say ``freedom to worship.'' It says
``freedom of religion.''
For those who are Christians, you can go to Matthew, chapter 25, and
the mandates that we have from Jesus.
Looking at whether in your life you fed the poor, clothed the naked,
gave drink to the thirsty, visited those in prison, when you go up to
the pearly gates, those who have lived in accordance with Matthew 25
may still ask the question: When did I help you? When?
``When you did it to the least of my brothers, you did it to me.''
That is not happening inside the church, Mr. Speaker. That is
happening on the streets. It is happening in hospitals. It is happening
in health clinics. It is happening in food banks. It is happening on
counseling hotlines. These are people of faith who are engaged in
public society, who want to help others. In a spirit of solidarity,
they are standing with those who are suffering, and they are wanting to
help--motivated by their faith.
That is what the Little Sisters of the Poor do. I mentioned how the
Little Sisters come to my parish and beg. They are not a very
threatening bunch, Mr. Speaker. They have homes across the country in
which they are taking care of the elderly. They offer an opportunity
for dignity for the people who have lived long and hard lives. At the
end of their lives, they may not have much to show for it from a
monetary perspective, but they may have lived very rich lives in the
way they were helping in their communities. That is not a condition for
going to stay with the Little Sisters of the Poor. They love
unconditionally and they provide a chance for people in their senior
years to have a little bit of respect and a little bit of dignity.
The Little Sisters of the Poor are up against a leviathan--Goliath--
the all-powerful United States Federal Government at the Department of
Health and Human Services.
It says, ``You will sign this. You, Sister, will sign this.''
``But,'' Sister says in her conscience, ``I can't do that.''
``Sister, it is an opt-out.''
Sister is saying, ``Yes, but if I sign that document, that sets in
chain the provisions of services that violate my conscience. You are
forcing me to take an act to be the cause--the cause of something I
don't believe in.''
``But, Sister, you will. You will do this.''
Think back 2,000 years, 1,800 years. The Empire needs to be protected
from barbarians who are going to be coming across--the Goths, whoever
it is. We have to sacrifice just a pinch--just a pinch--to our Roman
gods to be protected.
Thomas More: King Henry's surrogates go to Thomas in the tower.
``Just sign the document. Just sign the document. It is not going to
hurt. It will bring peace. It will make sure that the king's dynasty
will continue. We are tired of religious wars in Europe, and if the
king doesn't have a male heir, then we are going to have all kinds of
continued wars. There is a very good justification, Sir Thomas, to sign
that document.''
Thomas says, ``I can't. I can't.'' He lost his head.
People of faith in England and in Holland--wherever--knew that if
they got to these shores, they could live in freedom of conscience.
{time} 1400
Now we have the all-powerful government coming in and saying: You
will
[[Page H1456]]
comply; you will sign. Oh, Sister, that is not a violation of your
religious freedom. Trust us.
Really? Really? How is it that the Federal Government could be the
arbiter of what is a sincerely held belief? Doesn't that set the
government up perhaps as an entity itself making religious decisions?
I thought the Federal Government was not supposed to make religious
decisions. If the Federal Government has a bureau of what is a
sincerely held religious belief, that is a pretty serious issue that
the Court needs to take a look at.
I wonder what you would call that bureau? Bureau of legitimate
religious practices? Bureau of legitimate religious beliefs? Bureau of
what we will allow you to believe in this country? Is that what this
is?
It is obvious, Mr. Speaker, that religious freedom is not a priority
here for those who promulgate these regulations.
I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Benishek), who is a
stalwart defender of human life.
Mr. BENISHEK. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Rothfus for setting
up this time so we can draw attention to this case of the Little
Sisters of the Poor and for his eloquent defense of the right to life.
I am here today to also support the Little Sisters of the Poor and
all the faith-based groups in our country that seek to help the poor
and unfortunate among us.
Northern Michigan, where I come from, is home to many of these
organizations, and I am very familiar with the good works that these
groups do in our communities. We need to be doing more to encourage
this type of service and make faith-based organizations even more
important in our country, not put undue problems in their way and make
them do things that they don't believe in.
