A Christian business group and its members do not have to offer health insurance coverage to employees for gender transition treatments, a North Dakota federal judge ruled Monday.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor in Bismarck ruled that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cannot make the Christian Employers Alliance (CEA) comply with rules requiring that coverage.
The ruling, which grants summary judgment to the CEA on key issues in the case, comes nearly two years after Traynor temporarily shielded the group against the rules while he heard the case.
“The court was on firm ground to stop the administration from enforcing these unlawful mandates that disrespect people of faith,” Matt Bowman of the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, a lawyer for the CEA, said in a statement.
The EEOC and HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The federal Affordable Care Act prohibits health insurance plans from engaging in discrimination, including sex bias. The U.S. Supreme Court in the 2020 case Bostock v. Clayton County ruled that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is a form of unlawful sex discrimination.
The EEOC and HHS in 2021 said they interpreted the ACA as requiring employer health insurance plans to cover surgeries and other procedures related to gender transitions.
The Washington-based CEA then sued the agencies, claiming their reading of the law would violate religious employers’ rights under the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The group’s bylaws state that “male and female are immutable realities defined by biological sex” and “gender reassignment is contrary to Christian Values.”
In his initial order barring enforcement of the rules, Traynor agreed that they would infringe on CEA members’ beliefs.
He reiterated that finding on Monday, finding that requiring the businesses to cover the treatments “substantially burdens a sincere religious exercise or belief.”
He said that the government had not shown that it could not protect transgender employees’ rights another way, for example by providing them tax credits or subsidies.
The case is Christian Employers Alliance v. United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota, No. 1:21-cv-00195.
For the CEA: Matt Bowman, Julie Marie Blake and Jacob Reed of Alliance Defending Freedom
For the EEOC and HHS: Jeremy Newman of the U.S. Department of Justice
