Grandstander. (Tami Chappell/Reuters)
Rick Warren, freaking out over the new birth control policy:
I'd go to jail rather than cave in to a govement mandate that violates what God commands us to do. Would you? Acts 5:29
— @RickWarren via web
He's so principled!
Except if he's really so principled, and if he's really so resistant to this policy, why hasn't he actually opposed it and sent himself to jail yet?
You see, Warren's ministry is located in Lake Forest, California (Orange County). And a birth control mandate has been law in California for a long time. Since 1999, actually.
Cal. Insurance Code § 10123.196 and Cal. Health & Safety Code § 1367.25 (1999) require certain health insurance policies that already cover prescription drugs to provide coverage for prescription contraceptive methods approved by the FDA. Religious employers can request health insurance plans without coverage of approved contraceptive methods that are contrary to the employer’s religious tenants. (AB 39)
Now, California allows churches to opt out, but so does the federal one. In fact, the federal law
was modeled after the exemption offered by California and other states.
More than half the states have similar "contraceptive equity" laws on the books, many with religious exceptions similar or identical to the one included in the administration's regulation.
That's no accident. "The HHS rule was modeled on the exceptions in several state laws, including California, New York and Oregon," says Lipton-Lubet of the ACLU.
The Catholic Church challenged the California law and failed with a 6-1 drubbing at the California Supreme Court.
So given that Warren is willing to go to jail to fight this law, why hasn't he already gone to jail to fight the California one? He's only had 13 years to do so.
So let's have a little fun: sign the petition asking Rick Warren to report to jail.