The undue burden that is being imposed on many of these organizations
by the Federal Government is completely wrong. Thanks to the
President's healthcare law, faith-based organizations are being forced
to participate in a convoluted system that leads to abortion, a
practice that is contrary to their and my deeply held beliefs.
I stand with the Little Sisters of the Poor and many of my
constituents in northern Michigan in the belief that life inside the
womb is just as precious as life outside the womb. Both unborn and born
children have a right to life, and we have a duty to defend this right.
This is a civil right. This is what our country was founded upon. Life
is the first of the freedoms that are enumerated.
My hope is that Americans who believe in the sanctity of life will
keep strong in their efforts to stop the Federal Government's intrusion
into our religious freedom.
I, myself, am frankly amazed that we live in a country that was
founded on the right to life and liberty--and we all have heard the
phrase ``life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness''--and that the
Federal Government is paying for losing a civil right: the right to
life.
I don't know what it is exactly, how this country that is founded on
principles like that could have gotten to this state. It is one of the
reasons I am standing here. I never was involved with politics in my
life until this administration came upon the scene and started
destroying the fabric of our Republic.
I think often, too: How does this happen? How does God allow this to
happen? This time in our lives, in our country, is truly a test of our
faith.
Really, Mr. Speaker, I am here to be sure that all Americans continue
to fight and not lose the hope that our country will solve this problem
and get out of the business of paying for abortions and the tragedy of
abortion over the many years that it has been legal in this country. I
call upon those Americans to continue to work hard, to keep strong in
their efforts, to bring an end to this tragedy that is going on in
America and the overreaching Federal Government that is allowing it to
happen.
I again commend Mr. Rothfus for doing this and really call out to all
Americans to not lose hope that we are going to put a stop to this and
to continue to fight for the lives of the unborn and unfortunate.
I again applaud those faith-based organizations that continue to
fight and go to court over this and that we need to continue to do
this.
I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to speak.
Mr. ROTHFUS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Benishek.
Again, you think about the dignity of the human person and, as he
talked about, the importance of the right to life, just a fundamental
right.
Again, as I mentioned earlier, the first right in our founding
documents, beginning with the first freedom being the freedom of
religion.
It is amazing to me how the freedom of religion in this country has
informed the world and what took root in this country 240 years ago,
which is the notion that we were not going to have an established
church and that we were going to allow people to freely exercise their
faith and how that has led to this proliferation in our country of the
practice of faith. And comparing what is happening in the United States
versus other countries, particularly in Europe where there was an
established church, we know that more people go to church in this
country than in Europe.
It was the American experience, I think, that has really informed
others, including the Catholic church, of which I am a member. I hark
back to what President Washington had written to the Hebrew
congregation:
``The citizens of the United States of America have a right to
applaud themselves for having given mankind examples of an enlarged and
liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess, alike,
liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.''
It is amazing to look at that letter and then to reflect how the
Catholic church came together under, now, Pope Saint John XXIII with
the Second Vatican Council, which the whole idea was to open up the
church and to engage modernity and to see what was out there that might
inform how people are ordering their lives.
The Second Vatican Council issued a number of remarkable documents,
including a declaration on religious freedom, the Dignitatis Humanae.
It states:
``The exercise of religion, of its very nature, consists before all
else in those internal, voluntary and free acts whereby man sets the
course of his life directly toward God. No merely human power can
either command or prohibit acts of this kind.''
The Second Vatican Council, they had to recognize how religious
freedom developed in this country because there was no coercion.
Conversely, there is the long history going back hundreds of years,
centuries, back to the Roman martyrs where the emperor was forcing
people to act against their conscience, King Henry VIII.
Here we have, today, an all-powerful Federal Government sitting in
judgment on what somebody's sincerely held belief is. The Court needs
to protect this fundamental freedom. The Court needs to protect
conscience. This country is a better place because of it.
It is interesting because, as the Affordable Care Act has been
implemented, the purported compelling interests that the government
uses about providing access to health care, they have set up a regime,
a scheme where not every single plan is being required to provide the
services that the Little Sisters of the Poor find objectionable or that
the Diocese of Pittsburgh would find objectionable or Geneva College, a
Christian college in my district, would find objectionable, because
they grandfathered some plans. They grandfathered plans that cover
millions of people.
