A federal judge in North Dakota ruled on Monday that Christian firms cannot be forced to provide health insurance coverage for gender transition therapies to their employees!
U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor in Bismark issued a decision on Monday, stating that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services have violated the Christian Employers Alliance’s beliefs by attempting to require all employers to cover gender transition treatments for their employees.
Following the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court judgment in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that sexual orientation and gender identity are covered in workplace anti-discrimination rights, HHS and the EEOC modified their interpretation of an Obamacare component that prohibits sex discrimination.
The CEA initially sued the EEOC and HHS in October 2021, arguing that the agencies were misinterpreting and erroneously applying the legislation to force religious employers to pay for transgender operations that contradicted their values. The complaint also questioned HHS’s definition of “sex” to encompass “gender identity.”
The court determined that hefty monetary penalties for failing to comply with the Biden administration’s reading of the statute “substantially burdened [CEA] for refusing to violate its beliefs.”
“CEA must either comply with the EEOC and HHS mandates by violating their sincerely held religious beliefs or else face harsh consequences like paying fines and facing civil liability,” the judge stated in his order. ” [But religious freedom cannot be encumbered on a case-by-case basis.”
In May 2022, Traynor granted a preliminary injunction order in favor of CEA, temporarily blocking the execution of HHS and EEOC’s nondiscrimination policy covering transgender surgeries, treatments, counseling, and therapy.
Matt Bowman, senior counsel for the conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented CEA, said in a press statement that Traynor’s decision on Monday was “on firm ground to stop the administration from enforcing these unlawful mandates that disrespect people of faith.”
“The employers we represent believe that God purposefully created humans as either male or female,” he added, “and so it would violate their religious beliefs to pay for or perform life-altering medical procedures or surgeries that seek to change one’s sex.”
CEA President Shannon Royce said in a press statement that her organization is “overjoyed” that employers no longer “have to choose between the biblically based employee benefits and quality healthcare they provide and the threat of federal enforcement and massive costs for practicing their faith.”
