The federal courts have temporarily placed a stop order on the mandates from Presiden Joe Biden to force both healthcare providers and religious employers to fund and provide transgender surgeries, procedures, and counseling that goes against their religious beliefs.
District Judge Daniel M. Traynor was the official which granted the request from the Christian Employers Alliance (CEA) for a preliminary injunction for the court order from Monday, going alongside the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Health and Human Services from trying to interpret or enforce the law against the CEA “in a manner that would require its present or future members to provide insurance coverage for gender transition services.”
“No government agency ought to be in the business of evaluating the sincerity of another’s religious beliefs,” read the order from the court.
“HHS Guidance encourages a parent to file a complaint if a medical provider refuses to gender transition their child, of any age, including an infant,” continued the court order. “The thought that a newborn child could be surgically altered to change gender is the result of the Biden HHS Notification and HHS Guidance that brands a medical professional’s refusal to do so as discrimination.”
“Indeed, it states, “the HHS Guidance specifically invites the public to file complaints for acting in a manner the Alliance says is consistent with their sincerely held religious beliefs. The Alliance must either violate its sincerely held beliefs or face monetary losses, fines, and even civil liabilities. The Plaintiffs and their members face a very real irreparable harm if they are either forced to comply or if they refuse to comply.”
As part of a lawsuit that was filed on for the CEA, the Alliance Defending Freedom’s attorneys requested that the court allow the preliminary injunction.
“All employers and healthcare providers, including those in the Christian Employers Alliance, have the constitutional right to conduct their business and render treatment in a manner consistent with their deeply held religious beliefs,” stated ADF Legal Counsel Jacob Reed in a release.
“The employers we represent believe that God purposefully created humans as either male or female, 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 biological sex,” continued Reed, who was the one to argue on behalf of the CEA in front of the courts. “The court was on firm ground to halt enforcement of these unlawful mandates that disrespect people of faith.”
The lawsuit from the ADF puts an accusation on the EEOC of misinterpreting the law by forcing religious employers to both provide health insurance coverage and then pay for the actual transgender sex-change procedures and surgeries, claimed the ADF in a release.
It also brings up a dispute about the HHS policy that redefines the word “sex” in regards to the healthcare anti-discrimination laws to include “gender identity” and “Sexual orientation” which will end up forcing religious providers that are getting any sort of federal funding to “facilitate surgeries and procedures that conflict with their deeply held beliefs,” stated the ADF.
That particular policy forced a reversal of a June 2020 rule that was set in place by former President Donald Trump stating that “sex” is “determined by biology” and making it clear that sex discrimination in the Context of health care and coverage does not also extend to abortion.
“Beyond the religious implications, the Biden HHS Notification and resulting HHS Guidance frustrate the proper care of gender dysphoria, where even among adults who experience the condition, a diagnosis occurs following the considered involvement of medical professionals,” added the courts. “By branding the consideration as ‘discrimination,’ the HHS prohibits the medical profession from evaluating what is best for the patient in what is certainly a complex mental health question.”
Shannon Royce, the president of CEA, claimed in a statement that Biden’s policies and mandates are “crippling for the countless Christian-owned and operated businesses seeking to care well for their employees without the fear of punishing fines, burdensome litigation costs, the loss of federal funds, and even criminal penalties.”“As stewards of the health and safety of our valued employees, it is unconscionable and unconstitutional to be mandated to provide, pay for, or promote services and procedures that directly contradict our deeply held religious beliefs,” concluded Royce. “We are pleased that we can continue to act consistent with those beliefs while our lawsuit proceeds and look forward to ultimately prevailing with our case.”