So I guess it is a compelling interest when they are going after a
little religious charity, but it is not a compelling interest if they
are going against a big corporation that might have a grandfathered
plan.
Oh, it is just signing a little paper, Sister.
No, it is not; it is coercion.
If the Little Sisters of the Poor are providing health insurance to
their employees without the mandated services that include abortion-
causing drugs, if they provide a health plan that covers cancer, covers
maternity benefits, covers a broken bone at the emergency room, but
doesn't cover those services they find objectionable, they will be
fined $36,500 a year for one person. All told, when you add it all up,
it is $70
[[Page H1457]]
million. But if they provide no plan--no plan at all--it is $2,000 per
employee. If that doesn't send a message of coercion, I don't know what
does.
I urge the Court to recognize the right of conscience and to be
tolerant of that. This country is a wonderful country. ``Tolerance'' is
one of the words that we have inscribed down here on the rostrum of the
House of Representatives--``tolerance.''
It is a two-way street, Mr. Speaker, and I would urge the folks at
the Department of Health and Human Services to give a better
appreciation for tolerance.
This country just has a long history of protecting religious freedom
from the very beginning through the movement to abolish slavery,
through the movement to ask for the cashing of the promissory note that
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King talked about, to the pro-life movement,
to the charities, the hospitals, the clinics, the schools, and the food
banks that have all been run by religious organizations. It is about
these organizations wanting to take care of people.
Although not a party to the case, I think of a story involving the
Missionaries of Charity, that order founded by blessed Teresa of
Calcutta, who will be canonized a Catholic saint this September by Pope
Francis, who spoke here in this Chamber.
Mother Teresa's nuns have established a number of homes around the
world. We know that they had a home for the elderly in Yemen, and some
of those residents were murdered just weeks ago by radical jihadists.
Four of the sisters were murdered as well.
Mother Teresa has established homes in our country, and I remember
hearing a story about a home in San Francisco in either the late 1980s
or early 1990s. It was a home that was caring for people with AIDS.
There was a story of one gentleman who was going to die, and he needed
a place to stay.
{time} 1415
The Missionaries of Charity took him in, and they nursed him back to
health. He went back out and continued his life, but he got sick again
and came back again. The sisters welcomed him back.
As he neared the end of his life, he was scared until Mother Teresa
picked him up in her arms. For once in his life, he found unconditional
love and peace because a person of faith whom we all recognize did
great things because of faith, that person found peace.
Millions of people in this country have found peace because of the
free exercise of religion. Let's not crush that. Let's protect these
fundamental freedoms of religious freedom, the tremendous good that is
being done. We should not make religious organizations adjuncts of the
all-powerful Federal Government: You can practice your charity as long
as you do it the way we want you to. We lose something there, Mr.
Speaker.
How much time do I have remaining, Mr. Speaker?
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Babin). The gentleman from Pennsylvania
has 11 minutes remaining.
Mr. ROTHFUS. Mr. Speaker, I am going to yield the balance of my time
to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), who has long been an
advocate for the types of freedoms I have been talking about, religious
freedom, and the first right that we have been talking about, the right
to life.
I yield to Mr. Gohmert.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I am so grateful to the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus), my friend. I mean, just within days of Mr.
Rothfus arriving here at the Capitol as a United States Congressman, we
were together, abiding together, standing together, and it has been my
great honor to do so. I have come to know his heart. He is a man of
intellect, a man of character.
Mr. ROTHFUS. So the gentleman from Texas will control the time, I
yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, today I am proud to join my colleagues in
support of fundamental American values, among which are commitments to
religious freedom, human rights, and religious expression.
As a Catholic, my faith plays a significant role in every aspect of
my life and fosters a respect for the religious rights and freedoms of
others.
Next week, the Supreme Court will hear from our religious non-profit
organizations, including the Little Sisters of the Poor, which have
challenged the HHS mandate and its impact on their religious rights and
freedoms.
I believe in the importance of patient-centered health care for
women, and I also want to ensure that conscience rights and religious
liberties are protected.
At its core, this case is about the state forcing religious
organizations to provide for services that violate their beliefs.
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